I was working on a cactus water extract but had to put the half finished extraction in storage (room temperature) for about 4 months. It was a jar half filled with cactus water (no cactus bits). I was pretty careful to try to strain everything out. When I opened the jar, it fizzed a bit as if it was pressurized, though it looked and smelled as it did when I first made it. Do you think this extraction is safe to use if I boil it down to resin or should I throw it away? I don't want to kill myself but I also don't want to waste a good foot of cactus.

ive had this happen many times... what youve got there is a cactus beer
some bacteria inside has been creating co2 as a biproduct and now your brew is slightly fermented and alcoholic. i would not drink it like that, since the obviousness of the bacteria yet the uncertainty of its safety i would at the very least bring it to a boil (you may have to add a bit more water just so it dosent "gum up" on you) or i would make it totally anhydrous into resin (bacteria cant live in an anhydrous environment) or i would do an a/b extraction

its still good alkaloids however the solution is a bit funny, no biggie. i think its kind of comical to open up an old jug and have it fizz


to avoid that in the future you can bring your brew to a boil and pour it into a clean plastic vessel (ie water bottle/etc)
squeeze the bottle until the liquid is at the very top then put the lid on and seal it. this leaves negligable amounts of air that would have bacteria to potentially proliferate in your solution. since you boiled it most likely you eliminated all living microbes (minus some odd case of extremophiles) and due to the lack of air there is very little chance for bacteria to exist within the container.

santo daime does this with their aya before shipping it around the world, or so i am told. ive done it with aya and pedro brews. they stayed fine and didnt fizz even months after re-opening.


note every time you open them its a good idea to bring to a boil again if you plan on drinking it in the future (then squeezing and recapping) otherwise the alkaloids are still retrievable but youll want to filter out the bacterial growth with something

basic environments and low acid (ph being less than 4) arent a suitable environment for bacteria, as such they wont proliferate within it. minus the case of certain extremophiles, however unlikely in your kitchen

Thanks mew! I didn't put it in a basic environment though, it was just water. I'll add some water, reboil it, and try to boil off the rest of the water.

4 months, yuk

its just one foot of cacti? toss it and start over!

To can kill any bacteria one may add Isopropyl alcohol and then boil off liquid, making sure there is no smell of residual alcohol in the resin. Some people would be concerned of IPA in end product, SWIM however, wouldnt be as IPA evaps pretty readily and cleanly.