SWIM is tryin to extract calcium bufotenate effectively and came across this tek:

"So I played around quite a bit and finally invented my own very extraction technique. Here’s how it’s done. Boil the powdered beans in water made pH 3 with hydrochloric acid for about an hour, and then filter out the beans, and repeat 2 more times with new water, also made pH 3 with hydrochloric acid. Concentrate the combined water extracts down and evaporate to leave some solid brownish gunk. Weigh this gunk and measure out an equal portion of calcium hydroxide (the same pickling lime used to make Yopo and Vilca snuff!).

Dissolve the gunk in a small amount of isopropyl alcohol, just enough to make it a thick syrupy liquid, then add an equal portion of water, then mix in the calcium hydroxide. Mix it very well. You don’t want any clumps. It should be the consistency of thick pea soup. Let it sit for about 6 hours for the calcium hydroxide to react with the bufotenine, creating the basic salt calcium bufotenate. Now evaporate it (you can use an oven at 300 F for this step). Once it’s evaporated completely add a generous portion of acetone. Mix it well. The acetone won’t dissolve any of the calcium hydroxide, or much else, but will easily dissolve the calcium bufotenate. Let it sit an hour or more for the non-soluble particles to sink to the bottom, once the acetone takes on a clear dark amber color, poor your mix through a filter to obtain the acetone.

You can repeat the acetone extraction with new acetone a few more times until its clear. Evaporate the combined acetone to get an extremely potent extract that is nearly 90% pure calcium bufotenine, which is one of the most potent forms of bufotenine. It’s the form found in properly make Yopo and Vilca snuff that has been used for thousands of years in South America. It’s more psychoactive than free-base bufotenine and much more psychoactive than the acidic salt form found in the unprocessed beans."

So SWIM isnt so keen on using hcl, so would like to try using vinegar in the initial boiling step instead. Anyone know whether this would adversely affect the ext? Any input or advice would be greatly appretiated.

Vinegar would work just fine.

It should also be noted that this tek is almost certainly extracting bufotenine freebase, not calcium bufotenate.

Oh I see. So should SWIM just worry about the conversion to calcium bufo after pure enough freebase was obtained?

Not unless SWIY is an experienced chemist who can speculate on what solvents it might be possible to generate calcium bufotenate in.

It's entirely possible that one might be able to form a calcium salt of bufotenine, but it's been pretty clearly determined that this can't be accomplished in water or simple alcohols. SWIY would have to get very creative about solvents to attempt to generate this theoretical salt.

Hell, it may not even be possible to generate calcium bufotenate under any sort of typical conditions.

That experience on erowid that you quote the procedure from appears to be written by a fellow who made it his mission to spread the myth of calcium bufotenate across the internet. It's possible his intentions were pure and he really believed that he was creating calcium bufotenate by this process. But there are messageboards on which he created multiple puppet accounts, and used these puppet accounts to post that they had tried his posted methods, and confirm that they generated calcium bufotenate... When a person makes fake accounts to confirm their own findings as a means of getting other people excited about it, I become VERY skeptical of that person's claims. I've also editted his speculative edits off of wikipedia articles on Anadenanthera and bufotenine several times (he periodically edits them back in). Whoever this fellow is, several of his posts made it clear that he lacks even a basic understanding of chemistry; the stoichiometry of forming the salt baffled him.

you don;t need to boil the seeds at all. its a waste of energy. just powder them, add the same volume of calcium hydroxide to it and just enough water to make it a thick but stirable paste. let it sit for an hour or so, stirring occasionally. then dry it completely in an oven at 150F. powder it when its dry and pull on it with acetone until acetone takes on no more color. for a very crude extract you can evaporate this acetone directly. for a cleaner product the actives can be precipitated out with 10% citric acid saturated acetone. add enough citric acid saturated acetone solution until no more precipitates. retrieve the precipitates and dry completely. this then needs to be freebased again.

to do this just mix it with the same volume of calcium hydroxide and again add just enough water to make this a stirable paste. let it sit for an hour, stirring occasionally. dry it completely. powder it. pull on it with acetone. retrieve and evaporate acetone.

Thanks a whole lot guys. I cant wait until something solid comes along soon to back up this controversy.
Thanks to you, entro because I looked into him a bit myself and he seems much less than reputable. I wish that wasn't on erowid. I usually tend to trust what they have to say.
Do you have any prediction as to whether fumaric acid would work in place of citric lorax? I would think it'd be cool.

I also wonder what other acids would work with this type of extraction.

Phosphoric?
HCL?
Sulfuric?
Acetic?
Fumaric?


Any idea's