So, I got some chips from IXxXO a few months ago. He was very helpful through the whole process and even sent a little trinket. Anyways, everything I have read about his chips has been positive and hinted towards 2% or so, but so far, after 3 100 gram extractions, each time I have yielded about 650mg of washed salts.

All extractions were done ala 69ron's dry tek. Xylene in place of Limonene. As a lot of people have said on this forum, I stuck to real solvents

Extraction #1

100g chips
25g CaOH (Mrs. Wages Pickling lime)
300ml Water
300ml Xylene (per pull) ((Klean Strip))

POWDERIZING and NON POLAR EXTRACTION

100 grams of cactus chips were ground in a metal coffee grinder to chop them up into smaller pieces to easier powderize in an electric coffee grinder. The chips were then ground in said grinder of coffee beans.

Powder was weighed after powdering to double check the 100g mark. Then added to a large Pyrex mixing cup with 25g Calcium Hydroxide. The mixture was homogenized thoroughly. Then 300ml of water was added 150ml at a time and mixed very well. The resulting mixture slightly resembled the texture of the playdough foam stuff. Kinda spongy.. The smell of ammonia was noted.

After basifying for 15 or so minutes, 300ml of Xylene was added and stirred into the Cactus mix.This was intermittently stirred and allowed to sit for several hours. The solvent was poured off and then further separated with a french press. 100ml of Xylene were never recovered from the cactus.

This has happened every extraction. The first pull loses about 100ml of Xylene. Subsequent pulls fully separate

I've read about adding dried Epsom Salts to release the Xylene, but haven't decided it was worth it.

Three pulls were done on the cactus with 300ml Xylene and each were almost a dark neon green. Kinda like absinthe. The NP was very clear and then transfered to a clean jar through a cotton packed funnel.

SALTING

10% HCL Solution
H2O

A 10% HCL solution was made by mixing 31ml of 31%HCL to 69ml of H2O for 100ml of a 10% solution. 5ml of this solution was added to 25ml of H2O, and this 25ml solution was added to one of the jars containing a Xylene pull. The jars were capped rubber side up and thoroughly mixed. After the slight emulsion clears, I repeat a few times. After the last separation, the contents of the jar is moved to a separatory funnel and the organic water layer is separated into the evaporation dish. Three saltings are performed on each pull. All saltings added to the same dish and evaporated under only a fan. Dried fully in 20 hours or so.

The scrapped up mescaline resulted in 854mg of a sticky-waxy, brown, very bitter substance. This was washed with freezer cold anhydrous Acetone 2X. The result was 650g of nice light tan mescaline powder. 99% IPA isn't available right now (haven't looked..) so I didn't try for completely white alks.


SO, what I have realized, is that
1) 100ml of Xylene always gets trapped on the first pull, dunno why.

2) I need alot more then 300ml of H2O to get my powder wet, but not watery.. I picture I saw on here the Phlux posted, I believe, look alot more like pizza dough than the spongy consistency I was getting. On the second two extractions, I added 300ml H20, then added more H2O slowly until I got about Phlux's consistency. I thought maybe my yield was low due to not basifying the cactus well enough, but I think I got the consistency right on the last two extractions..

3) I didn't have a PH meter, and I intend on buying one, but I fear that the suggestions of 20ml to 5ml 10%HCL solution is too acidic. I noticed alot of acid oxidation in the evap dish. On the second two extractions, I went with 25ml H2O and 5ml 10%HCL for each salting and still noticed a bit of oxidation, but not as much. I'm getting a PH meter.

I would really love some help/suggestions. I have read every single mescaline extraction thread on this site that contains good info, and honestly think that I may have just gotten a weak batch of chips from a reputable vendor.

Thanks for listening and for the help!

Peace and Love

PS
I WILL be trying to post some pictures of the process step by step. I noticed a bit of lacking in the mescaline pictorial department. Will do everything I can to help that!

I can second that...

I have done the extraction about a dozen times now, pretty much the same technique although I used vinegar and Limo, also grind the chips to powder, but probably not as fine as yours. My yields were pretty exactly 1% with the first cactus chips I ordered, without washing very light tan. Always failed washing, probably the Acetone contained water
Now with the 2nd Cactus chips I ordered, after the 3rd attempt or so I get about 3g dark brown from 200g of powder. I also, partly succeeded in washing the product to light tan color, about the same as the first were, but I loose a lot of substance when doing so. I now use MEK with excessive baked epsom salts inside. Although the MEK is then left to evaporate and grows a lot of xtals, which leads me to the conclusion that washing with either dry MEK or dry Acetone is not really a very efficient way of cleaning the mesc.

My Goal would be, slightly off white product and a reasonable way to wash the crude without loosing 50% of the product.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

PS: Another theory as to the loss of product when washing is that my mesc itself was not as dry as it should have been, not fully xtalized. So my recommendation to anyone who looses most of his yield in the acetone/mek wash, would be to make sure the mesc is properly dried out and of course the acetone/mek is DRY...

And any other reasonable way to clean, that one could experiment with, are welcome and will be tried here.

Thx in advance.

My problem seems to be before washing. I don't lose a whole lot when washing. If you have access to Klean Strip Acetone, it is for sure anhydrous. I just seem to not be able to pull much alks from the mix.

Im about to start drying my saltings separately so that I can see how much alks are left.

How high do you think the PH was? My best results have come from highly based solutions. I've never done 69ron's Dry Tek, so I don't know how high Calcium Hydroxide can raise PH.

The TEK I use adds more lye between pulls to increase PH.

Nanook says:



How do you know this for sure?

I've dosed sanchez that looked like coffee grinds as well as 2x cleaned "tan-chez" with similar results. I read somewhere that "properly" exracted crude mescaline hcl from STB teks is around 88% pure. "Properly" is very very subjective...I know.

wow your cactus potency blows

i wouldnt bother using something thats less than 3 percent, let alone 0.7%

waste of resources, time, and legitimacy

Yes definitly get a PH meter and also calibration solution to keep it properly calibrated.

Shoot for a PH of 6.8-7.0 after adding water to limo...PH will raise as alkaloids migrate so keep adding minute amounts of dilute acid andmix well till PH stabilizes at 6.8-7.0

If you do blind saltings(No PH meter) and want just the mesc alkaloids try 4 drops 10% HCL to 100 ML water...

69ron's tek is great but calls for way to much acid(Acetic or Hydrochloric)!! It pulls all kinds of non mesc alkaloids at his suggested acid concentration.

I have read that cutting the initial water to 150 ml instead of 300 aids in the recovery of the limo...But I have never tried this.

yes 150-200 ml is much more helpful , you want just enough water to allow the base to be dissolve and homogenously take effect upon the cactus substrate. excess water will lead to less of a yield per pull as mesc is hydrophilic and increasing the ph dosent work as well as limiting the water for it to be bound to

Excellent! can you give us a link in the suppliers section so we all can get our selves a non blow yield of some of this 3 % + goodness. seeds cuttings , chips. .

Thanks

not sure if I get that... maybe you could elaborate... Thats neither acidic nor alkaline... ?!
Also, even though I have a digital ph-meter, I can't really measure the hopefully high enough PH of the drytek, nor when salting does the Limo actually change PH, maybe the HCL/vinegar does , but then again adding more HCL/vinegar solution would give me excess HCL/vinegar, which is a pain to evaporate. I'd rather go for 3 or more saltings which fresh vinegar/HCL.
So basically I could measure the HCL/vinegar solution before adding to Limo and for the basified cactus I guess it doesnt really matter as long as its high enough and stays that way.
I tend to add lye-water in small amounts instead of regular water on top of the CaOH, to make sure its alkaline enough, but really as stated by jdf121, CaOH alone gives off quite strong ammonia smell. I can understand why the ph might drop again after a certain amount of time sitting with the cactus, but adding more lye water later doesnt seem to be an option since the consistency wouldn't allow for squeezing the limo out. Maybe I could start of with less water and gradually add more lye water to keep alkaline for enough time... Will try that.
Mashed potatoe/pasta press FTW... But all in all, sorry, I didnt learn a lot yet, reading the suggestions, but thx a lot for feedback anyway.

I don't want to waste my time, either. But the vendor seems very reputable in the suppliers section..

mew said:


Are you getting 3% from the outer flesh or the whole cactus?
Is that pure mescaline or full spectrum alks?

I'm guessing my Achuma are over 2%, but I've never extracted them so I don't know for sure. I have too much respect for them to chemicaly alter their perfectness.

I shoot for a pH of 5-6. Don't measure the limonene, measure the water. After you salt your limo with acid water (vinegar or HCL) shake it up real good. With a good shake, the pH will usually increase a bit. Let the water settle out of the limo and take a pH reading. If it's between 5-7 you should be good to seperate and evap. If it's too high, add more acid. Shake and repeat.

I add the limo back to the cacti base between each pull. This raises the pH back up, so I can salt it again with acid. If I don't do this step, the pH drops too low and pulls goo.

estimatedly around 2% for the whole (dry)
estimatedly around 1% inner white + core (dry)
measured 5% outter green flesh (1 foot yields ~9-11g outter flesh powder~ yields 400-600mg alkaloids)


i havent bothered extracting the whole thing nor the inner white area, its too impotent by bioassay to waste time, resources, and legitimacy.

however a slightly fumeric acidified tea is made from the core + white, then reduced and decanted

now thats what I call plausible and well expressed ! Except for two things that riddle me... I use pure 5% vinegar for salting, is that acidic in your opinion ? And then you write "I add the limo back to the base...", does that mean you actually re-use your limo for all 3 pulls ? Thx a lot...



5% for outer skin (which I have, dried, no cores), seems like I have a lot learn...

Ime, yes. Salting with 5% can be too acidic, but it depends what your starting pH was. Normally I dilute it with tap water. About a 4:1 ratio.



Exactly. You can reuse the limo quite a few times.