swim has no access to ethanol, everclear or any very high alcahol - which a/b technique would be the best to try - swim would like xtals if possible and is not really too concerned about losses - swim is really starting to enjoy various extractions, and funnily enough, swim hardly takes the final product - watching xtals grow that have been extracted from bark or plant material is its own reward.

it's definitely a worthwhile experiment, and a great way of honing extraction skills.
all one needs is 5% acetic (vinegar), household ammonia, and engine starting fluid (mix of ether and heptane).

*please be VERY careful with the starting fluid...it's extremely flammable*

one would grind up the dried shroom material, and let sit in vinegar for a couple hours, with intermittent stirring (a magnetic stirrer would be ideal, but not mandatory). add ammonia to take the pH to between 8 and 9 (don't take the pH any higher, high pH will degrade the psilocin molecule, rendering it inactive), then add your solvent. swirl it around, then pour off the solvent to a dish for evap (repeat a couple more times, as you would for MHRB).

notes: keep your dish with solvent away from sunlight and sources of heat. psilocin is heat sensitive and undergoes auto oxidation in uv light from sun rays; in fact, it oxidizes from exposure to air (relatively slowly). once the solvent is evapped, store your product in an amber bottle, or put it in juice. or get some vitamin c (ascorbic acid) powder from a healthfood store, and make a solution to store the psilocin in.

*edit* chloroform or methylene chloride would be most suitable for the solvent, but naptha may work. the starting fluid would actually be better suited as a recrystallization solvent

bases available - calcium hydroxide, sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide
non polars available - naptha, xylene
acids available - hydrochloric, fumaric, citric and tartaric

what could be used in place of the ammonia ?
if warm naptha is used (i dont mind testing if it works - any refs to ppl that tried would be appreciated) could the psilocin be freeze precipped out of it ?

just out of interest - swim has none yet - but any opinions on wether d-limonene would work - swims getting some soon.

sodium carbonate.
the others take the pH too high (12-14), baking soda will normally take the pH to about 10, ammonia takes it to 11.

and I don't see why freeze precip wouldn't work. psilocin differs from dmt by just an OH group

Okay so just to confirm this.

Grind up fungus
Let it sit in pure food grade vinigar for say 12 hours shaking it like a mad person everytime u remember to over that time.
*should it be filtered here ?
Basify to about 8-9 with sodium carbonate (so which one 8 or 9 ?)
Add naptha and place extraction vessel in a warm bath (what temp should this warm naptha pull be ?)
Evap naptha down a bit and if psilocin acts the same way spice does it will probably start precipping out at some stage - at this stage the naptha is placed in the freezer and we see if it works.

At all times light and heat are avoided - how do i avoid heat when using warm naptha ? ?

this will produce a freebase - instead of keeping it in a freebase form cant i convert it to a salt thats more stable ?
can it be eaten in salt form or is freebase required for dosing ?

what will this extract consist of psilocin or psilocybin or both ?

i thought we had discussed this..but i dont think they can be freebased or salted like dmt or bufotenine..at least i thought i had read that on this thread

so swim peeped into his imaginary cupboard and found a 30g imaginary bag of fungus that was given to him by an imaginary friend.
these fungus suffered a major catastrophie, swims friend was apparently drying them in the oven - as he usually does (swim uses silica jel and a fan) and swims friends wife walked past and decided the oven door needs to be closed, these fungus have lost a hell of a lot of their potency and would be thrown away so instead of suffering that fate swim decided their best use would be something experimental. this fits the bill.
how much acetone should swim use to soak those 30g dry funky fungus ?

oh yeah sorry bout that, an active being worked with not being able to be in salt or freebase form is new to swim. reread that on page 1.
so what would the outcome be referred to ? what would its ph be ? does it even have a ph ? - this no salt no freebase thing is weird.

swim will take photos of the entire proceedure.if that helps anyone.

yeah...SWIM has no idea about how to work with the psilo's..perhaps somebody can help out

well swim is ready - just awaiting confirmation on how much vinegar to use.

SWIM has tried the cold everclear extraction mentioned earlier to some success. SWIM found it an intrigiung experiment worthy of further study. On 28 month old shrooms btw. Amazingly still potent they were, after more than two years in a drawer.
For long term storage forget extractions. Just get the shrooms crisp in a container with dessicant. Many teks on how this is done. Bag, tag, and store in cool dry place.

sorry this is what caused the confuzion







so - is there such thing as freebase psilocin ?

room temp naptha should work, just do about three 30 or 40mL naptha extractions.
i just mentioned 8 to 9 as a pH range, as a general area you should try to keep it in given the instability of psilocin.

the ascorbic acid solution you would prepare (just add water to vitamin c powder) would be your solution to add the psilocin for stability. vit. c is a good antioxidant.


and yes... there is such a thing as psilocin free base

the whole idea behind doing a/b is to first convert the psilocybin over to psilocin salt, then converting to a free base form (the "pure" form of the compound). the polar salt ions remain in the aqueous phase, and you extract the free base with a significantly less polar solvent.

okay last 2 questions before swim sends his monkey to start on this
how much vinegar should be used for 30g dried fungus
and do i filter the solution where i mentioned it.

???

what are the oxides of psilocin/cybin and can they be converted back to either psilocin/cybin via the zink route or would they be converted into something else - if so is that active ?

swim read that by heating up the solution (vinegar and mu) to about 60 degrees c then cooling it back down quickly would convert the psilocybin to psilocin - but this must be done fast or else the psilocin will start to break down.
apparently a ph of 8 would be good, and the ph should be adjusted very slowly.

yes, you're reading the same procedure I read, the extraction from fungal biomass.

everything you just wrote is accurate, and yes, one may filter just before basifying. the alkaloids will be in solution as an ionic salt.

it's fairly simple in principle, careful attention should be paid to titration (getting the pH to land in the 8 range). a pH meter is very convenient for this particular extraction.

thank u so much benzyme - swim is proceeding now.
Pics will be uploaded as the steps are taken.






i just found this and thought it was interesting enough to post here for everyone to read.
found here : http://www.maps.org/old_forum/2003/msg00141.html



René asked,

> understand. If an alkaloid needs to be converted into a fat-soluble
freebase
> before it can enter the brain then how does it do that?

Most strict water soluble compounds *are* excluded from the brain. The
secret is that psilocin is a slightly fat soluble at physiological pH.

Here's a little acid-base chemistry discussion for whoever's interested. I
hope its not too long-winded. It would help to review the
Henderson-Haselbalch equation.

Molecules that ionize by either giving up or accepting protons (except
strong acids like HCl and strong bases like NaOH) exist in an equilibrium
between the protonated form and the unprotonated form in aqueous solutions.
Whether the protonated form is charged or uncharged depends on whether the
molecule is a weak acid or a weak base. A weak acid (e.g. acetic acid) is
mostly protonated and hence mostly uncharged and hence fat soluble at acidic
pHs; it is unprotonated, charged, and water soluble at basic pHs. The
converse is true of weak bases like alkaloids. Let's assume for a moment
that psilocin is a simple weak base alkaloid. Each molecule has a
characteristic dissociation constant for the proton (acid dissociation
constant, Ka) whose value depends upon the chemical structure of the
molecule. The Ka is usually described in negative log form, pKa. When the
pH of the solution = the pKa of any molecule, precisely half the molecules
are protonated and half are unprotonated. For a weak base like psilocin,
the pKa is probably around 9.5. So at pH 9.5, half the psilocin would be
fat soluble and half would be water soluble. But the body is not at pH 9.5,
it is at pH 7.4. So the psilocin will be more protonated and therefore more
charged at physiological pH. Because the pH scale is a log scale, for every
pH unit you move away from the pKa, you get a 10-fold change in the number
of molecules that are protonated (or unprotonated, depending on which way
you move). Therefore, at physiological pH (7.4, about 2 log units away from
psilocin's pKa), there are about 100 protonated, charged, water soluble
psilocin molecules for each 1 unprotonated, uncharged, fat soluble psilocin
molecule. So about 1% of the entire psilocin population can penetrate the
blood-brain barrier at any given time. Of course, as drug crosses into the
brain, more becomes uncharged on the blood side to maintain the equilibrium,
so you always have 1% of the population that can cross. We know what
happens next.

But psilocin isn't a simple weak base molecule. To complicate things, the
hydroxyl group on psilocin is also subject to ionization, but I have no idea
what its pKa is.

To complicate things even more, Dr. Nichols once did an NMR study of the
conformation of psilocin in solution and reported that the side-chain amine
folds back to interact with the 4-hydroxyl group, so you could have some
sort of hydrogen bonding going on between the hydroxyl and the lone pair
electrons of the amine. That may drastically change the pKa.

> switch from a water-soluble salt form into a fat-soluble freebase. But
body
> fluids are normally sligtly acidic.

Actually, pH 7.4 is slightly basic.

Nicholas V. Cozzi, Ph.D.
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Brody School of Medicine
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27834

well, even by converting to a water soluble salt, the ionic salt will dissociate in the stomach, and psilocin will enter the bloodstream. psilocin does pass the blood brain barrier most likely via protein transport, and acts centrally (in the brain)

the extraction tech you read gives psilocin as a free base.
one could scrape up the product and cap it, and take as is, or store the caps in an airtight amber bottle

okay preceedure as planned has started.

the badly abused mushies taking this experimental journey

ground up to

the scale was actually bouncing between 28 and 29 so i think its about 28.5g
added about 450-500ml white vinegar

this is to be shaken up for the next good few hours.