Considering SWIM payed no attention to chemistry in high school, he's been reluctant to try other teks of extraction. So SWIM's very grateful to the pioneers that are experimenting with this tek, he wishes them much luck in their efforts and hopes that they all gain significant yields of lovely spice.

Oh, high school chemistry... heh-heh, SWIM didn't pay attention either. Barely passed University Chem 1, and dropped out of Chem 2. I find it easier to learn on my own, and biochemical concepts are much easier to understand than quantum shells and whatnot. I know a surprising amount of chemistry now from personal exploration. SWIM doesn't like how the global academic system is set up (and yet he's still cranking away at it). But that's a topic for another day.

So SWIM is now doing a 100g tea extraction from MHRB. He will update as he gets more information. He is measuring all fluid volumes, all masses, and all time-periods between steps for optimal data-points.

-- Wanderer

So I had a little bit to drink to keep the night running smoothly, and so is the tea process. If this method proves reliable and efficient, SWIM thinks he will write up a sort of formal outline of the process (despite its simplicity) as a PDF so that it can be easily distributed to those who seek less complex (and potentially dangerous) extraction methods. Like astralpixels, there are many who are daunted by the use of volatile, flammable, or toxic chemicals in the conventional extraction methods, and are thus excluded from access to such a profound transformational tool, with the exception of external sources and suppliers (many of which are dubious). Despite the "new age" image it may procure, I firmly believe the human race is in dire need of an ideological and, to an extent, spiritual (not religious) awakening, lest we continue down the self-destructive path towards mutual annihilation. One needn't look far beyond the mass-media to see the world is in a precarious state. Perhaps an easier extraction method will aid in tipping the proverbial scales towards the "light" side of the collective social paradigm.

All food for thought!

-- Wanderer

I completely agree with you Wanderer. These new teks are the way forward for many of us. I didn't even take chemistry in high school (it's not mandatory in Canada) so I had no knowledge whatsoever on the subject. I am completely self-taught. These older teks that involved warming naphtha seemed pretty dangerous to me. Even just working with lye made me hesitant, although now, with some experience under my belt, I'm beginning to realize that I can probably use it safely if I take the right precautions.

We, as a species, are definitely in need of a spiritual awakening. A tek that is truly "for the masses" can only help in that regard. Thanks again for pioneering some new, simple methods of extraction.

I have a feeling the yeilds here would be lacking compared to pulls with less selective solvents like xylene and limonene..I cant see the more oily jungle DMT stuff crystalizing out of water like that. Chemistry really isnt a problem here with teks people..all it takes is 30 minutes of reading, anyone can understand a FASI etc..doesnt require any prior chem knowledge, just some light reading around the threads.

This tek would be good for people that still dont want to use anything other than lye and water..but still I would like to know what the actual yields are.

Wanderer, again, thanks for the work, I think its awesome that you're trying new things out and wanting to give back to the community

I would love to:
1- know the yields (specially if possible do a side-by-side comparing with a normal extraction)
2- know if with sodium carbonate it also works

Yeah regarding chemistry, I had 0 idea of chemistry before I joined this forum. All it takes is a bit of patience reading. There's a generation coming up nowadays that only cares for immediate answers and solutions, anything that takes a bit of effort is too much. But dedicating to something you are interested in is very important, I think educating the public cannot be spoonfeeding them with the easiest answers, but it has to help them develop their inner desire and effort to find the knowledge for themselves. This of course doesnt mean that we shouldnt try to explore and experiment and spread answers, but all im saying is that I agree with fractal, just read a bit and you'll understand things

For sure fractal and endlessness; my goal here isn't to provide a crutch for those unwilling to learn, seek, and explore enough to actualize a goal, but rather to offer an alternative to those who might want to explore their conscious experience without having access to or a safe area to use certain solvents. I have personally read, read, and read some more before even allowing SWIM to purchase anything, and I believe others should do so as well (especially with regards to the more shamanic, spiritual, and psychological theory behind it). Invariably, however, there will be those who are just seeking a quick, (relatively) cheap way to get "high" with little desire to learn or take some transcendental meaning from the experience. Fortunately, DMT often tends to show them what they need to be shown, for better or for worse. But I expect these sorts of people to exist in any situation. Furthermore, I (and many others) are not particular fans of petroleum-derived solvents, many of which not only smell noxious, but are carcinogenic (e.g., naptha) and biologically hazardous. The FASA or d-Limonene approaches are still probably the safest, but again, acetone is highly flammable (albeit relatively non-toxic) and Limonene can be difficult to come by (and is somewhat expensive when shipped).

So for your questions endlessness, SWIM has tried Sodium Carbonate (cold) and didn't really get any expulsion of liquids. If SWIM did, they sank to the bottom of solution. Strangely, he added lye to the left-over solution and didn't really see any dmt float to the top. So SWIM expects Na2CO3 did, to a degree, liberate the DMT from its salt forms, but the solution wasn't dense enough to keep it afloat (probably owing to Sodium Carbonates low solubility). Sadly, the tea SWIM used for the carbonate wasn't as clean as the lye one (it was left over), and so SWIM wasn't able to filter anything out very well. He did run it through a filter and didn't see any large crystals, but this may have been due to the dirtiness of the solution providing smaller nucleation sites for small crystals, rather than the relatively particulate-free solution forcing the DMT to crystallize with itself.

As far as yields, SWIM is in the process of doing a highly-standardized tea extraction with 100g of MHRB and known amounts of water. He will offer the data once it is available, so that people can do other extractions using the same masses, but with different methods (SWIM doesn't have any of the other solvents).

-- Wanderer

I'm all for learning new things and I've done my fair share of reading, but it's mostly out of fear of the harsher chemicals in other teks that's kept me from trying spice extraction. I would still like to learn and try other teks someday, especially the food safe ones, but having something simpler to work with for my first extraction would be nice and removes some of the initial anxiety.

I have great respect for spice and realize it takes some preparation, learning, and dedication to understand and work with it, but I'm just a bit uneasy with the idea of meddling with certain chemicals, especially if I can avoid most of them altogether. Not to mention along with the simplicity of this tek it also seems to involve less suspicious activity (especially if I have some curry for dinner :wink.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to SWIY's next tea extraction, some yield info and more data would be awesome. Kudos.

To this I will add that there is at least one country (Romania) -and probably many other 'poor' countries- where it is impossible for common folk to find the necessary pure clean solvants. Believe one who has searched long and fruitlessly...

This kind of tek will surely help the spreading of spice over a good slice of space!

hmm, so so far inconclusive regarding sodium carb heh?

Was there any change in color when adding sodium carb? did you filter the brew before adding it ?

Maybe it would be better to make a saturated sodium carb solution isntead of adding sodium carb straight away? or maybe warming up the whole thing to add sodium carb, then letting it cool slowly and eventually putting in the fridge to help dmt crystalize? Also for sure better to have the brew as filtered/clean as possible before precipitating.

Maybe other people will test this sometime soon, I hope so!

Thanks a lot for the work!

This strikes me as a much more legitimate reason than any of those that try to make points about fear of the procedure or working with "dangerous" chems. As long as you take proper safety precautions, none of them are especially dangerous. I mean, there's still lye here, which imo, is the most dangerous of any chem used in the extraction process (and again, it's not all that dangerous when handled properly, with the right safety precautions).

This is great work wanderer, thanks for making this thread. I look forward to hearing about yields

Updates abound!

Endlessness -- I recently checked on the carbonate batch. Crystals are actually forming now (perhaps I didn't wait long enough). So my new conclusion is that the carbonate was just not sufficient at fully freebasing the DMT, and that adding lye managed to get it to be released. The carbonate did change the color (and made it creamy-colored), but I suppose perhaps it wasn't strong enough. Someone will have to retry this, though, because my batch was fully of extraneous variables. Another thing to consider when redoing this is to heat up the tea to help augment carbonate solubility -- I remember one other member saying this was essential for using carbonate to freebase, in his experience.

To All -- I definitely like the point that, in many areas of the world, pure solvents are hard to come by. The benefit of this method is that it can, quite literally, be performed in the middle of no-where with nothing but some cloth and some wood ash. Lye can easily be made by soaking ash in water, and a filtration system can be made with something as simple as old (clean) cloth.

Regarding the new 100g batch, everything seems to be going well. I boiled the final tea volume down to around 350 mL, and just added lye. Within a few minutes, I can already see the DMT floating atop the solution.

One interesting thing to note using this method is that it takes very little lye compared to other methods. I used maybe 50-60 grams (5 rounded teaspoons?) before I didn't need anymore. Of course, the method I am using to eyeball how much lye is actually needed is to look for when adding more stops changing the color of solution (to cream). I will have to do further analysis to determine just how much lye is actually needed. After this batch is done crystallizing, I will add more lye to see if anything happens.

-- Wanderer

I got really interested in this earlier tonight so I decided to give it a shot. I recorded all the measurements and took a couple pics(don't think they will really be necessary though) and I am now at the point where the tea will be basified.

I did a 100 gram batch and followed the steps as directed but then decided to do a second water boil. I have kept the first and second boils separate to see if a second boil is necessary or not.
I'm also thinking maybe I will split the two pulls in half. So it will be two halves of the first boil and two of the second. I was then going to basify one half with NaOH and basify the other half with Na2CO3.
If I do decide to do half with Na2CO3 I will do it with by titrating a saturated solution of Na2CO3 into WARM tea. That would be nice to see similar yields with sodium carbonate.
Nothing beats a tek that only needs water, baking soda, and oven and a pot.

Really interesting work Wanderer!

Why thank you Opiyum, and it's fantastic you're also doing another test-run (and with Na2CO3 no less!). I hope this works well for everyone, and that yields prove high (I think they will be).

Excellent work everyone!

-- Wanderer

Figured I would post a couple pics of everything I did that I mentioned in the above post. Everything seemed to go as expected up until the NaOH was added. It went cream colored and cloudy then turned black but I'm not seeing any separation of layers. Just a solid black liquid.

The Na2CO3 batches did exactly the same thing. Creamy white then black. One now is more gray and has an orange oily layer on top. The other is black and has a lot of solids forming on the bottom and sides of the container.

The first pic is of the 1st boil, based with Na2CO3, in which a lot of precipatate is sinking and building up on the sides.
Number two is from the second boil with NA2CO3. Looks a lot like what is described from NaOH.

just wondering--i don't know much chem yet but do you guys think KOH would work just as well as NaOH? i've heard KOH is less toxic.

Just an update. After over 4 days not much more appeared to happen with whatever precipitated out and floated in SWIM's test. SWIM did spoon up what was there and let it dry out and it looks/smells like a flaky DMT but the amount was negligible. With SWIM's limited understanding of the chemistry at this point he assumes that whatever small amount of Calcium Hydroxide that did dissolve in the solution precipitated a tiny bit of freebase, but most of it should still be in the liquid in salt form still. Does that sound reasonable?

So SWIM just re-filtered the liquid off the top of the lime which had settled to the bottom of the jar. It's now actually more of a yellowy/orange color compared to the mahogany of the MHRB solution. It's actually still really basic easily over 10 based on his test strip. He is thinking about creating a hot water bath for this and adding in some sodium carbonate while the jar sits in the bath.

Wanderer would you see any reason for SWIM to test out with Lime again only making sure that the water was warm to help the lime dissolve? He would be willing to donate another little batch of MHRB if it might be possible just to test it out.

Opiyum -- There won't be an immediate separation of layers. Wait 24 hours and you should definitely see some bits of almost pearly or oil-like sheen on the surface. If you don't, try adding more lye (that seemed to help get a bit more from my batch). That's interesting the Na2CO3 seemed to separate out an oily layer -- perhaps it will work after all, but to a lesser extent? Interesting developments!

moyshekapoyre -- Yes, you should be able to use Potassium Hydroxide (KOH). In fact, that's really what wood-ash lye is (10x more KOH than NaOH), and the difference in pH will be negligible in this case (it's like 13.6 compared to 14 for NaOH).

Malaclypse -- Well I don't think lime needs to be tested again. Seeing as it isn't very soluble and it didn't turn your solution black, I don't think it's quite basic enough. The only other variation would to try and heat up the solution to see if that increases solubility, but the total difference may be negligible. If you have lye, it would be interesting to see what sort of difference adding that to the newly filtered solution would make.

-- Wanderer

I took a couple more pics of the Na2CO3 batches. There's some strange stuff going on in these two jars. I won't even try speculating what is going on but I'll just post the pics and maybe more experienced minds than mine can say....

The second picture is the Na2CO3 from the first boil and has a black hard crusty top. I think I'm gonna give it all another day before I run it through a filter.
One of my lye batches is starting to form an oil on top but only a very small amount. I may try adding more lye tomorrow.

...Can't wait to test out the sodium carb batches.

This is pretty interesting im keeping an eye on it, thanks to the people doing the experimenting!