Please forgive the placement of my question. I am a noob and don't have permission to operate outside of the Welcome Area.

I was reading a post by futura on getting better purity of mesc-HCL with salting at pH of 6.6-7.0 and that salting at 1.5 produces more junk.
https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=173120#post173120

Does anyone else have experience with this?

How do you make a solution of pH 6.6 when distilled water will become 5.5 when exposed to air?

SWIM just tried his first A/B over the weekend with miserable results. His limonene was not crystal clear, but very cloudy and a dark yellow. He probably had too much base (300g KOH for 3L from 1.8kg fresh Pedro). The results from salting produced a milky white bottom water layer that was difficult to separate and looked like a water/limonene foam. His dried crystals smelled and tasted like limonene and were only slightly tan, most likely from KCL contamination.

SWIM will try again, but he needs more research.

https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/d....aspx?g=posts&t=4001

By my understanding limonene is non-toxic, so why are you worried about them smelling/tasting like limonene? In his tek you will wash with acetone twice, then do a IPA wash leaving you with pure white mescaline HCL. Unless you can't get HCL anywhere.

I think the problem with the tek Futura did was that he/she scaled up the HCL for a larger extraction, making it a little bit more complex in terms of accurately measuring the chemicals. I would personally start small and get a successful extraction on a small batch, then go bigger.

From my understanding, he is referring to titration. I.e. add the water to the mescaline-containing nonpolar solvent, then slowly add your acid of choice dropwise until the pH is 6.6-7.

I have extracted mescaline in the past that smelled like limonene and was slightly orange-tinted. A couple acetone washes and an IPA wash cleaned it up enough for my standards.

Of course! I was so upset about SWIM's bad results that my brain must have stopped working.

Thanks for taking the time to help me see.
A degree in chemistry, but still a NOOB at this.