Welcome!
I recently tried some alternative teks with small amounts.
- wet lime STB (1 part lime, 1 part rootbark and 7 parts water). Seems to be good. I simmered it in a hot water bath for a few hours and pulled while hot, haven't tried this cold yet. Very pure product, the crystals didn't even stick to the glass. But I suspect low yields... dropped my scales so I can't weigh accurately atm
- dry lime: (a moist paste of lime and rootbark powder, dried and ground) didn't work well with acetone or naphta.
- steam distillation of wet lime / rootbark. No good, lye might work better but hardly any spice is boiled off.
The STB tek with lye seems to be the most fool proof. If you have sodium carbonate and calcium hydroxide, you could make your own lye! It's an old slow process, I don't have the details but I can calculate the ratios if you want.
Heat some water containing sodium carbonate and lime for a few hours, decant/filter off the calcium carbonate that formed, and you have a lye solution. For this purpose it's probably not even necessary to remove the precipitate, the point is to make it stronger basic than plain lime!