Can you tell me what I've done wrong?
It's just a Noman's tek
1:22,5:1,5:1,5
MHRB:water:NaOH:solvent

1225 ml distilled water - added 75 g NaOH, let it dissolve
50 gr of MHRB powder was add
stir, let sit for 1 hour

PH>11, about 12

added 70 ml of non-polar solvent (zippo lighter fluid, didn't find anything better),
stir, let the layer separate (x3), then pick up the naphta with a turkey baster
little to no emulsion present, but to liquid looked transparent

did again, then put everything in hot water, added 5 gr og NaOH to avoid little bubbles coming, zippo lighter fluid and again took.


the 3 washes of solvent are in my freezer.
One had some white little stuffs, so I poured out the solvent to another little jar, but that white stuff dissolved in liquid in less then a minute. Was that emulsion?
also another jar has those white stuff.

Is that just emulsion?
Are there big mistakes in the procedure?

I studied much to do this extraction, not to make noob questions at the end, but asking for experiences tip would really help me =D

That should be more like 13. Add a bit more base.

did it =)

now the situation is: I've got this 4 little jars, and there is white stuff at the bottom, like little points.
when I tried to filter one of those jars, nothing was left in the coffe filter, and this white stuff in less than a minute disappeared.
What is that?

Possible water contamination. You get all excited, seeing these great xtals, and they disappear in front of your eyes. Really bums you out. Coffee filter method is a pain, more trouble than it is worth for SWIM. Just pour it out carefully, and save the solvent for later pulls. The floaties will sink and stick to the side of the glass. Here's what SWIM would do. Pull all the jars out of the freezer. Warm them up a bit (not to much, just enough to dissolve everything in them). Combine all 4 pulls in a pyrex baking dish. It will be a lot easier to scrape up the xtals in one of those. Evap the combined pulls down to about 1/4. Cover, and put in freezer for 24hrs. After the alotted time, take it out of he freezer, and pour off te solvent, before it warms up. The floaties will collect tin the courner you are pouring with. Cover the dish up for 1/2 hour while it gets to room temp. This will prevent condensation inside. After that, leave it to evap off the dregs of solvent until it can no longer be smelt, then another hour for good measure. Scrape up xtals, weigh, brag, enjoy, report back.

Happy travels!

hi swim has a question about the nomans tek after separting the naphta layer swim wants to evap the naphta for this is it necessary the freezaer precipite or can you evap skipping the frezzer part???

Hello everyone, this is my first post on what seems to be a really great forum.Since this is the noob section and this is a help thread I figured I would post here first.

So I've been reading about this wonderful spice for a long time now, but only recently decided to jump in and try experimenting with it.

I've read countless methods of extracting the spice, each one more confusing than the last until I came across the STB method. I found out about this on mycotopia and decided to try this out, which seems very similar to The Lazy Man's Guide. I've already ordered my MHBR and I want to make sure I'm doing things the right way,so I figured I would post what I plan to do here and see if the more experienced users could give me a little guidance.

I have the basic idea of what needs to be done but just need to clairify a few things.

I plan on using 112g of powered MHRB that will be grounded up by me so I will lose some weight there. From what I've read, it seems like I need 2 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of lye. I very carefully mix the lye and water together. Then I add the ground MHRB and mix well(or shake violently?). I let it sit for an hour and add around 160ml of Naptha and mix(or shake violently?).

If done correctly, the naptha should raise to the top and is ready to be pulled. Add more naptha and repeat.
The main things I'm confused about because I've read so many different things are these.

1. How well do I mix the substances? I've read everything from a solid stir to voilently shaking.

2. Am I using enough lye and water for how much MHRB I'm using? 2 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of lye for 112g ground MHRB.

3. Do I want to give the naptha time to sit after it settels or is it ready for extraction as soon as everything is seperated? I've read I should wait a few hours. I've also read that as soon as the solutions seperate,which is 30 minutes or so, that the naptha is ready for pulling.

4. When I'm pulling,is it ok to use the same dish to evaporate the naptha in, eventually collecting everything in the end all at once?

If anyone would be so kind to help me out I would appretiate it so much.

1. How well do I mix the substances? I've read everything from a solid stir to voilently shaking.
You can mix the MHRB, water and lye pretty violently, but you don't want an emulsion with water/naphtha so there you only want to gently tip it over. (Like you would after adding flavor to a homecarbonated drink)
2. Am I using enough lye and water for how much MHRB I'm using? 2 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of lye for 112g ground MHRB.
You should use ~1hg lye (1g lye/1g MHRB), and this is a weight unit, not a volume one (density varies with grain size). When it comes to the water you should have around 1.7 liters (15ml water/1g MHRB). The naphtha on the other hand can vary because you generally want to do several pulls (too little is better than too much, if you do enough pulls).
3. Do I want to give the naptha time to sit after it settels or is it ready for extraction as soon as everything is seperated? I've read I should wait a few hours. I've also read that as soon as the solutions seperate,which is 30 minutes or so, that the naptha is ready for pulling.
A tip is to increase the time you wait with later pulls. You can be satisfied with just pouring the naphta in and tip the container over a few times, before removing it the first naphtha extraction. When it comes to the last pull, you want to let it sit there for a few hours (some say days, but thats a bit overkill), occasionally stiring it around a bit gently (remember no emulsion!).
4. When I'm pulling,is it ok to use the same dish to evaporate the naptha in, eventually collecting everything in the end all at once?
Yes, it's totally fine (it is actually to recommend)! But if you want pure DMT you should later make a minimum hot naphtha solution (of the gunk you extracted) from which you recrystallize the spice (by lowering the temperature).

Wow thanks a lot for all the info. It answered a lot. With answers come more questions though. At least sometimes anyway.

I should have put this in question number 2 but I forgot to put it in.Is there a certain Naphtha to MHRB ratio I should be following like the ones you gave me above for water and lye?

Also, how crucial is the cleaning phase. It's it potentially harmful if I don't clean it? Or is it more of a taste/harshness thing?

No problem! Just read and extract and you will learn!
Like I said the naphtha amount don't really matter that much since you're probably doing several pulls, but something around 1ml naphtha /1g MHRB sounds reasonable (I think it's what's being used in most teks), but feel free to go below or above that value. It can be smart to pull until your freeze precipitation leaves no more crystals.
It's totally smokable, but some people are afraid there might be lye or impurities (some claim there might be stuff like mimosine), so if you want to be sure you can wash it with sodium carbonate (described well in Vovin's tek for example).

that's right, you usually use a 1 : 15 : 1 : 1
of MHRB : Distilled water : NaOH : Naphta(solvent)
but from what I've readen, when you buy a pre-powdered MHRB you'll want to 1.5x the quantity of water and NaOH (and, consecuentially, of solvent). So you'd have
1 : 22.5 : 1.5 : 1.5

exemple:

50 gr MHRB prepowdered : 1125 ml water : 75 gr NaOH : 75 ml solvent

what you anyway need it's a 13-like PH




I'd raccomend you doing the freeze precipitation, since you don't risk to lose spice and you can use that naphta again for later pulls, without wasting it.

but I' m a noob, so it's maybe better to wait for more experienced opinions =)

I don't think I agree here. I mean, when you freeze precipitate you risk loosing a bit of the yield (a bit left in solvent) but if you reuse the solvent it should not be a big amount. The fact that the extract get a lot purer should outweigh a little yieldloss.
I recommend you do a precipitation though, as long as your goal is not some sort of multi-alkaloid goo but pure and stable DMT. It's easy, it's fun, it's beautiful and most importantly, it's effectively increasing the amount of spice in the extract!

Hello, SWIM is doing his second extract. He is using 135g pre-powdered MHRB and 15gms of few years old shredded MHRB= total 150g MHRB. 150g granulated lye and 2250ml tap water. He made two 150ml naphta pulls and freeze precipitated them both over 60hrs in very cold freezer. Swim didn't yield anything even closely as white as what he got from his test extract. Actually, there's some oily looking yellow bubbles and small bright yellow crystal formation, but nothing else. He poured the naphta from both classes and set em upside down on a plate and put them back in the freezer.
SWIM vent ahead and bought some litmus paper, because that was all that he could find from local drug store. He tried to measure the pH but it's very difficult to estimate the color of the paper, because of the brownish color of the MHRB/LYE/WATER so he thinks he fckd everythin up, because litmus paper showed a ph of 9 or 10. He then measured out some more lye and added a little by little to get the pH to somewhere near 13, but as I said he thinks litmus paper was a bad idea. What could be wrong here? SWIM used the same ingredients, exept the 15g of old shredded MHRB. He simply tripled the first extract recepy.
'SWIM's first extract vent nicely. He used 40g the same batch of pre-powdered MHRB and 10g sample bag of better MHRB(mexican). SWIM yielded 0,6% so his pretty happy bout the results. What shoud he do, is there anything he can do to help you to help me? Just ask a question.

EDIT: Would it help SWIM to freeze precip, If SWIM measures approx 50ml naphta per class and puts em back to freezer. Meaning less naphta->easier to freeze precipitate?

1) Your pH was probably too low. It's best to get a cheap pH meter, and determine the pH of the basic solution before adding it to the MHRB

2) You might have too low a concentration of DMT in your naphtha--IOW, you used too much naphtha, and now it won't precipitate out. Try evaporating the naphtha that failed to produce a freeze precipitate, and see how much powder you get then.

From what you describe, it seems like you probably just didn't have high enough pH--which means you didn't lose or ruin anything, you just have to bring the pH up to where it needs to be.

Edit: And isn't that WAY too much water for only 135g of MHRB?

Ok. SWIM will do that. Should SWIM just let the naphta evaporate till it gets cloudy and try to freeze it again? If it doesn't cloud, it means that there is no DMT in there, right? So it all has to be in the lye/MHRB/water.



SWIM used 150g. 135g pre-powdered and 15g of older and shredded. SWIM followed Nomans tek 1:15:1, so 2250ml with 150g MHRB is far as i know the proper amount. He was hasty and added more water, because he was afraid he added too much lye there because of the hard measurement due the litmus paper. He thinks he fuckd it all up by doing this. He has no clue of the amounts there whatsoever, so he just tries to pull and evaporate/freeze, till nothing comes out. He also have xylene for jungle, so he's going to do that when there seems to be no more DTM in there.

Thanks for helping. Any guesses why the pH was too low in the first place? Is there acids in MHRB that can lower the pH or how this happened? Any guesses?

I don't KNOW that the pH wasn't high enough. I'm only saying that if there was nothing to pull with the naphtha then one likely reason is that the pH wasn't high enough (and about the only other reason would be that the bark didn't contain the DMT that it should have). It needs to be AT LEAST 9, but 12-13 is better still. There's no real problem with TOO MUCH base--except that you're wasting your chemicals.

Another possibility is that you didn't give enough time for the base to soak. You can even let it soak overnight--no harm--as long as it's covered to prevent excess evaporation.

Redoing my question. I think it is much better posting it here. It is only a simple question after all!

Will containers made from polymethylpentene be eaten away by Lye or Naphtha? Thanks.



Original topic deleted

Hi all,

I want to do an extraction (which will be my second) but the biggest problem I'm facing is the availability of the required substances, as the DIY market is not very developed in my country.

I'd appreciate it if you could advise me on the following issue:
The only options I have for a non-polar solvent are Zippo, Colibri and Ronson lighter fluids, Primus camping naphtha - white gas with anti-corrosion additives and petroleum spirit sold at painter's supplies. Which of these would be better? Would the camping gas be a viable solution given that it contains anti-corrosion additives? (it's much cheaper than the others)

Thank you!

Since nobody has answered my question I'll be kind and helpful and answer it myself.

I've read on another forum that Coleman camping naphtha that has anti-rust additives makes the spice green.

What I saw at the painter's supplies would be translated word for word as "petroleum essence" and I couldn't find anything about what it is. It may be the same thing as the "petroleum ether / spirit" which is naphtha, it might come from the French "essence de petrole" which is gasoline, or it might be something else altogether. I could only find one vague reference to it that said it's the same thing as Colibri lighter fluid whereas Zippo l.f. is naphtha.

Speaking of which, has anyone used both Colibri and Zippo? Are they both as good?

When recrystallizing multiple times, you're supposed to use new solvent each time, right?

Hello! First of all, i wanna say im very proud to be able to join this beautiful community and make my first post.

I hope the news were as good tough, but nothing close...hehe.

A friend of a friend tried to make a dmt extraction using Vovin´s Tek but the naphta is in the freezer now and nothing is visible yet (4 hours had passed since the extraction)

FOAF made some mistakes wich lead to not follow the procedure very well, heres the full story:

he used 110g of Mimosa Hostilis Root Bark (verified quality) for this batch, becouse it was his first time and didnt took a lot of care in loosing some alkaloids, just make sure he could get some spice.

300 Ml of ph 4 HCL and warm distilled water solution where added to the bark and stirred for 20 minutes, then let it sit inside a hot water bath for 10 minutes, then stirred again 10 minutes and then let sit for another 10 minutes. The final pH of the solution was 4.5-5. Then he filtered it trough cotton and funnel.
This was made 2 times and the final juice was placed into the fridge.
He made a third acidic extraction which lasted 14 hours inside a hot bath and with a little bit more acid water (3.6).

After the 14 hours, the first 2 extraction where taken out of the fridge (FIRST DOUBT OF BIG MISTAKE!, FOAF previously put his mini-fridge to the max and the 2 first extractions got frozen!!). He then let it melt again into liquid to room temperature and heated to somewhere around 45 degrees, and filtered it again this time trough paper filters.
He filtered it a couple of times until he got a burgundy-red liquid which he could see trough (with some light). he also mixed it with the 3rd extraction that took 14 hours and never got frozen...he filtered it trough cotton and then trough paper also, and then mixed to the first 2 extractions that got frozen, unfrozen and then filtered.

He then made a defating, HERES MY SECOND BIG DOUBT he used the new Zippo lighter fluid which reads in the label "Synthetic isoparaffinic hydrocarbon". He was unable to get any VMP Naptha or any other lighter fluid.
The contents separated very nicely and the solvent layer was discarded.

Then he basified the solution using a mixture of lye and warm distilled water adjusted to pH 12.5, at the begining he had 500 ml of dark purple-red liquid, at the end, he doubled the ammount of liquid to 1100 ml of ph 12 basified solution, which turned in a very dark-black color passing trough all the gray/white colors.

He then made 3 extractions each one with 70 ml of this new Zippo lighter fluid. He placed it in a bath of hot water so the solvent was warm to the touch. He added it to the extrac. He then stirred it turning it upside-down for a period of 10 minutes. Placing it under the sink with hot running water from time to time. Then he let it sit in hot water.
In just 5-10 minutes the 2 layers had become DISTINCTLY clearly separated, with a very thin line in the middle which was a little bit more gooish aspect. The solvent cleared totally and it was collected then.

6 Hours had passed since the solvent was collected and the solvent in the freezer doesnt look transparent at all, after 40 minutes in the freezer the solvent became very blurry/cludy. Im sure is the solvent that has changed becouse i already cleaned it from the outside and i can see it very cloudy, but no crystals or anything resembling DMT yet.

My friend got very very scared becouse after doing these extractions, he remembered he had stored the paper filters that had collected the slimy matter in the bottom of the jar that got frozen (the one with the firs 2 acidic extractions) and he checked them again, now they were almost dry, and instead of powder it was a red-black goo with a very crystaline layer on the top. Since hes a very curious person he smelled it and burned some down to check the smell.

SURPRISE! my friend has tried dmt a couple of times before and recognizes inmediatly this discnstinct smell like burning tire/synthetic stuff, and this thing DEFINETIVELY smells like that stuff he has tried, when burning it or just by smelling it.


He evaporated some of the solvent to see if any crystals formed, with no luck, nothing, nada.

What was wrong? is this new synthetic solvent bulls9it? Did he made a big mistake by letting the acidic extraction to freeze? Does this black goo, which he got from fridge-decanting the first 2 acidic solutions could have all the DMT inside? Whats the best way for extracting the dmt from this goo then? if its not filtering it with paper?.

Thanks a lot in advance for your time and pariente, and knowledge....he still haves all his hopes inside that solvent jar which is at -4 degrees celcius in the freezer...With very cloudy aspect.