In this topic I'll describe a cactus extraction with my goal to achieve an extraction with a minimum amounts of materials used. It'll be a combination of teks already done by people here on the forum like the Phlux tek and the 69Ron tek.

Although mostly nothing new the main difference with other liquid teks is that CaOH will be used as a base in minimum amounts instead of lye or large amounts of CaOH. Also trying to use a minimum amount of d-limonene.

The following materials are planned to be used:

- 200 gram dried cactus
- 200 ml D-limonene in total (reusing for every pull)
- 300 mg of Kalkwasser CaOH (or Lime to make it food grade)
- Water
- 10% HCL diluted to match PH 5-6 (or diluted 5% vinegar to make it food grade; almost all grocery store vinegr has a PH of 4-4.5 which is a little to low to use it undilluted)
- Optional IPA or Acetone for cleanup

It is going to be an aqeous a/b extraction without defat step. Defatting will be done by final acetone wash.

The tools used are going to be:

- Getto style diy magnetic stirrer
- Electrical mixer
- PH meter and strips
- 1500 ml seperatory funnel
- Gloves
- Glasses
- 1000 ml beaker
- 75 ml measuring cup
- 4 liter boiling pan
- Thea light for final evaporation

The process will be:

- Boiling down the 200 grams of cactus into a concentrated 300 ml tea.
- Add a clear CaOH basified water solution of 300 ml to the tea.
- Pulling the solution with 200 ml d-limonene.
- Mixing the basified tea with the d-limonene.
- Separating the d-limonene from the basified tea.
- Salting the d-limonene with in my case a Hcl solution of PH 5-6
- Evaporating the the Hcl solution
- Cleaning the crude extract with acetone

I'll update this thread with pictures and detailed descriptions of each step. When the amounts mentioned above will not work I'll update the first post but the goal is to use only the materials as described.

Small update. The extraction process is near completion.

It did work altough I a had to add 100mg calcium hydroxide more to the tea to make it PH 11.
The boiling and straining process was very time consuming and dirty. Also I thought that seperation would be easier with two liquids. Totally wrong about that one. Separation was a nightmare; it became a huge emulsion. It took me 2 hours to recover the d-limonene by hot water bath, washing machine vibrations and adding salt with all pulls and had to compensate for lost d-limonene about 50 ml in total. The rest of the process went as usual.

I did some more experimenting in PH for the Hcl. The first two saltings I did with a PH of 6. The third and fourth with PH 3. The first two were totally clear. The second two yellowish.
After evaporation I suppose the first two saltings will be white/stan mesc and the remaining saltins will be brown sanchez.

No info about the yield yet, but this will be updated soon as well as some pictures.

So far STB for me is a lot easier and less time consuming. But I had fun trying this out and that's what counts! As a bonus my appartment has that familiar orange smell again.

Edit: one thing to note when handling the CaOH/pickling lime: wear a mask. Didn't see this precaution yet for lime on the forum here. I accidently inhaled some dust particles (and there was almost no dusting). It feels like a short term throath infection. I neutralised this by drinking some coca cola (low PH). The irritating feeling went away after 30-45 mins. Read some about the risk of this and small amounts will cause irritation but are not dangerous. It's a common complaint for constructor workers, fish tank owners and farmers who use the stuff regularly. From now on I'll wear a mask handling this substance.

Small update. The extraction with CaOh basified tea yielded 2.4 grams of mescaline. Only 400mg of CaOH was used, so it can be used in a wet Tek with about the same yield as the dry tek.

The final salting was a vinegar one. My previous extractions were orange goo. This time it is a very light tan waxy product which doesn't stick that much. I measured the Ph of the vinegar first which was way too acidic. I diluted it with water at 1 part vinegar 3 parts water. It yielded about 400mg.