I'm having continuous problems pulling spice.
I did a great pull, and a freeze precip, and had a TON of spice on the dish, but when the dish warmed up it ALL turned to goo. I've done this several times very succesfully on a cold winter day in a cold room and got some excellent flaky crystals, but in the summertime this is killing me. I can't leave the dish in the freezer uncovered to dry, the food in the fridge would smell of it and the wife would take a shit fit....so.....

How about if I mixed in a bunch of parsley into the natha brew and evaped off the naptha. Wouldn't the parsley soak up the spice and then I can just smoke that?

Your thoughts?

that would work..but what SWIM would do is freeze precip...then with the goo that is left...add acetone and THEN put on parsley...acetone evaps much faster and probably cleaner..parsley may hold more naphtha

I'll try that....thanks.

I managed to get some by pulling from the freezer and scraping quickly, but even that is messy and makes for chunks rather than nice flakey chrystals. I think I have to wait till the cold January weather before doing a BIG extraction.

So I did that, and I ended up with some sticky parsley. It will be interesting to see how that smokes.

A question Jorkest...should I use your "Jorkest's D-Limonene & Fumaric Acid Approach?" I've been doing a lot of reading, but still have to do a lot more I guess.

A few newbie questions if you don't mind...

Where can one typically get d-limonene? Local stores?

Do you think the yields are better with the D-Limonene & Fumaric acid approach and that since I have difficulty doing freeze precip that I would be better doing your tek?

Thanks for any help.

instead of freezing in a dish- freeze in a half pint sealed mason jar.

I tried that too but I still got goo once the spice warmed up.

I pour off the naptha after I take it out of the freezer.
Then I put it back in the freezer for a few minutes, then pour off more naptha, and repeat this a few times.
No matter what, once I let the dish warm up again the spice turns to goo, apparently from a combination of warming up and collecting water from the surrounding air during the warmup process. Even if I keep the cover on until the jar/plate is completely warmed up, when I take off the cover to let the last of the naptha dry the spice turns gooey then from sitting in the remaining warm naptha.

I seems that one must keep the naptha cold when evaporating off even small amounts else the crystals form into goo.

I guess I should either wait for winter or try Jorkests d-limonene extraction process.

SWIM gets his d-limonene online..google it and you should find some...also the yields are much better...SWIM was getting about 1.2-1.4% yields on two year old bark..that only ever gave 1% tops in the beginning with heptane

ahhh heres a solution...when you pour off the solvent...QUICKLY cover up your plate/jar/container..and TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN...this will make the solvent drain from the spice as it warms up to room temp...once the container is up to room temp...take off the cover..and then let it air dry some more..but keep it upside down..or tilted so that any solvent will not be on your crystals..this should work

That could be it! It now sounds pretty obvious to me...at least that it should work much better. I should be getting more bark soon and I'll try that as well as the d-limonene process. I've never done ANYTHING with chemistry before but I'm trying really hard to get this process down.

Thanks once again my friend!

it will work..my extraction really are lacking at times still, compared to some here I think, and I get that "goo" sometimes..it was always a complete waste of time smoking it when it was too sticky and waxy so I started making changa.. I have gotten nice white stuff from the freezer though before..but now I pull the N,N along with the jungle and always get yellow wax stuff.

I was about to say the same thing Jorkest said... Once you have poured off the naphtha, put jar back into freezer upside down with lid on. Leave it in there for about an hour. Take the jar out (keeeping it upside down) and unscrew the lid (the lid will have a pool of naphtha in it). You can keep it upside down til it fully dries, or do what i do and just stick it under a fan for a few hours and presto!

This is the best way I have found to do it.

Cool, thanks guys, I'll try that. I think I'll also look for an evaporation dish or jar that is much thinner than the pyrex baking dish that I'm using so that it will warm up faster and therefore be less prone to collecting moisture during the long warmup process of the thick glass.