Chemical free mesc carbonate tek based on freeze precipitation:
Take 2 or more feet of san pedro and chop it up into stars. Slice the core and most of the white parts out of each star, then toss the green pieces with skin and spines still attached into a big pot.
Boil the cactus strips for an hour or so, then strain out the water with a spaghetti strainer. Start concentrating this extraction in a different pot while you pour more water over your cactus and give it another good boil for 45 to an hour or so.
Combine the extractions, and filter them through an old t shirt. Keep boiling off water and filtering until the brew has concentrated significantly. You should filter at least three or four times during this process.
In the meantime, take a shot glass and measure out however many feet of san pedro you used as shots of water in a glass bottle. Let's say you used 3 feet of SP; you fill the shot glass with water three times and put it all in a glass bottle, jar, or measuring cup. This is just to see what three shots of liquid looks like in the container you will put your pedro tea in.
When your pedro tea is concentrated to one shot of liquid per foot of cactus, leave it in the bottle and let it cool (do I really have to add a warning about being careful when pouring hot liquid into a room temperature bottle? use you own discretion here...).
If you leave it at room temperature for a few days, some unwanted gunk will settle out.
Throw that bitch in the freezer for a few hours, then throw the well frozen brew into the fridge.
Let it thaw slowly in the fridge. You actually could just cycle between fridge and freezer for a few days if you wanted. But the final thaw should be left to settle for a couple days to get the most out.
While the brew is still cold, pour it off carefully and steadily, trying to salvage the layer of precipitate on the bottom of the container. Some will always pour out with the brew, but with a little skill you can salvage most of it. Rotating the bottle while you pour can help keep most of the precipitate on the bottom.
Heat up some dH20 in the tea kettle, pour it in there and swirl around until it is dissolved. Just dump this onto a glass dish and let it evap. A heat lamp and a fan makes short work of the water. A blow dryer works too, for the impatient.
Sometimes when dried too fast, the residue scrapes up less crystalline and more like needles of transparent film. I wonder if this is freebase that has not reacted with c02 to form mesc carbonate. In any case, this can be avoided by waiting longer for the water to dry up, leaving the dry evap dish overnight, or just smashing up the film and crystals with a mortar and pestle.
I guess a coffee grinder would also work, but I bet half your yield would become airborne as soon as you began to grind.
Dosage is tricky. 600mg was well over threshold, but still left swim wanting more. Start with 500-800 I guess. You could handle 1000 I'm sure though.
The dosage issue is the one that really needs to be worked out now, but I guess it shouldn't make too big difference if you choke down one capsule or two, or at worst, three.
Oh yeah, you can throw the used brew back in the freezer for more crystals. Don't really know what to do with it after that though... it's probably too slimy to drink, but you should anyway.