Which would be the better way to go for San Pedro? There's a few teks out there and I'm not sure which will be best. Will Marsofold's tek work well for cacti and just swap naptha for xylene?

I suggest you do what I am plan to do, which is splitting up your cactus a few ways and trying different teks to see which one gives you the best results.

Why do that if someone else has already done the ground work? I thought this forum was for sharing information and to find the best ways to do things. If I had already tried a few different ways I'd be more than happy to share it with everyone else.

Whatever... No one can tell you what is the best method for you. They are all viable and give results, and that's why they are posted for others to try. What might be best for some might not be the best for another, and as far as I know (which is hardly anything) there isn't an end all be all mescaline extraction which trumps the rest. Person A might get better results with Tek C and person C may get better results with Tek B and so forth. It's up to you to experiment with different methods, and see which method is most convenient, and that gives you the results that you are after. Do you want to do an A/B or STB that's up to you, do you want acetate or HCl or some other salt, that is also up to you. The extraction will be a learning experience and there's no reason not to try and get to the finish line in more than one way.

I don't think I am wrong here, and if someone knows what the end all be all tek out there might be, please quit holding out and let us know... I guess it would be valuable if people posted the tek they used and yields they accomplished, but there are many variables to those results and they wouldn't exactly prove anything.

Edit: I should try to be more helpful. It appears from my research on this site that most people opt for the 69Rons D limo tek.

If 2 people are doing exactly the same tek they will get similar results so I don't see the point in trying something someone else has already discovered. If Jim, John and Sam have all tried A/B and B/A extractions and found B/A is better then I'll take their word for it. Why go and try every tek just for the hell of it?

Like I said I'm after a tek with the highest yield. I just want to know what will be better out of a A/B or B/A extraction and for what reason? I'm sure there are a few people out there who know the answer.

No one can say what the tek with the highest yield is because very few people do enough experiments with the same source plant material to generate statistics to say what method works the best the most times. Plus everyone's technique differs.

I understand that there's no precise 100% correct answer. Have you done a mescaline extraction burnt? If so what tek did you use?

I'm sure if I asked about DMT I would get a straight forward answer. Just peoples opinions would be fine. I might give 69Rons D-Limonene tek a go since there's been a fair few positive things said about it. Thanks landfishd for pointing that tek out.

Naphtha won't work so you can opt this option out.

Xylene, toluene, limonene, DCM and chloroform are your NP solvent options for mescaline.


There's no a "best tek", the best tek is the one that works better for you. Some people like SWIM (and almost definitely burnt) are anti-tek, they just go whicever route sounds OK at the moment. For cactus, there's also no "higher yielding tek" because cacti are not as consistent in their actives' content as MHRB and can vary from 0.01% up to 2-3%. One may use a good tek on cactus material and get poor yield because the cactus was bad, he then may try another cactus batch with another good tek and get amazing yields. And unfortunately people don't do split tests with cactus, I don't know why. Maybe because cactus is far more expensive than MHRB (in terms of dose per money) and people don't want to fool around much lest they fuck up.

But re to your question, in all cactus teks people report both great and bad yields. Go for the one for which you can easily source materials and that is easy to perform. Foor instance, 69ron's limo tek for SWIM is bad, didn't give him great results and he hated messign around with a freaking cactus dough.

I do.
A/B is the way to go because you can defat it and with cactus you need all the help you can get when it comes to extraneous plant matter. Especially if you're using fresh material.
And do an NP wash.
Sulfuric seems to be the best acid.

Though I can't give you a definitive, I can tell you what's best for me and why.

STB's involve powdering the cactus first which when added to water makes a goo which I don't like working with.

I use whole chunks of cactus simmered in water acidified with citric acid and I repeat these boils until the cactus has no flavour. I then collect and reduce the boils to give a more workable amount of liquid, then basify. Another thing I don't like about an STB is that once NaOH has been added, boiling is out of the question, so you can't reduce + a lot of water is needed which means more solvent pulls. Sure I could use Ron's tek, but I don't like that because it requires large solvent pull and it's just plain messy

I then pull with either xylene or limonene. All teks will yield the same if you are sure to keep pulling until nothing comes out. If you reduce the tea before basifying you will need to do less pulls. However because the concerntration of fats will be much higher ( I don't bother defatting as it uses too much solvent), you will get a more impure product. I'm quite happy to do a few cleanups, so I'd rather get the mass aqueous phase out of the way as quick as possible which is why I reduce my teas almost down to a syrup, but not quite.

I'm pretty sure from this point on all teks have the same finishing points, salting/gasing, evapping, cleaning, repeat if necassary. Sulfuric acid's probably the best to use as it's easier to clean completely, hcl's ok as you can do an easy rough clean so you get more or less a true alkaloid weight, though you can't crystalise it as effiecently as you can sulfuric which can be precipped out of acetone and water with minimal loss.

Loadsa good info over at the nook. They're way more cactus crazy over there.

the on-the-fly tek, ftw.

do a pKa calc., microspecies distribution of mescaline.
(if u don't know what that is, get to searchin'

or you can find it on chemicalize.

I wouldn't do any sort of STB with cacti. Especially not making a paste with calcium carbonate or whatever else. It sounds like a nice way to make a huge mess.

A/B with toluene or xylene but preferably chloroform as non polar solvent. High pH when basifying (~13).

Look up waylit jim or ecstazas tek. IME peruvian torch contains higher concentrations of mescaline and san pedro contains higher concentrations of non mesc alkaloids. I would buy some motts applesauce jars xylene lye muriatic acid mason pint jars and a good heat resistant turkey baster so it doesn't melt (from xylene) use a fume hood or respirator when pulling the xylene. Also put 1 gram of lye to 1 gram of and 15 ml water for each gram of lye add the lye to the water first slowly and to room temp water you can usually fit 70 g of lye and 70 of cacti. After adding the cacti let sit for and hour shaking ocassionally then add your xylene roll jar around for 15 min let sit for a few hours pull xylene and add it to water that has been treated with muriatic acid in the pint mason jar shake a few times to salt put in freezer make sure lid is tight cuz you don't want xylene fumes in your food and once the water layer freezes siphon the xylene reuse it and evap the water in a glass dish scrape and enjoy.

Why do you prefer chloroform? How about DCM?

Awesome, finally some helpful replies.

Noman what tek do you use?

Should I use;
- sulfuric acid instead of white vinegar for the acid wash?
- hydrated lime instead of sodium hydroxide to basify?
- fresh cacti or dried cacti?

Is it better to de-fat after the acid bath or pull everything with the xylene and then acidify and de-fat?


What tek do you use then? I just want to know what is the best for certain people and everyone has their own reasons. It's not a competition, I just want a collection of knowledge to help me learn.

I dont use any specific published one.
I cook dried cactus powder in several changes of vinegar water, strain, reduce, filter, defat, basify with lye, extract with toluene, NP wash, salt with pH4 sulfuric acid, wash with cold acetone.

Chloroform worked way better then toluene or xylene to exhaust the basic solution of M. Never compared DCM to chloroform although I'd image its somewhat similar. They often are.

Wouldn't recommend working with either solvent unless appropriate ventilation is available.

It's really not very messy as the entire mass of basified cactus goo stays in the extraction container (plus it's cool to see it take up the solvent).

Also, with drytek mescaline extraction, there's no need to worry about defatting

^^I'm sure it works. Personal preference

Indeed, just thought I'd chime in with some of my observations as this thread seems to be developing into a nice little comparison of methods.