Hello old friends! I haven't been back here in a while, I'm glad to see the community is alive and well!

A friend of mine has been having some problems lately with yield, and thought maybe you guys could help. He's using an A/B tek. Simmering a pound of MHRB in a crock pot for 2-3 hours with a 1/1 vinegar/water solution, extracting the juice, and repeating the crock pot cook 3 more times. He then add's lye to bring his PH up. He usually ends up with 2 half full, half-gallon mason jars. Then he adds ~200mL of naptha, turns jar end over end for 10'ish minutes, then extracts the solvent. He then does 3 more pulls, evaporates about half the solvent off, and puts it in the freezer.

His first extraction ever, a few years ago, yielded 4g of spice on a lb of MHRB. Since then it has seemed to steadily decline in yield. His last extraction was 2.5g of spice. He hasn't changed anything in his extraction method. Can anyone suggest anything to him. I was doing a little looking around here for him, and it looks like there's more and more tek's around. I also saw that people are getting 1%-1.5% yeilds, and my friend would love to get that. Are there any better methods than the one I'm using with readily available materials? I just inherited a sepratory funnel, and I'd like to give it a whirl.

That is ALOT of vinegar but don't think that would affect your yields, you'd just have to add a lot more lye.

How old is the plant material? How has it been stored?

I would also guess that there is still a bit more spice in there that could be pulled out with naphtha.

I never liked that crock pot method, I think its a crock!
lol

Just let your ground up bark soak for 5-7 days in vinegar, just enough to completely soak the bark. Do that right in your 1/2 gallon jars, keep it in a warm dark place, then add water, base, and pull with solvent.

All that crock pot brewing and seperating isn't necessary. I think that could be your problem. Your adding a step you dont really need. Me thinks thats where your loss is.

I dunno I've had great results from the crock pot method, for both extractions as well as Aya brewing.

Esp. with whole root bark I've ground up, the crock pot has always worked better than most other methods I've used. My only thought was the 1:1 ration of vinegar to water. I use a very little bit, like 1:10.

I think it just may be the bark.

Interesting, I guess this is one method I've never heard of. So SWIM can put a pound of bark in a half gallon jar, cover it in straight vinegar for 5-7 days, then add water, base, and pull? Seems like it might be wise to split the lb of bark into 2 jars, for rooms sake. How much water to add? how much solvet to use? how many pulls. Swim really likes the idea of eliminating the crockpot from the equation, and not having to squeeze the bark.

Yep split the LB between two half gallon jars.

Add vinager to the top of the bark. Just enough to cover it. I will soak up allot of it and thats OK. The Bark doesnt need to be swimming in vinager, it just needs to be soaked.

Let it sit in the vinager in a warm dark place for as long as you can stand it. A week works great.

Next add water and basify with lye. Here you have two options. If you have a PH tester the basify to 13+. If you dont have a tester do like most teks say and add 1 gram of lye for every gram of bark you use. This will get you the PH you are looking for.

Once basified there should be just enough space left in the jars for 100ml of solvent. When you pour the solvent in it should go to just a hair below the top of the jar. You want to be able to take the lid off without spilling it, so leave a teeny weeny space in it, but not much. You dont need a bunch of air in the jar, because, IMO, it helps cause emulsions when you shake.

Having the solvent close to the top makes it easier to get it out. I suck mine out with a 75ml syringe with no needle. Works like a charm.

Hope this helps

IH

so SWIM doesn't need to remove the bark before adding water and basifying? How many pulls should SWIM do? 3-4? 1 gram of lye per gram of bark? SWIM is accustomed to 8 tablespoons of lye for his pound of bark before. Does that sound about right? Never weighed it.