Thanks mate. I think I know what you're talking about now. So I just add enough sulfuric acid until the water/d-limo mix is a ph of 6-7? By doing this I will get just as much mesc out and not saturate the water with sulfuric acid. Is this correct?

yes

you'll add water to the limo, and a few drops of acid.
shake/stir well
use a pipette to test ph of the water layer(limo layer wont test accurately)
continue adding drops of dilute acid, shaking, and testing ph until the water layer drops down to ph 6-7
any lower and you will pull other things from the limo that you dont want

So have you run any trials with the PC yet? I know what you are saying about getting addicted to pulling mescaline. SWIM literally went crazy this summer. He made mescaline citrate, fumerate, acetate, hydrochloride, and sulfate from both Pedro and Achuma. Furthermore, for each one of those forms he made a full spectrum version and a pure version. Needless to say, his toughest decision is choosing which one to try.

Problem with spice extractions is they are so short and easy. SWIM basically does his in the background while he is doing more involved extractions.

I'm getting geared up to perform this extraction. I do have a couple questions first.

Will this tek work on dry powder? What amounts of solvents will one need relative to the cactus portion?

yes, just be sure to let the mix boil until the foaming stops before using pc

as for amounts of solvents, that pretty variable.
i use a 1" layer of np for 4.5 gallons of tea(in a 5gal bucket- approx 1/2-3/4 gal), but never measure
approx
3-4gal water per kg of dried powder(wet tek)

OK cool. And what about the dry acetone? I see that the acetone must be dry for this to work. I understand that the mescaline is soluble in water so having a wet acetone would mean loss of product. I did some research on making dry acetone and it looks like that is the only way I can get it. Using a dry Epsom salt to absorb the water then collecting the solids.

If there is water in acetone, to make it a liquid why can't the acetone be frozen and poured off away from the frozen water? Also if the acetone is dry what is happening in the picture in the OP where the mescaline+acetone is being stirred and why is it wet? I think this stuff is the only thing I'm having issues with.

its a pita imo, so i use a less water sol salt (sulfuric, which is almost totally insoluble in cold water)
any salt other than hcl should be carefully titrated to avoid over having left over acid(really you should only use as much acid as needed with any of them to avoid gunk)

either way, use ice cold tone to wash/rinse or crash

edit:
acetone and water are too miscible for freeze or other easy separation.
like how liquor wont freeze even tho there is a bunch of water in there

not familiar with this particular "tek" to be more specific to your other Q's

You know I still haven't gotten around to it! Working full time these days, as well as being a broke ass has put a damper on these activities for me. Not to mention my living situation is less than ideal for science class, AND on top of that I'm on formal probation so either way I have to do these things at friends houses. None the less, as soon as I have $300 to burn on some more goodness from Icaros and a PC I will get busy and definitely post it in this thread. I really just can't wait to see how beautiful a plate of 10 grams of shiny white mescaline crystals will look like! As for trying all the different salts I've tried hcl and fumerate, but think I'll stick with sulfate because of how simple it is to clean.

On a side note I just germed probably 100-200 PT seeds from Icaros!! 5 years from now it shouldn't matter if I'm broke or not I'll have cactus coming out of my ears. Anyone reading this have any experience with those seeds?

Can You give me an example of how to perform such a procedure?

Perfect. Thank you.

So I've attempted this tek myself.

I used xylene, as I can't get d-limo. Because of that, I actually built a fume hood using a centrifugal blower, a carbon filter and a large transparent plastic container. I hanged the carbon filter on the inside and drilled a hole through which I connected the ducting from the carbon filter to the blower on the outside. I drilled two more holes to put my hands through, and, voila, the ultimate fume-hood. Nothing can escape it - the hand-holes strongly pull air in. The output is as fresh as the prince of Bel-Air, so I never really had to smell that horrible xylene.

I used about 10 feet of peruvianus and another 10 feet of pachanoi (pedro). I only had three ~3 liter glass containers. I reduced the peruvians to fit in two of them, and the pedros to fit in one, since the peruvianus is much fatter. I based the shit out of the teas, putting around 250-400 grams in each of the containers. I was weighing the lye at first, but soon gave that up, as that stuff, being in powder form, is a nightmare to work with. It just gets everywhere. So I eye-balled it.

Now I put a 200 ml of xylene into each container. The peruvian teas separated just fine, but the pedro did not! I got the very same phenomenon Ekstasis, who also used san pedro, described earlier in this thread: a black layer at the bottom, a thick emulsion layer, and an insignificant thin layer of xylene. I tried adding more base to no avail. I didn't really measured, but I probably put around 500-700 grams of lye in the pedro container. I also added 200 ml more xylene, which just made the emulsion layer thicker. So I'm thinking maybe san pedro cacti have an inherent problem with this tek. Could it be so?

Moving on, the peruvian torches, while behaving as expected, yielded insultingly small results: only about a 1-1.5 gram of dirty sanchez.

I also couldn't properly wash it. The acetone did wash away some brown, but after a few washes it became apparent that I was left with light brown material that wouldn't be washed any further - the acetone came out clear. I suspect this is because I tried to wash chunky crystals rather than powdering the sanchez beforehand, I didn't realize it was important.

These are my grim findings. I'll try again if I can find some bridgesii, I suppose it really is the proper way to go.

With a fume hood in hand you might as well gas your mescaline out. Comes out of the xylene white that way if you also have a sep funnel. You still want to wear goggles and a gas mask designed for acid vapor, but with a fume hood I would never do it any other way. My .02

can someone comment on what amount of vinegar should be added prior to boiling in relation to amount of cactus? ie 100ml per 12" cutting? or 100ml per 100g dry?

also what is the advantage of koh over naoh? is koh available in stores if so where might it be found?

thank you

Just add enough to make soup with it. Doesn't have to be exact. Not sure on what the science is behind KOH working better it just does. It breaks up the slime and causes less emulsions than NaOH. You can buy it off the internet in a pure product or if you'd rather go to a Hydro store and buy some PH up that is atleast 30% KOH. GrowMore for instance has PH up that is 30%KOH

there is no need to add any acid during boils ime

I've now attempted this tek for myself and there's a few things I want to check:

On evaporation of the acidified water (hcl) with pulled alkaloids I'm getting a sticky substance resulting, it may just be a matter of leaving it a little longer to evap, I'm not using a heat source for evap just a fan, but has anyone else experienced this.

I did 4 PC cycles of my San pedro powder & at the end of that it was still quite bitter so I did a long boil of what was left & processed the water from that seperately (base, limo, acid) That's yielded some solids - haven't weighed yet but it looks not insignificant & the cactus powder still tastes bitter.

I'm a little puzzled as I thought the PC would pull any alkaloids from the cactus into the water, but there seems to be a lot remaining.

Only thing I can think of is this - I've got an aluminium PC so I put the cactus & water in a stainless steel bowl inside the PC, after pc cycle cactus & water had seperated with about 99% of water staying in the bowl. Could this have affected it or have I just got very PC resistent cactus powder?

Heavenly,
Most informative tek. A few small quick questions...I hope you don't mind.

When the mass was first added to the pressure cooker, he says to add vinegar. How much approximately?

Did he add the vinegar and then apply heat? Or did he just stir with said vinegar until it turned that browner color?

On the 2nd and 3rd mass pulls, is no vinegar added ? Just distilled water?

Near the end of the tech, he says that the yield shown in the picture was of the first hcl pull...and then suggests to do 3 more saltings.... Does that mean th yield shown is the first 20-25ml hcl? And to complete the full 100ml? Or to do 3 more 100ml saltings?

Last question... If one was missing their 3rd weight ring for 15 psi on pressure cooker, could they run said cooker on 10psi for a different amount of time and if so....how much?

My most humble thanks in advance for your answers or anyone else's Answers on these questions.


-=Archmage=-

So, moving further along, SWIM who followed the first 9-10 steps of this process to the letter, and am at the point where the tea has been based and the d-limo solvent layer was added. The solvent layer was about 2 - 2.5 inches on approximately 950ml of reduced triple PC pull with approximately 200-250 grams of lye added. (SWIM says approximately, because didn't have a scale that does that much in grams - so figured out weight ratios and made as close as possible.)

The bottle was given an excellent shaking and left to settle, however layers did not separate within 5-10 minutes - not even within an hr.

Assuming it was possibly not based enough, more base was added, diluted within 4oz of water - approximately another 100g of lye.

The concoction was then turned over several times, gently - and left to sit for approximately 10-12 hrs.

Pictures taken are from 10-12 hrs later.... What does anyone suggest?

Is there anything that can be dones, it appears emulsive in nature and currently as it is laundry day, said emultion is sitting on the dryer for gentle vibration stimulation.

Please see pictures below and advise:



-=Archmage=-

First, I'm not very experienced with cacti extraction, but with DMT extractions, you can add sea salt to help break emulsions. I typically add 2 heaping tablespoons per Liter of basified solution.