Thanks CYB, I think i'll do that.

At what stage do you add the salt? After you've added the MHRB. Also, what container do you use. I find it's hard to get a good container for small amounts. A 2-litre milk carton might work, but if the water level is too low, it's almost impossible to get my syringe in to pull it out.

How many 35ml pulls do you do?

Thanks man

EDIT: I'm confused, lye raises the PH?

6 pulls exhausts it...
1st 2 pulls get 85%

Have a read of the 'Salt' post in general xtracts...
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=32567
Add salt 1st (dissolved in water) and then bark..then lye. (salt anytime really)

Kit list in pic...use a glass 1 litre drinks bottle or a large pickle jar from £ shop

edit: Yes lye raises the ph...this is what you want for an STB Tek (straight to base...base = alkaline)

So if you let your jar separate into 2 layers and you pull up only naphtha, can there possibly be any lye in there?

Check out the FAQ.

And Vovin's Tek. the washing step.


Best of luck!

So I used the cake method and ended up letting it dry and switching to simple A/B extract.
While adding the lye a few very interesting things started happening I snapped some pictures.

Just a note on the PH scale for you:

The pH scale goes from 1 to 14,
1 being very acidic -(Battery acid,Lemon Juice,Nitric,Sulphuric,Hydrochloric,Alien Blood)

7 being neutral (Water)

and up to 14 being very alkaline (basic)-(Caustic Soda (Lye),Ammonia,Baking Soda,Oven Cleaners.)

The pH scale is (loosely speaking) a measure of the concentration of free-floating hydrogen ions in a solution.

cyb,

Do you cover that pyrex dish with anything when you put it in the freezer?

Also, do you use heated pulls? i.e put the solution in a heat bath while the solvent separates.

Yes I cover the dish with food wrap, pulled tight to stop any water drop/vapour getting in. (elastic band if necessary)

I have done heated pulls which create yellow Nap and pull oils etc along with the spice....
Heat bathing the mix will increase the overall saturation of the Nap BUT in the end you will probably have to Re-x the result as it tends to be yellow sticky/goo along with the snow globes...Not such a bad thing if you like smoking the yellow gear.

I lean towards pulling clear-ish nap after around 4/5 agitation/settle rotations.( takes an hour) No heating
This yields whiter/cleaner spice.
I usually pull 3 times in the 1st day and have 3 dishes overnight freezing...the 4th Pull I leave in the bottle overnight and agitate it everytime I pass the bottle, Then pull in the morning after I have dried (thoroughly with a fan) and harvested the 3 dishes.
5th and 6 th pull similar. (maybe heat these to help them along)

If you go well with 50gs bark xtract...just keep doing the 50's....Big xtracts can be a waste if something goes wrong.

Could I ask Snozz at this point why you shifted this thread to the For FAQ's Sake area?

I understand that the OP should have just gone through the FAQ etc... but helping a fellow out with much needed info on his first xtract is useful, not only to him but to others that may be reading...

After all we are all here to Learn Share and Expand....Yes?

OK it could be renamed and held under the General Extractions 'Help' area but now it is lost in a sea of FAQ noob posts..

Up to you of course as a Mod....but there is some useful info in there too.

Just IMO naturally..

Looks suspiciously like an emulsion of bubbles caused by the exothermic reaction of the lye and water...
Perfectly normal....and quite pretty
I assume it calmed down after a few mins and re-settled.

There were multiple posts in that thread that are all easily answered with some basic reading in and around the FAQ/Wiki/Major threads, etc. There was nothing new or "important" in that thread that is not already covered elsewhere on the forums.

This was not a case of a tricky issue that needed troubleshooting or a question about more vague aspect of extraction (there are actually a few of those threads currently active in the general extraction section at this moment), this was a case of a lack of proper understanding about the extraction process. This understanding that could have easily been attained through basic research in some prominently-displayed areas of the forum.

Part of the reason for this thread was that myself, the other mods and Trav, as well as the senior members were feeling that the forums have become rather cluttered with posts that don't really add much to the content of the forum and are often the result of a lack of proper research. This thread serves to both help keep the forums clean of those types of threads/posts overall by consolidating them in one place, as well as to indicate to those members posting such threads/posts that they should do some more research.

Hope that makes sense.

Of course....makes sense to me....I noticed over 32.000 posts in the Help section.
It must be very frustrating seeing the same old questions arise daily from newcomers who don't scan through the rest of the site. ( Everything is there for the finding)
I just thought the Help section would be a good place to 'rest' our thread.

Perhaps it may be of use to have a 'Separator' line between posts/threads that reside in the 'For FAQ's Sake' thread, so that returning posters can find there original post more easily. As opposed to trawling through the mish-mash.
Just a thought...

Final question

After you add the MHRB to the solution, how long to you wait for the DMT freebase to break out before doing your first pull?

Thanks for the help dude

At least an hour or so...shake and leave x 4..then add the Nap
I have started pulling after only 30 mins...but longer is better.

It did eventually calm down but at one point it looked like it was shooting crystals from the lye/water into the naptha. Unlike my first extraction this one isn't looking so pure any tips on purifying?

Will too much lye cause the solvent to fail to separate?

No..shouldn't do....You can't really 'Over Basify' (too much lye)
So non separation could be due to it being not watery enough?

Once it took a while to separate when I used a lot of Salt...but it eventually did and was OK from then on...

Thanks cyb, you've been a great help man!

Not to repeat the whole point of the thread but this again could have been answered by simply reading the FAQ

No Probs dude... Sorry we had to end up here in the 'FAQing Trash Can' (no offense Snozz...just light hearted banter)