Hello,

After finding these pages as a result of a google search for changa recipes I found the answers to my initial questions with ease. In doing so however, additional knowledge was acquired that led to more questions, which led to reading more of the wise words of some of my fellow Nexians and so on...

I decided that making changa with "some" spice from "some" guy wasn't going to suffice, I would "have" to extract the spice myself... Actually, I am convinced that there will be more satisfaction and appreciation, both here as in hyperspace, if I perform the extraction myself...

Weeks of "studying" and weeks to come, maybe months, but I am getting there...
I have some questions floating around in different threads so I hope it isn't necessary to repeat them here - time will tell...

However, there are some random questions that I find no, or contradicting, answers to even after extensively consulting faq and wiki, reading various threads from beginning to end and using the search function a lot as well...(these all arose while reading various threads but weren't answered afaik)
It didn't seem appropriate to start threads in faq for these...

1 Are all harmalas active when smoked/vaporised or only harmaline?
2 Is there dmt n-oxide in goo or not? (i know of the reduction using zinc, but does anybody actually do it or is it "only" theory?)
3 How long/often can a glass vessel safely be used to hold the basic solution? I am referring to non-lab grade bottle/jar...(etching of glass visible before shattering?)
(and on a more personal note)
4 How did the non-chem savvy among you experience the learning process when first discovering these pages? I find that sometimes learning one thing leads to three more things that still need to be learned, and so on...

If I can, even though it will be my first series of extractions (10 x 100 gr mimosa), I will play around with some parameters in such a way that qualitative and quantitative comparisons can be made.

PLUR

1. harmine and harmaline (and prob THH) definitely are and they are probably the 2 main ones your gonna come across
2. goo can easily be DMT, I think some people think that goo must be oxide but I don't think this is true.
3. in 2 years I have only had 1 normal glass jar break, I don't know what caused it, could be the basic solution or heat, either way I need a new carpet
4. I messed up a couple of extraction but didn't take long to get it down. I now don't understand how I went wrong.

for your first extractions just do exactly what the tek says do not deviate at all until you have success. I have read quite a few post where people say "for my first extraction im gonna do tek X but change this bit because I think it will be better" then they come back and wonder why it didn't work. The teks are tried and tested, so just do as instructed and you will be fine.

if I was you I would follow cyb's salt tek, then try his max ion tek.

hope that helps

edit- what does PLUR mean?

PLUR stands for "peace, love, unity and respect"

And thank you 3rdl for pointing out that I shouldn't mess around too much and follow my chosen tek to the absolute t, which is in fact Cyb's A/B salt tek...
However, it is possible that I will have to do it "cold" but I would like this not to affect my yield too much, so I was thinking of doing a much longer acid soak combined with repeated freeze/thawing the acidic solution...

Also thanks for the reassurance regarding the glass - now all I have to worry about are the possible effects of the basic solution touching the lid/cap during agitation and selection of suitable cap/lid (possibly there is a risk but it's negligible?)

thanks, I thought it would be something like that.

I think the acid soak and freeze thaw are already sufficient, if you have to do it cold then I think it would just mean doing more pulls as the solvent will pick up less magic per pull.

Thanks, I'll add this to my notes as I won't have a computer at my disposal when extracting... More pulls, keep them in longer as well perhaps...

Is there more risk of emulsions forming when doing it cold? I know the salt should prevent this from happening, just making sure...

heat is useful to clear an emulsion but as long as you don't shake it you should be fine, just turn it end over end.

I would go with 6 pulls of the normal length, then freeze precip and see where you are yield wise. Then if you are falling short I would keep pulling until there nothing being retrieved.

Just to reiterate what may have already been said
Find a reliable tek and follow it carefully .
If you do your research and follow directions there's no reason for failures .

Use hot water bath for any heating never expose glass
To direct heat .

Over time a feel develops for the whole process .
Never forget solvents are very flammable and have strong
Fumes in closed spaces. Always plan ahead study the teks .

Many times goo can be evaporated with a fan when spread around
On Pyrex surface to harder useable wax texture . Always give plenty of
Time for evaporation . The more pure the final result the better .

Making it is the easy part , it's dealing with what it shows you and
Integrating that into this reality frame is where it gets tricky .