I recently REMOVED 500 grams worth of ACRB REMOVED which seems to be a bad idea, according to what some say) and tried doing Cyb's extraction with 50 grams worth. It was my first time, so my first failure was probably on me being a newbie to the whole operation, not soaking long enough, or whatever, but the yield was absolutely nothing, just a pinprick worth of some useless gunk.

My latest extraction I tried to do better, acid soak for an hour, basified mix soaked for an hour as well in the hot water bath. Naphtha pulls done while in the hot water bath, with the mix shaken around well enough (there were a lot of bubble within the naphtha for long after the separation). I did one pull to see if the bark was any good, since the first pulls have the most in them, and freeze precipitated it for 15+ hours with no crystals.

When I blew on the naphtha it produced white strands, and the whole thing was cloudy, which I took to be a good sign. Since no crystals formed at all, I resorted to evaporating the whole thing to see if any goo would be left. The whole thing, when evaporated, left absolutely nothing, and as before, when I scraped up what was in the container, just a pinprick of useless gunk remained.

One thing I should mention is that the only way in which I diverged from Cyb's tek was by using sodium carbonate (or at least I think it was sodium carbonate, it was a mix meant to raise alkalinity in pools, and the substance released noxious fumes when hot water was poured over it) instead of lye, and used just enough so that the litmus test showed that the ACRB mix was strongly basic.

Does this mean I started out with bad root bark? Has anyone had any experience with bad ACRB before and what did the extraction go like?

Most likely... yes.

and please read the Attitude page
about sourcing talk.

Ah, I was aware of the rules against discussing sources, but I only mentioned it if it would help people to help me out with my problem. But fair enough.

Do you have any experience with bad bark from the aforementioned source which I shall not name again, cyb?

Well...see now... that would be 'discussing it', wouldn't it?

But no...if you performed the tek correctly and got nothing...the only logical conclusion is that the bark is not what they say it is....
It may be Trunk Bark or another species altogether...who knows.
Try again...and use lye this time and don't deviate.

Its the only way to be sure.

What's the issue with using lye vs. any other base? In my understanding the goal was to get the whole mix basic enough that the DMT crashes out and is available for the solvent to pick up.

Does it really matter if you use lye or anything else as long as the solution is alkaline enough?

as long as it's pH11 or more...it 'should' be OK.



^^ here is why I said stick to the tek and use lye...it's cheap and easy to get.

It was at least around pH 11-12. Lye is not easy to get around here at all, so other bases must be used instead.

Lousy bark has been a real problem for me to the point where I'm ready to give up completely on this whole endeavor. After almost 12 years of exploring it's quite sad that it's come to this.
Acacia C. Is no MHRB
by any stretch at all.

That's too bad you've had such bad experience. I've found ACRB to be incredibly rewarding to work with. Then again, i like challenges and the more work i have to put in to get to know her, the more beneficial it seems the relationship that develops. Am i still talking about plants...?

Ecosexualism.

I have worked quite hard at this for a while. I've tried multiple extraction methods and different barks. The whole thing has become tedious, expensive and time consuming with minimal to zero results. Useless and crappy quality bark seems to be quite plentiful these days. Ive grown tired of the whole affair.

Do you think that the problem with bad bark is due to swindlers capitalizing on the recent popularity of ACRB as a source by selling crappy bark? I mean, not to get conspiratorial here, but just the last few years saw so many, even on this forum, reporting much success with ACRB. Has the quality of the supply of root bark on the internet changed much at all in the interim?

Did we see the same thing happen with MHRB (of course, before the availability went to zero)?

I was tired of getting .2% yields so I moved up to kilogram extractions at a time to compensate... That way I don't start losing hope like felnik and others.

REMOVED you can also move to an area where these trees grow wild. stay for a few weeks and make your extraction. After that you can dissolve your fumarates in water an put in a water bottle and use as a tincture...REMOVED.