Alright, I'm about to extract 114g of mimosa. I usually use 15ml/g and that works out well with powdered bark. I also use 114g of lye.

My question is, I've only got a gallon container around suitable for extraction. I was wondering if my extraction would be just as successful if I used something like double the water I usually use.

This is for the sole purpose of making it easier to work with the naphtha at the top of the container.

I figure I can double the water and use the same amount of lye (114g) the extraction should yield about the same.. much less chance of an emulsion as well. With that much lye the soup should be plenty basic.

Any input?

Doubling the water is a good idea for a couple reasons, so definitely do that.

The only thing is you might need more base for that volume of water. You might not.

If you find your solution doesn't turn jet black and your naptha doesn't separate from it almost instantly, you just need to add some more lye.

Either way it will work.

sounds like a plan, thanks.

Is that a rule of thumb that the layers separate only if their is enough lye in the mixture? My layers usually separate just fine. My latest problem is when I added the naphtha and rolled it in the mixture for a couple minutes I put it in the freezer for about 2 days and no crystals dropped out. So I added about 750 ml water to 60g powdered MHRB and 60g lye. So I just added more water to a total of about 1000ml water, added more naphtha and rolled that around for twice as long to try to pick up the DMT, so I guess I will see in the morning if anything is working.

Well that seemed to work! Just adding the water and letting the NaOH MHRB solution sit for a day. Now I have a jar full of crystals.

Swim had issues with no xtals precipitating but it was because too much naptha was added, the solvent was not sufficiently saturated to allow crystals to precipitate, thought it was worth a mention!

Related to this topic, I'm attempting my first STB soon, with 100 g MHRB. I can use either a 3 liter or a gallon (5 l.) HDPE container, and since it is pre-powdered bark, in order to make the solvent pulls easier I will use 1,5x or 2x the water suggested in Noman's Tek. That is, 2,25 liters or 3 liters of water.

Like house mentioned, it might or might not be necessary to increase the amount of NaOH when adding more water to the solution. He observes that by judging the color of the solution one might decide whether staying with (in my case) 100 g NaOH or using 150-200 g instead is the best option. Since I am a noob when judging solution colors, I wanted to ask you veterans. Which way would you go?

a.- 100g powdered MHRB, 100g NaOH, 2.250ml water in the 3 liter container.
b.- 100g powdered MHRB, 150g NaOH, 2.250ml water in the 3 liter container.
c.- 100g powdered MHRB, 100g NaOH, 3.000ml water in the gallon container.
d.- 100g powdered MHRB, 200g NaOH, 3.000ml water in the gallon container.

Using hexane as solvent, intending to use 50ml per pull.

Thank you for any input

Edit: Went with the first option, just to make the pulls easier, and decided to chill the f*** out with minimal details and just try and go see what happens.

@Vodsel How does hexane differ from naptha as far as what it pulls? I am looking for an alternative to naptha since I can no longer find naptha at my local hardware store. I dont even know where to get hexane either but I just want to know in case I find it one day.