I'm about to extract 500 gr of dried Peruvian torch, and I am planning to base with NaOH, pull with xylene and salt with HCL.

Now I am not sure if I should make a tea first and base or just powderize the chips and dump them in highly basified water. I think I will make a tea first, but I'm afraid to loose yield due to the heating.

I would like to hear from the experienced members which method they would choose. Advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Any input is welcome

I've only done A/B with fresh cactus so I can't help you there sorry.... But if nobody comes up with better info and you want to test for us, do a side-by-side, take pics and let us know the results

done it both ways many times, and there is not much point in the a/b imo

basically, mix 500g cacti powder 4-500g lye, water-- blend well, and let sit overnight(12-24hrs until the goo fully "slacks"

add np solvent, gently mix- allow to fully settle then decant

salt using only enough acid to bring the water layer down to ph6-7

evap, or crash out with mek or acetone (easier with sulfuric salts)

well I finished 225g with A/B and it was a real pain in the butt...
My seperatory funnel broke. The drainage valve jammed, and while trying to open it the lower part of the funnel broke.
After that I bought a glass pipette...and hey...it realy makes life easier.
But the real downfall was the massive emulsion that drove me crazy..I tried everything to break it without success. I think that the reason for the emulsion was fat from my kitchen flow hood (you should clean those once in a while) dripping in the tea.
Now I'm left with about 1,6g of tan mesc.
The rest of the chunks were powderized and tossed in basified water...and i just love the way the solvent separates from the basic soup Now I will salt out the first round....

most of my luck came from powdering and mixing directly with lye before adding minimal water to paste bass it

this trick seems to work wonders

that's something I will try next time, thanks.

So far the results are excellent from STB. 1 gram of realy white mesc, and my guess is that there's still plenty of mesc in there.

If you want clean mesc, you should check the pH of the salting water after shaking it up. As soon as it comes out neutral (or slightly acidic) you stop and put the NP back. This and carefull separating of NP and salting water.

Since i use a pipette, i pour the salting water through a coffee filter. This prevents the xylene from pouring in to the evap dish. Judging from the smell, there is minimal xylene in the end product. I'll do one acetone wash and it should be good

I'm in the middle (more towards the end I guess) of doing an STB on 400 grams. Just finished evaporating my 3rd pull/salting and I have 3.375 grams tan colored mesc. I am recrystallizing it now hopefully I don't lose too much. Anyhow I just finished salting the 4th pull and I know there was quite a bit in there because it took quite a bit of acid to get neutral. I have the feeling I will be pulling more than 5 times, and I do not like pulling so much especially on a heavy jug with all that based cactus sludge. IMO it seems it would be less work in the end after you do the initial acid pulls with an A/B because you can reduce the water down to as little as you want and probably have to do a lot less pulls with a lot less solvent, and of course much less of whatever base you use.
Next time if I am doing an extraction on 500 grams or more dry material then I will go with the A/B to get it done quicker and with less pulls. What seems like less work in the beginning ends up being more work, and more time spent everyday for a week pulling from that huge jug of cactus base. A/B can be done in a day why not do all the work at once?

I have not done an A/B yet except for my first failed attempt at a mesc extraction, but to be fair my second attempt I tried an STB, and I failed as well. After this run with the STB route though I can't see why an A/B wouldn't be easier.

hey landfishd, thanks for your input
it is true that you have to pull quit a bit to get everything out..today I will do the 5th (or is it the 6th?) pull.

when I did the A/ B, I didn't want to reduce that much cause I was afraid this would yield me lots of junk (in Phlux mesc extraction tek, he claims that reducing more yields more junk). But with this salting technique (that's titration right?) I don't see how you could NOT yield the white to tan stuff?

i washed the tan mesc i had from the A/B and I am left with 1,1g of cream colored mesc. It's not as fluffy anymore, it's more shiny and salty..looks beautiful. I capped it up and will probably try it on the VuuV festival (with lots of sun i hope )