While watching someone perform cybs a/b salt hybrid extraction, she was heating a quart mason jar after stiring in the lye and the bottom of the jar broke.

The Jar was in a stainless steel pan with enough water for heat bath, but resting directly on the steel pot, with ceramic burner on. Obviously it was too hot! Im thinking the direct contact to the metal was the issue... The sudden break caused the jars contents to mix with heat bath water. Luckily there was enough room to contain all the fluids. Sadly resulted in an emulsion that never stopped expanding and was discarded after trying to get it to stop to no avail.

A lot of precious acacia and other supplies were wasted

so, to avoid this from happening again. Just curious if anyone has tried using a pressure cooker for the main heat bath container?

Reason is, pressure cookers have a metal tray that lifts the jars from resting directly on the metal.

Obviously the pressure cooker would not be sealed. Ive Seen people have had a lot of sucsess putting jars through pressure cookers for canning purposes and never break a jar, even under much more heat and 15psi.

Hope this isn't an annoying question, i tried searching but im having a hell of a time using the boards search function evidently. Any tips would be great.

Love and respect!

Just heat the water and dump it into a stainless bowl then place your jar in there.

The aqueous solution should never be heated excessively.
45-50c is all that is needed (that's not much hotter than a shower)

Heat your pan of water and then take it off the heat.
The bottle can then sit in the bath until it's cools...then repeat (heat water, place bottle, wait)

Obviously thin glass containers are going to have problems with heat stress...
So...Don't use Mason jars...use juice bottles (which are much thicker and designed to be washed/heat treated)

Excessive heating causes problems...if in doubt...Do the extraction at room temp.

Thank you all for the replies. Problem solved!

You can place a mesh strainer/colander into the water too to prevent the glass from coming into contact with your pot/pan directly, effectively whatever glass you do use will suspend the bottle in the water but so that it doesnt touch the metal.

Thanks success!! From only 40 grams acacia confusa a friend yielded .4 g's. Not the best but decent!!

The best heat bath method is a crock pot imo.
Fold a dish towel over a couple times & place in the center, set the jar on it, & fill to just below the rim.

Time to reach temperature & exact temp may fluctuate from model tl model, but generally the heat rises to a certain temp. & does not change much once it's there.

Run it on med with just water first to get a feel for temp & heating time. Check every 15min or so with a candy thermometer until the temperature stabilizes for ~an hour or so. Mine hits 140°f in about 2 hours & stays there. The contents of the jar will never get hotter than the water & you can remove the jar every 10-15 minutes until its cools to just slightly warm, then place back in heat bath.