So I dropped 4 grams of very pale yellow, powdery, nice looking spice into around 100 ml of Bestine leaving a pool of about a grams worth of yellow at the bottom of my glass. I added that impure pile to my extremely impure pile that I planned on doing more pulls from in the future. After evapping I'm left with around a half gram of fat crystals. So where did the other 2-2.5 grams go? I didn't weigh my yellow so maybe it was heavier than it looked but I can't imagine that half my weight was solvent trapped in my spice or something else that could have evapporated (water weight?)

Is this normal?

Added note: I originally was doing this for a friend who is doubtful of my purity but never again. The pale yellow I get out of freeze x-ing is awesome. He's not getting these few crystals. I'm turning it into my pet crystal growing project.

Your numbers become quicksand when you estimate weight on sight. Any guessing what happened to the mass balance stops there.

That yellow gooey stuff is heavy.
There's probably ALOT of melted dmt & a little bit of impurities left over from oils and othe alkaloids.

If you want whiter spice their are Bette options that will eat less yeild than re-x.

Like an intitial defat on the bark? A mini A/B? Really I'm not too concerned with it but it would be cool to have some stuff pop out of the solvent in decent size stones like my first extraction. Every MHRB I've tried lately is pretty oily so I probably should be adding an extra de-fat step somewhere.

Mhrb has little to no oils/fat onboard...it does not require any defatting steps.
I suggest that the bark you have may be questionable Or your extraction technique is flawed.

Don't be so concerned with getting xtals...Goo is powerful and dense and every bit as good as fluff.

My last kilo and a half of MHRB powder was total crud.
I'm just sorry I wasted so much quality hexane on it.
Also try increasing the heat a bit on the Bestine, it will pull a bit more.
You know what they say, "A little yellow is ok" ok I made that up

I'm thinking it's because I'm pulling with solvent directly after basifying rather than pulling after it's cooled down. In my limited experience there can be a bit of oil (or maybe this is just left behind xylene??) depending on the makeup of your naphtha. I had some with xylene that was producing pretty colored precipitations. My new naphtha is clean and tidy though but my freeze precips still don't stick to the jar, they make a slushy. Which is still sweet but I am currently obcessing with this because it's fun.

My crystal growing is going rather slow. The crystal just keeps getting crustier rather than growing spires. Impurities? Is it recommended to wash spice with water to remove any lye that might have made it over somehow? Is that even really possible?

Not the spice, but the pulls! It's considered old fashion but pulls done with real hot naphta where the naphta pulls come out brown-reddish, these do benefit from and old fashion carbonate wash, IMO. Even when properly avoided to bring dark liquid along with the pull, a carbonate wash can turn darker when performed, indicating it's usefulness. If the initial pulls are clear then a carbonate wash has no use at all IMO.

So I would just swirl the pull in with some clean lye water? Nevermind, I will look it up. Thanks, as always, for the tips.