Hi,

SWIM is using 50g of mimosa hostilis powder and using the noman tek to extract some spice. She is sure she followed instructions carefully and measured out all the ingredients accurately, using the correct ratios. she put the 3 jars into her freezer two nights ago, but when she took it out this morning, she barely saw any crystals, and the naphtha was very watery (nothing was frozen so no water got in). the noman tek guide said that she'd have "collection of snow globes waiting for you in the morning", so she's worried she did something incorrect. also, the next step says that when pouring out the naphtha, paste will stick to the wall the jar. she agitated the naphtha, but it seems too watery to be pastey. she placed the jars back into her freezer. is everything in her experiment ok? maybe she is just being paranoid because it took her quite some time to acquire the materials. could someone help her? she thanks everyone in advance!

did you put each pull into a seperate jar? with 50g of bark you should only be expecting half gram of dmt at best. sounds like you have too much solvent just evaporate it down to half the volume and combine all the pulls into the same jar. you can tell if its really saturated by blowing on top of the solvent a few times it should cloud up slightly.

ok, im gonna cut the SWIM crap haha. yes, i did put each pull into separate jars. the guide said to use 1 mL per gram, so I used 50 mL for every pull, and put each pull into an empty jelly jar. i don't have access to the jars (they're at my dad's house, i will be going there tomorrow), so i cannot check to see if its saturated. instead of evap. and combining, can i just pour all the naphtha from the 3 jars into a wide, rectangular pyrex dish and leave that in the freezer for a few nights?

no not really the problem is your solvent to dmt ratio.....too much solvent. put all 3 pulls into a pyrex dish and evap it down to half at least this will solve your prob. it may not cloud up when you blow on it but you definately need to evap down, did you manage to find lye crystals or did you use something else?

ahhh now i understand. how long will it take for the naphtha to evap if i just leave it sitting on my desk? after i evap, how long should i leave the pyrex in my freezer for? i found lye crystals at truevalue. they dissolved well in water

well if its only 150 ml in a pyrex dish it shouldnt take too long just dont use a fan to try and speed it up, it will blow all kinds of crap into your solvent. sounds almost like you got some crappy bark but try the evap first even with crappy bark you should get something back.

dont put the pyrex in the freezer just dump it back into the jar and cover it. to minimize spills i usually use the turkey baster and suck it out of the dish

ok, last question. i should evap half, then pop it back into the freezer for a night or two? thanks for your help!

ya put the jar back in the freezer covered it shouldnt take long with such a small amount overnight would be more than enough. then when you run it through the coffee filter just evap the left over solvent

ahhh ok. last laaast question. i probably do have crappy bark. whats the best place to buy bark online?
thank you for all your help!! it sucks being really noob

not too sure it depends on which country your in, im in canada and have tryed bouncing bear they werent bad but they are in the states. plus it depends on the batch they have it can vary alot. i personally wouldnt buy pwdered because you dont know what your getting. but some people on here buy lots of powdered without problems. check out the suppliers thread and before you order from anyone do a search on the company to find out if people are getting ripped off by the company or shitty service or whatever.....good luck hope it works out for ya and remember dont throw anything away

ahh i see. i have another question. when i poured the naphtha from two jars into the third one, i saw that there were some crystals stuck on the bottom of the two jars. should i leave those crystals in there until i have evaped the third jar, put it back in the freezer, and then throw in the remaining crystals into the coffee filter to wash?

*EDIT* also, i blew on the jar containing the combined naphtha and it clouded up fairly quickly. does this mean its really saturated?

yep if you have crystals keep em, but you should have only 1 jar with all 3 pulls in it. make sure your frigde/freezer is set to the coldest possible and your jar is at the back where the cold air blows in. if its clouding up your good, prob just not cold enough. DONT WASH THE CRYSTALS RECRYSTALIZE THEM. recover what you can in your filter and let dry then read the recrystalization tek ill help ya through it

ahh thanks for the info! i have a problem now. i let my combined naphtha jar sit open on my desk overnight....but nothing evaporated. i measured the amount of liquid before i opened the jar, which was 4cm. Now, after about 9 hours, my ruler reads 4cm again!! Ahh! maybe I have to give it more surface area? Should I pour into a pyrex and back into the jar? Also, the crystals that were on the bottom of the combined jar are gone!! They just disappeared overnight...temperature maybe? I haven't taken a chemistry course yet....so yeah, I've only learned what I've read on wiki. Thanks for the help!!!!

just toss it in the freezer if its clouding up sounds like your good to go

ok, i left the jar in my freezer for about 15 hours....its still watery... i blew on the naphtha and the solvent clouded up....what now?

well it sounds like your freezer may not be cold enough, if all else fails just put it in a pyrex dish and evap it all. then recrystalize the goods

nah, my freezer is very very cold. the ice cream in my freezer is hard as a rock. i think i'll just evap + recryst. Thanks for all your help! Now I know what to look out for during my second legit attempt of extracting spice.

ok, so i came back from vacation about 3 days ago. during that time, i left all the jars in my freezer. when i got back, i poured the naphtha into a dish and let it sit. today, i checked on it, and it seems to me that a lot has evaporated. the naphtha is kinda pastey. should i take the remaining naphtha, pour it back into the jar, and store it in the freezer for a few nights, or let it completely evaporate?

alright, so i let the naphtha dry out. the dish i am using now has little bits of long yellow crystals and a few really big ones. could you please walk me through the recrystalization steps? thanks!!