In the past, whenever extracting conventionally with naptha, SWIM found that unless the basic solution was filtered to remove bark content, the first pull would absorb a large amount of naptha. Others have experienced the same problem, the explanation going along the lines of naptha binding to the fibres in the bark. Unfortunately for SWIM, due to the nature of finely ground up bark to clog up the filter, filtration was a very arduous and time consuming process.

Now SWIM is planning to do xylene pulls, and was wondering whether xylene has the same tendency to bind to the organic material in the bark? More specifically, would SWIM have to do a filtration, or would he get away with just going straight to pulls?

What ratio of water/lye/bark are you using? I think you must be making too thick mixture...

There should be no significant loss of naphtha to the basic layer, and a bit of vibrations/heat will aid in separation. The non polar layer shouldnt 'bind' to bark. And even if part of it did get trapped, with each successful pull the DMT that was in that first 'trapped' solvent will spread out with the next pulls, so at the end, after many pulls, amount of dmt lost should be negligible.

SWIM uses a ratio of 1kg MHRB to 10L of water to 400g NaO. SWIM didn't pay particular attention to the volume of consecutive pulls, so it is perfectly feasible that the solvent was released. SWIM did actually try vibration, however to no avail. Another plausible explanation is that SWIM simply wasn't patient enough, only waiting around an hour maximum for separation.

From what I can gather, you're attempting to do a STB on a kilo of bark with 40g of NaOH?

No wonder your solvent is getting sucked up.

If you were to switch to an A/B and reduce that initial 10L of H20 down to around 800ml then 40g of NaOH would work fine.

If you plan on sticking with the STB method, you'll have to use a LOT more lye. Like 1g of NaOH for each gram of MHRB.

I suggest you do some more research and find a better Tek.

SWIM's been rather busy lately, however made a mistake in his post. In fact the amount of NaOH SWIM used was closer to 400g as described in Lazyman's tek.

Ahh... Instead of doing a kilo at a time, it's way easier to work with 100 - 400g of bark at a time.

When doing a STB, you really need a 1:1 ratio of bark and lye to get all of the goodies out. A buddy of mine uses 250g of bark and 265g of lye and gets awesome yields of really orange, oily stuff. When he uses a 1:1 ratio the end product is more of a yellow instead of orange.

If you were to switch to an A/B you could use a lot less lye but you'd also get a lot less from your xylene pulls.

I'd really recommend instead of experimenting with large extractions, do several different 100g extractions and find what works best for you. Then scale it up once you have it down.

Filtering MHRB sux, but take it from a grrrl who knows, the best filet you are ever going to find is a pair of womans nylons with one leg tucked into the other (double bagging) and then pour the porridge down into the leg of the nylons over a bucket. It works like a charm, every time

You'll need some rubber gloves to squeeze the full nylon to get all the goodie out

Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely try that the next time I do an A/B.