OK so I have done 3 reks lost about 300mg of spice and still cannot get nice white and clean spice. I always used hot clean naphtha then mixed it with spice, naphtha gets light yellow colour. Then wait for the oils and other impurities to settle down but they don't. So after that I put it back in freezer to precipitate. After 24 hours all done and all yellow shit back in spice and the naphtha is clear.

WTF is going on. What am I doing wrong? Did I do something wrong when extracting it? Anybody had the same problem? Any ideas appreciated. Should I use some different solvent?

I see all these pictorials how nice and clean spice come out just after one rek and feel like I want to cry

I have had this happen when I have used warm naptha and mixed the bark/lye solution a bit too vigorously with the naptha. It seems to form a very slight emulsion and / or pull some plant fats that will not separate.

I have gotten rid of most of it by Sodium Carbonate washes (although I usually lose some yield doing this, no matter how careful I am).

You can also lose some of it by freeze precipitating with the glass jar on an angle. This seems to let the yellow bits separate to some degree at the bottom of the jar. The whiter stuff can then be separated a little easier by scraping it away when it has all dried. This process can be repeated until you get a result you are happy with. Again, this reduces yield a little.

Hope this helps

it does help thank you for that. so what do you do now to prevent this ? do you use cold naphtha and don't mix it too hard ?

would something like this be used as solvent for recrystallization something like heptane ?

more here

In my experience, using hot naptha pulls extra fats, so yes, use room temp naptha and just roll the mix gently.

An A/B gives me purer DMT and doing one sodium carbonate wash gives me mostly crystal clear stuff.

DMTripper is exactly right, IMO.

A bit of advice when doing your STB try not to heat up your jar of basic solution too much and especially the naphtha you put in it. IME warm naphtha pulls more pigment from the MHRB lye solution.

Let me ask a serious question here .....

What is wrong with yellow spice? I have voyaged extensively on crystally white to waxy red and every color and consitency in between. I have compared them over and over.

Sometimes I think I can tell them apart as I am inhaling and then I am blown apart, left realizing how foolish I was, thinking I could tell them apart.

I challenge anyone to step up and honestly give and honest comparison if they can.

I wouldnt get caught up in the aestetics of the spice.

As for impurities in the yellow?

IMO its just pigments that are pulled along with the spice, inactive non-toxic pigments and trace ammounts of plant fats/oils.

I liken the difference between white and yellow spice to that of rum. You have white rum out there and red rum and brown spiced rum. They all look different some taste a little different, when you drink them the results are the same.

Yellow spice is good spice. Be satisfied.

IH

smokerx:
My experience is the same, heat = yellow.
Also, the longer the MHRB + base sits before being washed with NP, the yellower the product gets.



It tastes harsh compared to a purer product. I haven't noticed much difference otherwise--but then I usually toss it into the last wash of the next extraction before freeze precipitating so I don't have a lot of experience with the yellow stuff.



I suspect it is more likely to be degradation/reaction products than pigments/fats/oils/etc. Simply because the amount of yellow increases with time and I can't think of any reason for them to not be extracted with the first washes...


- Tse

which tek do you normally use for extraction ?

I always use room temp naphtha except I always shake a vigorously. So you say just gentle shake and leave it to separate ?

I would not say it is wrong but

A. white spice looks nicer
B. its not so harsh
C. for my experiment that I am planing to do I need spice as pure as possible.

anyone looked at this ?

Ya--without knowing what it is, it is impossible to say.

If you're putting it straight in the freezer when there are yellow oils in solution then you're always going to end up with yellow spice.

What you want to do is let your naphtha cool at room temperature for a few hours, then sit in the fridge for 12 hours, then 24 in the freezer. As the crystals form slowly this way, less oils will be trapped in the structure of the crystal. It's possible to get glassy crystals from a yellow solution this way.

WORD.

Some people have made themselves good working DMT and are concerned with the color of the spice? It's a blessing even to have the possibility to use and know about DMT.

Even mr. Mckenna was talking about that his DMT was ORANGE in one of his talks, and look how deep it got him?

So one should concentrate on the effects, not the looks of the spice!

---

One guy on the board mentioned that the oils/yellow stuff precipitate after one hour in the freezer, so therefore one could just pour the DMTd naphtha into another container and get "more pure" crystals. I don't know the details of this technique, but maybe someone can write more about this?

Terence McKenna also said you need "leather lungs" to smoke DMT.

Purer spice will vape at lower temperatures and therefore be smoother, so it's not superficial to go for purity.

smokerx, it's funny you put that link up for that product, as i had seen it in an art shop a few months back and had a hunch that it was Limonene at first glance. On the website it says "made from the zest of citrus fruit", which leads me to believe its Limonene. If so, it wouldn't be good to use as a solvent for recrystallising. I almost wanted to get some to test on a cactus extraction, but it is just way too expensive at £8 for about 100ml.

I would stick to naphtha for recrystallising and just make sure to leave the oils behind in the shot glass. If you do it several times, you will notice that the product gets a little less yellow with every round.

I think he mentioned leather lungs because of his smoking technique(not the color of the spice), what ever it was back then. Can't be compared to the modern smoking equipment.

Well lets not be guessing about what he "meant"

I can tell you with my living voice from my own experience that glassy spice is seriously smooth shit. Many others would agree.

I know, but this way I am going to lose half of my spice And the oils wont separate anyway. I already done it 3 times and lost about 300mg of spice just to try to clean it. I guess I will have to do new extraction using A/B tek.