About a year ago I picked up a little MHRB and attempted to do a STB extraction, but it was a massive failure. I didn’t have the right materials, and I didn’t really put any effort into getting it right. Well I’m back as a born again extraction virgin, and this time I decided to do things right.

For this extraction, like my first attempt, I used Noman’s TEK. I ordered a few supplies off of Amazon (nothing sketchy, just some household stuff. The only potentially sketchy purchase was a mg scale). I found it funny that a few days after purchasing I got an email from Amazon with “suggestions” on things I might want to purchase, and based off of me buying a glass turkey baster and a mg scale it suggested both Lye and Naphtha (which makes me wonder how many idiots are buying everything they need on Amazon). I got my Lye and VM&P Naphtha locally with cash. I also found a gallon glass pickle jar at my local grocery store (I felt bad wasting all those pickles but there was no way I was gonna eat them all).

I bought 1lb of MHRB, so given that and the size of my jar, I decided to split the bark up into three 150g extractions (this thread only covers the first one). Using the ratios given in the TEK, I used 2.25L water, 150g MHRB, and 150g Lye. I added my water then my lye, but I measured out my lye with a measuring spoon instead of weighing it. I definitely overdid it with the lye, since by the time I was done adding it the 1lb container was about half empty. No worries though, I don’t think this was a problem.

I then added my 150g of powdered bark (from Gaia’s Naval, US reseller of Adenium), shook it up and let the pitch black mixture sit for about 2 hours. I then added 150mL of Naphtha, but in order to get enough depth for the pull I added 50mL more (this extra 50mL acted as a buffer, and whenever I did pulls there was about 50mL left when I added the next pull). I rolled it around (made the mistake of tipping it upside down... even though this jar was as tight as possible some still oozed through. This was only a problem when held completely upside down, probably from the weight of the mixture). I rolled it and let it settle about 4 times, and then immediately pulled.

This turned out to be a mistake, since my first pull yielded nothing. The second pull was also pulled immediately and ended up yielding a little, but the pulls that I left for a couple hours or overnight yielded the most.

I had a system of about 2 pulls precipitating in glass mason jars in the freezer while the next pull was sitting in the MHRB jar. I reused the naphtha from previous pulls, and have saved all my naphtha (I plan to evaporate this to get some of the DMT that I just couldn’t get out of the jar and that couldn’t precipitate.) This worked out nicely.

After freeze precipitating, I knocked crystals off of the side of the jar and poured it through a coffee filter (inside a funnel), into another jar. I didn’t run into any problems with DMT getting stuck inside the filters, and after letting the filters air dry a gift card was able to scrape up pretty much all of the crystals. I also used a spoon to scoop out the DMT that didn’t come through in the naphtha.

Pull 1, pulled immediately: 0.000g
Pull 2, pulled immediately: 130mg
Pull 3, sat a few hours: 320mg
Pull 4, sat overnight: 375mg
Pull 5, sat a few hours: 300mg
Pull 6, sat overnight: 90mg
Pull 7, sat overnight: 20mg

An 8th pull was left for multiple nights, and instead of precipitating at all I added this to my leftover naphtha for evaporation.

All of the pulls yielded almost perfectly white crystals, with the very rare exception when a small portion would be yellowed. When cut up and mixed together it still looks almost perfectly white, so I decided against recrystalization.

This left me with a yield of 1.235g, 0.82% of the 150g MHRB. This does not include the couple hundred mg I expect to get from evaporation of the leftover naphtha, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I reach around 1% when all is said and done. I will post the results of this afterward.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions feel free to ask

You should put some pics up n let us see your success.

I ordered some powder from this same website tonight and I plan on doing this same tek. I have never done an extraction so I was wondering if this is a good beginner tek?
Also is what you got a good amount? I want to know how much to expect so I can be sure Ive done it right.

PS: Post pics! I will too when I am done!

I used a 1 gallon glass pickle jar on my first extraction, and I inadvertently had to use it on my most recent one as well (milk jug sprung a leak).

The trick to keep it from leaking is to use saran wrap (thin clear clingy plastic stuff used in the kitchen), just fold it over a couple times to make it thick, then fold it in half. And this should fit perfectly over the opening of the jar and create a perfect seal with the lid on over it(I haven't had any leak problems yet). And I haven't noticed any deterioration of the plastic either, so I'm pretty sure its safe.

(Read the post(s) after this one, this may not be a good idea after all)

No. It's not safe. Do not do this unless you want to make carcinogenic plasticizer changa.

Really? I let a small piece soak in a small glass dish for 36+ hours and pulled it out just fine, so I figured 20-30 minutes of contact 4 or 5 times wouldn't hurt. Should I have run a longer test on the small piece to see if it breaks down over time?

I'll trust your opinion on this one though, and stop using it just in case.
What else can be used in these situations? Should I cut out a disk of HDPE2 to fit the lid?