SWIM followed the directions to a T, SWIM separated the hcl water/limonene by just decanting with a glass jar with a pouring spout. He says the water was slightly cloudy like the vinegar also gets. The only thing I could think of is maybe he should have used distilled water instead of tap water to dilute the hcl solution?

SWIM does not think that tap water was the problem, everyone gets the impurities, somehow SWIY seems to have more of them.

SWIM got extra impurities also by mixing the HCL solution and limonene with a blender, SWIY did not use a blender though right? SWIY also said that the HCL was clear, right? It seems to me that the impurities are the green pigment from the cactus that go in the limonene and then in the HCL solution and turn black from the high temperature in the oven, but I cannot understand why SWIY has so many impurities from a clear HCL solution.

Anyone have an idea how to get less impurities with the mescaline to make the washes easier?

There is green gunk left over when one evaporates hydrochloric acid solutions unless one has the molar ration of chloride to mescaline base EXACT which no one ever does because no one knows how much freebase they have in normal circumstances. So any left over acid makes this nasty greenish blank smelly gunk. It can be removed with anhydrous acetone.

Is this why SWIY only adds 30ml HCL solution at a time? The problem is that you do not really know when to stop the pulls as mescaline HCL is water soluble at a large degree, and maybe even if you cannot see it, in the HCL solution, is still there, right?

Does this greenish gunk turns brown or black in high temperatures? or the gunk SWIU got is from the cactus?

i'd like to respectfully ask how you know this to be, ron? you seem pretty sure about what youre saying there, and i'm genuinely interested in how you came to this conclusion.




how did that turn out for SWIM?

SWIY is right, SWIM put 30ml HCL solution in the oven in a pyrex glass bowl and he can see some of the HCL brown gunk leftover, but is not much. The brown sticky mesh that SWIU are getting is surely from the cactus or limonene.

bump for ron

SWIM saw that Ron's friend has an Excalibur dehydrator.

Its going to be expensive for SWIM to buy one, the international model, plus shipping is at least $300, but he may spend the money anyway.

Does SWIY thinks that its much better for him using the dehydrator than his oven?

Many believe that high alkaloid content occurs when the cactus is heavily stressed, and that good growing conditions lead to poor alkaloid content, so that the cactus should be stressed before being harvested to give higher alkaloid yields. You’ll also hear people say that the more potent cactus is usually bluish or purplish and NOT green. It’s a common belief that green is a sign of poor alkaloid content.

Anyway, that’s not my idea. It’s a belief that’s spread all over the place. I don’t know how true it actually is. I’ve never seen any proof of it. However, I know some pretty reliable people who swear this is the case.

Coatl will also tell you that stressed cactus is more potent. So will several other members here.

I have not seen proof of it, but I also believe it to be true.



The bridgesii SWIM got was A+++. Keep in mind that bridgesii is very unique, and so expect something quite different from it. Don’t purify the mescaline! With bridgesii, the non-mescaline alkaloids are vital to the experience. If you remove them, you’ll be disappointed. So don’t do the acetone and IPA washes or you’ll be sorry. You’ll wash away a bunch of really important alkaloids. 75 mg of a full alkaloid extract from bridgesii is STRONGER than 75 mg of mescaline.

Yea. It takes a long time to dry in an oven. However if your oven is accurate and you can set it to 212 F (no hotter), that will work just fine. It's not hot enough to damage the mescaline HCl, but is hot enough to maybe burn some of the other alkaloids present. If the other alkaloids burn, it will be very hard to clean the mescaline. You'll be left with black mescaline that's almost impossible to clean. But it's still very active.

SWIM just harvested about 9 feet worth from the garden, its roughly 150mm thick.... what sort of dry weight could swim expect from this? what percentage of the whole plant is skin?

SWIM did see the posts on page two, but dont those calculations conclude a dry weight for the whole cactus? and not just the skin?

SWIM (just about to finish the wash process) just realised she made a stupid mistake on step 1.
She bought what she thought was 100% hydrochloric acid without doing research only to find that the concentration was around 28%. which means her concentration of the acid used was only 0.6% instead of 2%.

Can I ask two things, at the end of the process, where is the calcium hydroxide added at the start?
Also, the remaining HCL not bound to the alcoloids, as the solution concentrates before the washes, where does it go? (granted, a LOT of it goes into the air - inspecting the solution as it reduces is hazardous without goggles and holding breath/mask!) Effectively, the q is when the solution is reduced down to nothing, does nothing remain of the spare HCL or should SWIM water the solution down and reevaporate?

SWIM's state of play - she didn't have scales when the dry cactus was produced so yield calculations are not possible.
powder from two cactus, one a local san pedro (suspect mis labelled, and low yield) she accidentally roasted in the oven at 70 deg c (smelled like coffee, dry was tan) and the other a small bridgesii. total powder was about one mug's worth; dunno how much that is.

currently reducing prior to washes. From probably around 1 litre down to 1/3 of a small tea cup. colour is dark brown (think coffee) and precipitating brown/black flecks (think tea-leaves).

Took around 18-24 hours in a dehydrator. SWIM thinks she should go easy on the HCL volumes this time and follow the instructions. SWIM noticed some strange "bubbles" of HCL in the boundary layer of the d-limonene.

SWIM was getting impatient today, and made a tea with the filters used on the HCL solution, with nil result. SWIM said the tea tasted very citrus'y and is wondering if this will translate to the end result. SWIM suspects this is due to d-limonene sediment ontop of the HCL (which was one of the reasons for performing the filtration on the HCL)

Given rons post on this page recently regarding bridgesii, SWIM may not perform the washes, but would like to know about the HCL, because does not want to down HCL crystals.

SWIM saved everything from the process, so she will try again tomorrow (perhaps under the influence of batch 1).

UPDATE: Given that SWIMs cactus was a bridgesii, SWIM is not performing the washes, but SWIM added more water to the solution, and reevaporated, which made the vapors a lot less acidic, safe for consumption. given that evaporation isn't fully complete, solids from the evaporation weigh between 350mg and 600mg. Conclusion is don't roast your cactus lol.

The dry weight of the skin is negligable. Personally IM(inexperienced)O if your extracting your cactus then clip off the spines and dry the whole thing, skin and all. Just make sure you score the skin lengthwise before you cut it into pieces laterally, which will aid in drying. Using a dehydrator, 10mm - 15mm worked fine for SWINM.

Brian

i think the main difference in using stressed cactus is most visible when making tea from the fresh flesh.
a stressed cactus will have a lower water content and thus a higher mesc % in ratio to overall weight
a happy cactus is bound to be fat and have much more water therefore the mesc is more diluted
whether it actually fluctuates more than based on water loss im not sure but if mescaline is there as a form of defence it does make sense - a stressed cacti if attacked by bugs is likely to die so when stressed they produce more antibuggies to protect themselves ? guess swim will have to test this one.

Unfortunately this is SWIM's experience, unless he turns the oven at a very low temperature.



Sounds interesting! Please, tell us more about its effects.

thanks for your input

this is the first ive read of green color being a sign of low alkaloid content.

i have seen much speculation about stress increasing alkaloid production,
but i've also seen several people claim the exact opposite based on their own experiments. coatl also agreed with these people (shaman-australis) lol

i have some bridgesii that are blueish, but theyre not stressed at all. i try to take good care of them...so it's not from stress. i think how blue a cactus is, is more dependant on the type of cactus that it is. from the pics i have seen over the years, some bridgesii and peruvianis seem to naturally have a blueish tint to them regardless of stress.

I am no cactus expert. So don't hold me to any of that. It's just what I've heard. More tests need to be done to clarify all of those potency theories.

The blue/purple color to the skin is definitely a genetic thing. SWIM has many different types of Pachanoi and Peruvianus in the garden, some of them dark green some of them blue and some of them (where the sun has been very direct) quite yellow/light green.

Remember that some types just seem to produce a lot of glaucous bloom which can trick you into thinking the plant is blue.

Just imagine if the same level of horticultural diligence was put into these plants as it is into Cannabis!

about that glaucous bloom - thats often the case
cacti receiving less light also go bluish - lack of light - darker color - too much light - greener - as with most plants.

Hi, new here, hello all. Quick question on the use of d-limonene: would my friend use the same batch of d-limonene each time you add it back to the cactus after extracting the freebase for the first time? So, wet the catus, addd rthe base, add the d-lim, salt, and tip the used d-lim back in to the cactus mix, and repeat, or use a fresh batch of d-lim each time?

thanks.