In this topic I will describe my first attempt to extract mescaline from a 1.5kg cactus that supposed to be a Trichocereus Pachanoi. I bought a couple of them from a guy which had to sell them because his wife told him he would never eat them anyways and they didn't fit in the interior to her likings.

The extraction method which I'm going to use is 69Ron's Tek.

Last month I gathered all the stuff needed:

- Cactus
- 5L Orange Terpene >90% D-Limonene
- Biologic nature vinegar
- Calcium hydroxide (could not find foodgrade so I went to a aquarium store and bought it there).
- Big glass jar
- 1 litre French coffee press (all stainless steel because plastics could potentially dissolve in d-limonene)
- 1000ml seperatory funnel (bought second hand from a chemistry student)
- Stainless steel funnel.




The following picture shows the cactus before butchering (maybe someone can verify wether this is a pachanoi or not)



Then I despined the cactus and my girl peeled off the skin. This process was quite time consuming. Spending about an hour.



Even the cat shows interest in this magical plant

I was surprised about the core/flesh ratio. The core seemed quite thin compared to the surrounding light green flesh.
I sliced it in small pieces and now it is drying in a recirculation oven at 40 degrees celcius (I could only choose 40 or 100 c and 100 c seems to risky).

To be continued tomorrow if the pieces are dry already.

Needles are pretty long, looks like a Torch to me....mmmm good. Is the green flesh bitter at all?
cker

It tastes quite bitter. The guy called them San Pedro which I thougt to be trichocereus pachanoi.

Does anyone know if their are look-a-likes which could be toxic in a non-pleasant way?

It looks like a trichocerous and San Pedro is in that family...but...it looks like a Periuvian Torch (trichocerous peruvianus) to me rather than a San Pedro (trichocerous pachanoi). It is surely a nice specimen. Take a look at these photos of both torch and pedro:

http://www.google.com/im...amp;biw=1260&bih=576

If you're worried at all, google 'toxic cacti' and you'll see you don't have to be concerned about a cactus that looks like yours.

....cker

That is a nice plant! If you have any interest in gardening you could let it grow back from the stump... I think its too late but if you leave about 6 inches of stump it will grow back surprisingly fast. Anyone who ingests a plant does so at their own risk, but I don't think you need to be worried about misidentification.

San pedro is a name used for many different kinds of cactus in south america that serve the same purpose, at least according the online pseudo shamanistic entheogen sources. Also, there are even some good scientific arguments that T. pachanoi, peruvianus, macrogonus, and bridgessi are actually all varieties of the same species, since they can interbreed freely and are often indistinguishable depending on growing conditions.

I agree with that man , I've done a lot of research , and seen sites that conglomerate them into one category i've seen the same picture used on different sites for different species , and when i have seen good ,individual identification, there is so much variation within one species that I've just started asking myself if it looks like it could be active .
Enjoy that cactus man

Thanks for the comments.

It has been drying overnight but still it seems quite wet. I think about 30% of the moisture is gone now. I looked up mescalines melting point which turns out to be 181 C. This means I could dry in the oven at 100 C right?

The TEK descibes that 300ml of water should be added along with the calcium hydroxide in the first step. If the cactus consists of 75 % moist. Then now with 30 % moisture is gone, couldn't it be possible to blend the cactus and add the calcium hydroxide so using its own leftover moist as a replacement for the 300ml needed in the tek? Or is it best to first completely dry it.

In the oven the pieces start to get a little brown altough the temperature have not exceeded 40 C. Is this something to worry about?

Hey, dat is een lekker jointje in die askbak, Poekus! Mooi katje ook!

I highly recommend the HCL route once you get to the salting phase. The vinegar acetate tek gets a little sticky for my liking but you could try both. I started out with dried torch chips so I don't have much to add in this first phase but it looks like you're on the right track and have all the gear.

Aye, that does look a lot like a torch. I get great yields from torch using Hcl which obviously isn't "food grade" but much easier to work with and it never did me any notable harm.

Hi Defunkt and soulfood. I try it first with the vinegar. I read about the HCL route a little and I'm not really concerned about the non food grade but I can't find a clear post about how to dilute the HCL (and so I think it;s not responsible yet to go this route). I'll try to find more specific info on it.

The drying process takes ages at 40 C. Patience is the key here I guess. It's fun to see the pieces turn a little light brownish with twinkling in it ..... could those be the alkaloids (it's not moisture)?

When they are totally dry I will post a picture of those twinkling pieces and will take a photo of each extraction step.

I also agree with the hcl comments... it is much easier to deal with. But, some people have success with vinegar, so by all means do that if it feels right. If you don't want to make a big deal out of hcl titration, you can just add 1 drop 30% hcl to 100 ml water or so, and keep salting that way until nothing interesting shows up after evapping. Also, I think the french press is unnecessary. If you have trouble getting the limo out of the paste just mix in some sodium carbonate, and the limo will pour off easily.

It all depends what you're looking for. If you want a fuller alkaloid experience than acetate is a good route. Maybe 300-500mg is a good full-on dose. However, if you're looking to get a clean off-white pure mescaline result by washing with MEK or acetone than you have to go the HCL route since it will allow you to get a much cleaner end product.

I cheated with the acetate saltings and evaporated the vinegar in the oven at 200 degrees which probably 'caramelized' it even more and left a sticky brown mess so I'm interested seeing your results at ca. 110 degrees. How do you like the vinegar fumes so far?

Ouro's sodium carbonate suggestion is good one. It broke up a recent extraction like magic and released all the d-limo.

Will probably try the HCL as well and the raw material itself. Thanks Ouro for the indication on the dilution. Do you have any idea how many saltings per pull are necessary in that dilution?

I will evap the vinegar at 40 Celcius and let you know the results. I regularly clean my bathroom with vinegar (it's amazing how easy you get the glass clear) so I'm kind of used to the smell. Although having this smell in an open kitchen isn't probably easy accepted by my girlfriend...

Small update. The pieces have dried out. The fresh weight without core was about 900 grams. After drying the weight is 65 grams. This is quite unexpected as in various sources on the net is written about 10-25%.

The pieces look nice though. They glister under light. And gradually colored nicely brown with very dark green in the drying process. The temperature never exceeded 40C.




I should adjusting the needed limo and caoh -35%. I hope that the chips are quite potent to at least gain a yield for a small intro and medium-high trip.

Poekus, you could consider eating 40-50 grams of the ground chips for a full-on powerful experience. My most powerful experience so far has been on powdered torch although the extraction processes are fun to learn and it cuts down some of the side effects that you get by eating this stuff whole. You will purge when eating the cactus whole with a strong body load and it's hard to get down the hatch. Once you get through the initial body load phase and subsequent purge the experience opens up beautifully. There's nothing like it!

However, if you go to acetate route on the 65 grams you may yield a gram or so of mescaline acetate and other alkaloids. Order another batch of torch chips online to try different extractions.

I already ordered some chips online as well. But they have to come from Peru so I'll have to wait a couple of weeks I guess.

Can anyone please confirm wether I should adjust the limo, caoh and water -35% or can I just use the measurements as stated in 69Ron's TEK?

Definitely adjust the ratios for all the steps. If you add too much water the mix will be too wet. If you add too much caoh, your mix will turn into a plastic blob which will hold all your limo. Just adjust everything by a third and you should be all set.

Ik hou van Holland + joint = a good combi.

Sorry for being off topic, just had to say it

Oranje boven!

Beste land ter wereld! I'm a crazy Dutch bastard too but living in the US! I miss Den Haag...

Hi Psyfox and defunkt, i'm not that patriottic but I have to admit I love living in the Netherlands for it's open minded society .

The first two pulls and saltings are finished and I think it was succefull.

First the 56 grams of cactus where grounded in a coffeegrinder. This didn't worked out too well because the grinder got jammed all the time and got hot.

The now very small (some pieces larger pieces because I couldn't get them smaller) where mixed (20 mins) with 12 grams og CAOH and 150 ml of tap water.




Then the 150 ml of d-limo was added and again stirred for 1 hour. Then mix sitted overnight. Later the mix was poured into the coffee press.



Then the limo was poured off through a coffeefilter into the seperatory funnel and 12ml of vinegar was added and shaken carefully for over 10 minutes.

The dreaded emulsion layer was developping



I got rid of this by holding a lighter around the vinegar layer for a minute or so.



Then the vinegar was tapped off and new 12ml vinegar was added, mixed and tapped for three more times.

After that the second pull (which was left with the cactus CAOH mix for another night) was salted and tapped off.

In total 4 saltings per pull were performed. I didn't add new CaOH to the cactus/watermix after the first mix because I din't know for sure if you should add this CaOh for each pull.

After all the vinegar was gathered it was evaporated at 40C in the oven in a couple of hours.
The result was the all too familiar light brown waxy substance . I don't know the yield yet because a third pull is waiting to be salted. This time I took the two left over limo pulls which was now around 200ml and added another 100ml fresh limo to sit with the cactusmix for a night. I will salt this with 25 ml of vinegar for 4 more times.




Thanks everyone involved with this Tek and especially Ron who made this possible. Also I highly appreciated the comments in this thread.