With using mhrb, did a STB using lye with a warm heptane pulls and had excellent results. Did the same for acrb and had poor results. Thinking that it needs a defat process and from what was posted it is done prior to basifying with naptha. The question is can ot be done post basifying and exactly what process would Be best. Thinking that it would be a cold naptha bath but needed feedback before moving forward.

I'm afraid that you won't be able to defat after adding lye, the only way would be to re-acidify it but you would need huge amounts of vinegar or a very strong acid like sulfuric acid.

I would recommend to make your pulls with naphtha and salt them with your acid:

- Pull with naphtha from your basified solution.
- Prepare an acidified solution, could be vinegar + water.
- Put your naphtha pull with your acidified solution and shake for a minute or so.
- Let the layers separate and remove the naphtha.
- Reuse naphtha for all your pulls, salting it each time in your acid solution.
- After you have salted all your pulls, add clean naphtha to the acid solution to defat it.
- Add your sodium carbonate or lye to your acid solution.
- Pull with clean warm naptha and into the freezer.

Ok. Lesson learned. Acrb is a different beast. Will see how the this will work. Thanks.
Anyone else has suggestions that would be a bit easier?

Hi ymer. great info.

Can you elaborate on "Reuse naphtha for all your pulls, salting it each time in your acid solution"?, and I will add it to the WIKI
Like, what ratio of water:vinegar and how much salt you use each time?

And blueskine, you could also try:
- Pulling with xylene or toulene, evap each pull
- scrap up goo and add to vinegar + water
- Resume from there.. Starting with your defat using naptha, then basefying

I don't think Ymer is saying to add any salt to his solution. When he says salting the solution he is referring to a change in the molecule from a freebase form (alkaline) to a salt form (acidic).

When you acidify in a polar solution (water) the impurities that are soluble in the non polar layer (naptha) don't carry over to the aqueous acidic solution. The DMT becomes soluble in the acid solution which will typically remain very clean and almost clear.

To pull with a non polar solvent the aqueous solution needs to be basified to make the DMT soluble in the NPS

Lextek has a detailed breakdown of the process for anyone that wants a step by step procedure.
Lextek

If you want, you can edit this page: WIKI -> Defat Process.

lol - :facepalm:

yeah, was getting the terminology of "salting" confused for the salting stage done pre-basing

I follow the rest

acidic=salt=soluble_in_polar
basic=freebase=soluble_in_non-polar

Thanks for the wiki link Cosmic Spore.

Does DMT go into the fat?

Thinking if you can seperate the fat layer after it is basified you can just pull with a non-polor solvent.

I'd imagine that would be problematic, unless you knew exactly what you were doing.

Read the WIKI link posted; I created that page of mostly quotes, after doing some searching.

The fat layer is removed prior to basification, during an acidic step.