Okay...so SWIM is working on a tek that replaces the acid/water stew initial extraction with an HCl/ Isopropyl Alcohol (1-2 ml HCl/350ml ISP) Soxhlet extraction, mostly for speed and automation reasons. It's basically 69ron's soxhlet/CLLE tek for people who don't have the means to buy a LOT of glassware.

So far, SWIM has done the acidic ISP soxhlet extraction yielding a dark red extract from 100g MHRB . The extract was reduced to a thick tar and then re-constituted with about 300ml dH20 and filtered. This was then defatted, basified, and extracted with hot naphtha (100ml-ish) as per most teks, but after evaporation in a baking dish under a fan overnight, there were NO crystals and only a small amount (about the size of 1/4 tic-tac) of yellow goo that definitely smelled like DMT . SWIM's finger still smells like the Spice . SWIM knows that there is (or really should be) a sizable amount of Spice somewhere in that basified solution as he can smell it.

SWIM went back to the basified solution and checked it with a semi-accurate pH meter. The solution was a nice thick black but only about pH 10-11.5, SWIM just poured in probably about 100g more lye...just to be sure...and repeated the extraction with hot naphtha. The basified solution seemed subjectively thicker. Same deal, no crystals, only a small amount of DMT-smelling goo. SWIM is using 91% IPA, Hardware-store HCl, VM&P brand naphtha, and Ace brand "100% lye crystals".

Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? SWIM is VERY sure there is DMT present in the basified solution, but it doesn't seem to want to migrate into the naphtha. Any help would be enthusiastically welcomed.
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How long did you let the Soxhlet run?

When you concentrated it down initially, is it possible it got too hot and the alkaloids burned?

It could just be you have bunk mimosa. Most of the mimosa SWIM has had recently was weaker than chacruna with almost no DMT in it at all. I’ve read a lot of complaints recently about weak and even fake mimosa.

It ran for about 16 hours. Usually SWIM just lets it run until the solvent cycles through clear. SWIM monitored the temperature in the soxhlet and it never got above the mid 80's (c). SWIM also did a quick FASA on 50g of bark from the same batch, and again, got negligible amounts of anything. SWIM agrees, it may be really really bad bark. But did everything look ok procedure-wise? Is there an upper temperature ceiling where the good stuff starts to break down? Any leads on where people are getting their bunk MHRB from? Thanks.

I don’t see that you did anything wrong.

When making ayahuasca, the natives boil chacruna in water for many hours and that extracts the DMT just fine without destroying it. The boiling temperature of IPA is lower than water, so it should be even better than boiling it in water. I don’t think there was any loss there. Besides, SWIM has extracted DMT many times in a Soxhlet using IPA and has had phenomenal results IF the plant material is good quality to begin with.

The only place I could imagine there being any loss is when concentrating down the IPA. When it thickens, the boiling point of the liquid will go higher than the boiling point of IPA.

In the past, when extracting mescaline from San Pedro, SWIM made the mistake of concentrating it down to a tar and all the mescaline was destroyed because the temperature of the tar got higher than the melting point of mescaline and it all decomposed.

As far as getting bunk Mimosa, there’s a lot of it recently according to many others I’ve talked with. I don’t know where to get good consistent quality Mimosa, sorry.

The mimosa was definitely bunk. VERY VERY bunk. It may have even been fake. Upon further inspection and a little chromatography, it appears that a dye was added to the bark to enhance the appearance. This is particularly disturbing because it came from a supposedly VERY reputable supplier....so, SWIM sourced some MHRB from elsewhere. SWIM just finished a batch and got great results. Will post yield after re-xtal. Thanks for allaying my fears, 69ron.

DrAstronaut, will you name the supplier? If they're that reputable & adulteratig their bark I don't want to deal with them.