Hi, I would like to first say that it is an immense honor to be here.

Swim has been studying very hard in the field of sacramental cactus over the last couple of years. Swim would like to bring you up to date quickly and to make a long story short. Swim is seeking advice for the current situation.

After much searching, Swim found 69ron's limonene method to be the most promising. Two sources of direct trade for cacti were utilized, however there is no available time frame for when these sources will come through; there are many variables such as postal strikes This is unfortunate; Swim is now left with the only respectable option being to acquire fresh cactus. Swim contemplated using drierite to dehydrate prepped cactus with no heat, bringing her up to the starting point of this tek with dry cactus pieces.

Swim is seeking advice on a way to utilize the 69ron's tek with fresh cactus. One thing she noticed was that those who changed up or did anything different had less than satisfactory results using this tek, leaving Swim under the impression that it should be followed exactly until liberties with parameters could be approached from a better understanding.

Could anyone forsee an effective manner of utilizing 69ron's limonene method without first drying the cactus? Swim says she will do whatever it takes, and work as much as needed. She would prefer to work smarter, not harder.

Hey there! Welcome! We don't swim, here.

It should be easy enough to buy the fresh cactus, cut it up and let it dry out. I've cut it into chunks and let it dry in the sun. I also have a food dehydrator that i've used. I bet you can find a dehydrator at a goodwill or thrift store, but if all else fails, I think they are 45 bucks at walmart.

It was a solid investment for me - I use it to dry mushies, cactus, fruits and veggies.

PLus, buying fresh cactus means you can also save the tips to grow.... then you wont have to worry about buying it again. If you buy fresh cactus, with intent to grow, you are not participating in illegal activity. I have cacti growing next to my mailbox - most people have no clue what is in it

Wow, thanks. Looks like there will be a lot of cactus growing then. The dehydrator is an absolute necessity for later, but being so new I'm wary of using even a temperature controlled heating element to dry the cactus. This may indeed be too anal, but I want to very cautious at first and only apply heat for the vinegar pulls.

Mescaline is the most stable alkaloid that I've worked with. I think it's boiling point is somewhere around 600F(according to one source, a second source said around 400F) - where as most dehydrators don't go above 150F. It's hard to mess up your mescaline from heat. You can even dry it in an oven, on the lowest setting with the door cracked, if ya want.

In keeping with the working smarter with cacti, as is the intention, a thought occurred to me that I have yet to see mentioned on here but am stricken with excitement for its prospect. I'm sure some veterans here have given though to this but... remember those mystery man teas? Last summer became interested (again) in them and sought to employ the recipe of trich tea and hbwr. Now knowing how to properly prepare both, wonder if one could store mescaline acetate in a vial with lsa suspension, and then combine peppermint oil shortly before consumption. Also, wonder why one couldn't keep the peppermint oil mixed in the lsa suspension indefinitely. Either way, the synergy between lsa and mescaline is supposed to be phenomenal and bet it would be a great sacrament, and also stretch both a bit further. Thoughts/experiences?

P.S. Drierite and Excalibur Dehydrator are ready to go! Whoohoo!

Okay, status update:

Three center achuma cuts de-spined, de-skinned, cut into small pieces after removed from the core. Core saved for research. Cut pieces frozen, thawed. Thawed while at work revealing a big mess for my roomies, they took care of it w/ minimal loss of ooze. I refroze and just took out of the freezer. So much of this material is just ooze! While there is still a lot of pieces clumped together in the center. I had hopes for using drierite to evap, but looks like I will be using the dehydrator. I knew there would be ooze, but didn't expect so much. As soon as it thaws, I'll put it in the dehydrator chamber at a low temp. No disrespect to advice given, it is greatly appreciated; I am nervous to use heat at this point, but at least my equip will allow for temp specific control. I have worked very hard to get to this point, and am very excited to share this sacrament with my family of native american church members. I will continue to post updates on this work.

Also, I wonder how many others experience an allergic reaction to the spines. Mine can be pretty bad if I don't limit my exposure i.e. gloves and significant washing of my hands. My grandma shaman says it's possible there's some venom in the spines. Whether that translates to a harbored bacteria or not, I'm sure a tolerance can be slowly built. Is this reaction person specific? I have not experienced allergies to such a degree from anything else. We're talking puffed eyes, swollen fingers,insane itching (this was from the first bout w/ some torches and bare hands. Popped a benny, settled down, put gloves back on and back to work I went) I was able to limit the exposure whilst working with the achuma. Not sure where the allergens are just in the spines or under skin, in areole.

As a side note, I can eat dried torch pieces with no negative reaction. Thank the Godesses!

Morning update of Achuma Prep:
Well, the dehydrator has been running for about 17 hours at 115F and the once goopy mass of three feet of achuma has greatly reduced into a small mass of shrunken green pieces with very little ooze to speak of. I am even surprised by the reduction of volume. I used a plastic spatula to scoop it all toward the center in kind of a pile in hopes to make it easier to remove once fully dehydrated(vs scraping all these pieces up once fully dry). It is in a glass dish and I'm wondering what is the best way to recover all dried goo on sides an in plate. I feel some would be easy to scrape but I am aiming for minimal loss. This is indeed a great experience for our home. I'm really wanting a better scale for weighing lbs so we can see the wet/dry conversion. I'm guessing that the cacti are roughly 90% water.

Follow up: 3 Feet of Achuma was evaped down to a very dry 36 grams after approx 30 hours. Far beyond what I expected for volume reduction. I will not deviate from 69ron's tek starting w/ 100grams dry, so it will take around 6 more feet to get complete the task. However, only torches remain and will make up the other 64% of dry cactus material. I believe now that the average 12 grams dry per foot of Achuma makes sense after reading more reports. I've also come to the hypothesis that the pre-processed torch pieces I've encountered in the past contained a higher amount of moisture than the dry material made in the dehydrating chamber.

So this proposition comes to mind. Are mescaline yields variable in starting material as a result of starting material moisture content? I've felt compras pieces before, they even describe as semi-dry, and they're flexible pieces. The achuma is like hard crunchy cereal, lol You will not be bending it a bit.

Man, preppin cactus is a lot of work, at least in my approach. I will get better at this, more proficient. I'm kind of anal about making sure none of that areole fuzz is remainin in my sacrament to freeze. I worry about that stuff causing allergic issues, and potential emulsions are always a worry in the back of my mind. This is good hard work, and I find pulling spines and gutting areoles to be very stress relieving. I am looking forward to the sacramental fruits of my labor.

My torches, which have begun to be despined and deskined, have a lot more blemishes and also indented areoles which has greatly increased the prep time for me. The Achuma was seeminly easier to work with. The torches do have a greater diameter but this might not mean better. I've read many exclusively work with Achuma, and it is making more and more sense as time goes by.

Morning Update: I've what hopefully will be the remaining 32% of needed sacramental tissue evaping. Three torches have been prepared since the last post. The current weights and stati look like this:
3 Achuma Pieces Dry: 36 grams
1 Torch Pieces Dry: 32 grams
1 Torch Still Evaping, 1 Torch Currently Frozen

On a side note, I consumed 3 grams of dry pieces or icaros origin with a cup of coffee and I've can't recall ever feeling quite like that. I've had a ceremony with peyote, but this was bizzare. Head was swimming, consciousness felt like it kept traveling between three places and intuition activated. If that is a taste of what is to come, holy spirits. If I really had to guess I would say, based on effects, there was 150mg approx consumed. This was definitely above threshold and it lasted quite some time.

Well I am very excited to be reaching this point; many intensive hours have respectfully been put in to preparing the sacrament. Working full days, then pulling 3-4 hour shifts doing the prep work. I am confident it will be worth the effort and I am hopeful that it will prove to be great sacramental medicine.