anhydrous acetone: use epsom salt; bake it in the oven for 30 min-1hr? to remove any moisture and then after it has cooled, add it to a safe container with acetone, shake it up a bit and if i remember correctly you now have 99%+ anhydrous acetone, perhaps someome can comment with actual weight or proportions, its been a long time for me

anhydrous acetone:

or, just use a salt form that isn't very soluble in cold water

Approximately 20 drops of 10% HCL added to 1200ml of d-h20 to acheive a pH of 5.7 to 6, then:
Acidic solution added to the 1L(approx) of Xylene, shaken for 3-5 minutes, then left until layers have separated.

I use a Braun electric stirrer I got at a garage sale for 6 bucks... Put your xylene and salting water in a large glass pitcher and stir it up for five minutes...Then check PH and keep at it till ph stabilizes at 6.6-7.0..(Remember ONLY check PH of Salting Water...any Xylene or D-Limo or other NP solvents will mess up PH reading!!!)

[quote=CAPTAIN HYPERSPACE]A small amount of the bottom HCL solution tested for a pH of 7, and if correct:
Left to sit overnight for the mescaline to migrate fully (with repeated shaking over this time)?

No just let it sit and do not shake or stir so emulsions seperate and alkaloids fully migrate...You can then after that check PH again and carefully bring it back down to PH of 6.6-7.0 if there were so much alkaloids present the PH rose over that after letting it sit for 24 hours...be carefull though...at this point a single drop of even 10% HCL can push the PH way too low again!!!

[quote=CAPTAIN HYPERSPACE]The bottom layer drawn off and (either) placed on low heat hotplate to reduce amount of water, or left under a fan till evaporated, followed by the anhydrous acetone/IPA washes.

I suggest being patient and using no heat while evaporating...you will get bigger cryatals which will have less plant oils in them and be easier to clean...


[quote=CAPTAIN HYPERSPACE]*** SWIM wonders, if the amount of basified d-h20 can be reduced to say 2L instead of 4L, with whatever amount of NaOH required to get the pH to between 12-14, instead of pH 11 as in last extraction, or is 11 fine?

Get PH to 12.0 at least(It will produuce less of an emulsion layer at 12.0 to 12.5) and yes you can reduce liquid by simmering at 150 Deg Farenheit...Watch temp and be carefull as you can easily burn alkaloids and lose potency...

[quote=CAPTAIN HYPERSPACE]***SWIM wonders, when using approx 20 drops 10% HCL solution added to 1200ml of d-h20, is this only added once to the Xylene, pulled and evapped, or is this amount split and 3 x 400ml pulls performed before combining and evapping?

Use all 1200 ml at once if titrating with ph meter...smaller amounts are better for blind salting(Just guessing your PH and having no PH Meter)...

[quote=CAPTAIN HYPERSPACE]Also, if the amount of basified d-h20 used IS reduced to say 2L instead of 4L, would the 1200ml of acidified solution also be halved...

NO...1200 ML should get all the goods in one salting if titrating...but you can always save xylene and salt again to be sure...Remember though that the xylens will have a lot less alkaloids in the second salt so way less acid will probably be needed to not go under ph 6.6

Just realized that all of futura's very helpful salting dilutions are based on weight / weight calculations.

So let's say that you find muriatic acid at a hardware store. The bottle says 30% HCl. Now let's get more specific here; 30% of what measurement is HCl?

It turns out that the 30% is calculated from the weight of HCl gas divided by the total weight of the solution (which is HCl gas weight + water weight). For instance, 30g HCl / (30g HCl + 70g water) = 30% (weight/weight)

So when futura is talking about making a 10% HCl solution from the store bought HCl, which reads 30% on the label, futura is sticking with the weight/weight (or w/w) designation of percentage when he says mix 33 mL of 30% HCl with 67 mL of water. This is essentially a (1/3) dilution of the original 30%. 30% (w/w) multiplied by a dilution factor of (1/3) equals 10% (w/w).

Now you're thinking, yeah so?

Well, if you think you can just take a shortcut and buy 10% HCl that is fine but beware that it could actually be 10% HCl (volume/volume). In other words a 10% dilution of the original store bought 30% HCl solution by volume and not by weight.

This means that, for example, 10 mL of the 30% store bought HCl solution was added to 90 mL of water. Or in other words a (1/10) dilution factor using volume/volume as the meaning of percentage. ** This would actually be the equivalent of a 3% (weight/weight) HCl solution **

So, to get straight to the point it will change your calculations of how many drops of HCl to add per however many hundreds of mLs of water used depending on how the percentage of your HCl solution is measured; whether its (weight of HCl / weight of solution) OR (volume of original stock HCl / volume of solution).

Please, if this is totally wrong, let me know, but this is what I'm decyphering from reading through these threads