I read elsewhere that some people felt that 80gr lye per 100 gr MHRB was sufficient. All I know is that using a digital ph meter SWIM was using way too little. I think that the stated amount is overkill but avoids disappointment.

Yeah ok.
I mean, i know its importants to get the solution basic enough, but i just dont want excessive lye, which may end up in the final product. Il see if 80g cuts it!

SWIM is still wondering if any of your spice extracting friends with a digital PH meter could actually measure how much lye would be required in order to obtain a PH value of 13/14 for the extraction of lets say 100 gr MHRB.

The tricky part of this question is that SWIM doens't actually know if there's any differences between different brands of lye (i.e. brand A would require 50 grams while brand B would required 80 grams in order to have the same effect on the PH value).

The thing is that SWIM doesn't like to buy a digital PH meter and use it one time only...

Hope you can help him out

SWIM has a question... it does not pertain to the STB method though. Have any of you noticed a decrease in yeild when using sodium carbonate instead of sodium hydroxide in an A/B? SWIM has read of people switching to this for safety reasons as well as ways of keeping under the radar (sodium hydroxide = meth). also the ability to bake sodium bicarb into sodium carb easily at home. SWIM thanks you!

^^^

Yeah man the meth lab watch dogs around me have pretty much caused every store for 50 miles to pull lye and costic soda from shelves, either that or they require id and phone number and such...

From what ive read I havent seen anybody complaining of low yield from the sodium carbonate..

I like some factual info on that though if anyboyd can help.

The amount of lye to use is determined by the amount of water, not by the mass of MHRB. A ratio of 1 g lye to 15 mL water seems to work well. Once you have that ratio set you can begin varying the ratio of water/lye to MHRB. For this, a ratio of 2g MHRB to 15 mL water has worked in the past. This gives a nice goopy mixture that gives high concentrations of DMT to the naphtha.

After a little bit of trying this and that SWIM has decided that the way forward is A/B, xylene, FASA. With STB SWIM was very reluctant to throw out an old mix at the risk of losing some product but this new method insures a full extraction.

If using A/B sodium carbonate is the best way for SWIM, but with STB some say the ph isn't high enough. But it's all about A/B.

i thought lye and caustic soda were the same thing - in south africa its caustic soda in usa its lye - both sodium hydroxide
Right ?

Phlux - both lye and caustic soda are sodium hydroxide

Well put. My extensive experimentations have proven this exact ratio to be the best "bang for your buck", if you will.

For example: if one can manage to a)procure decent, if not excellent, mhrb, b)keep within the following mhrb/lye/H2O ratio: 1-2g/1g/15mL, and c)tighten the retard chin-strap just enough to follow a few simple mixing steps (like making brownies!), then d)one can rest easy knowing that they will soon be casting spells as they travel through space and time upon a throne that travels in speeds excessive to that which light travels.

noted*

Shredded bark or pulverized?
I'm asking because noman's said that you have to use 1.5-2x the water if using pulverized bark. Then I guess, you'd need more lye.

SWIM already used the ration of MHRB:LYE:H2O as 2g:1g:15l with prepowdered and it always worked fine. He already even used half the amount of water and it was fine. Granted it was quite thick and separation of naphtha layer took a bit longer than normal but it did work, when he once only had a smaller container and didnt want to do such a small extraction. But 1-2:1:15 seems good for pulverized.

Good to hear, thanks!

Pulverized or powdered as finely as possible. I've generally increased H2O content to up to 20mL & have seen no noticeable change in yield. Also, I would never recommend f-ing w/ the mhrb:lye ratio. Think of it as this: lye and mhrb are cousins; they should only be changed together, in like increments; lye and H2O are NOT necessarily cousins. One should only increase lye content if one is increasing mhrb as well.

My knowledge of chemistry is still developing, but I thought the point of adding lye was to cause the water to reach a certain pH value. pH is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in water. By adding more or less lye to the same amount of water, the concentration of ions will change and thus the pH value will change. For a certain target pH, if twice the volume of water is used, twice as much lye must be added to reach the same pH. The amount of MHRB added should not significantly affect the pH because it is neither acidic nor basic, but neutral.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

well yes you are mostly right but MHRB is slightly acidic due to tannins and so on.. But yes in general I agree with you that the lye should be adjusted to the water, not necessarily to the MHRB.. in the end, one does not need at all to be accurate in this part anyways, as it will work fine with quite a big pH range