I know, I know, you've seen a thousand of these kinds of threads.

Anyways, I performed an A/B extraction on 50g of MHRB earlier this week. It was essentially the "Boil n Base V1.2" that is pinned here on the forum. I used store bought vinegar and sodium hydroxide. I always perform exact measurements and I use lab grade equipment. Separatory funnel, flasks, beakers, graduated cylinders, lab grade ceramic hot plate, etc. I, by a stroke of great luck, have pretty much all the lab equipment a DMT extractor wants. Not bragging or boasting but rather just ensuring you lovely folks that my misfortune was not the result of poor technique or laziness. Anyways, I let my acidified bark (50g MHRB with 500ml H2O/50ml vinegar) stay at about 95 degrees Celsius for several hours. Not simmering or boiling but just almost. I then strained the liquid and squeezed the bark dry. I placed the liquid in one of my flasks and added 130g of sodium hydroxide. I let that sit for a bit until it was cool enough to touch the flask and pour the liquid off into my separatory funnel. I let this sit over night. The next day, I heated my naphtha on my ceramic plate to about 100 degrees Celsius. I then poured the heated naphtha into my funnel with my basified liquid. Swirled it around. Let it separate. Then I separated the two layers and placed my (should have been) DMT soaked naphtha in the freezer. I came back the next day to find no evidence of precip. I decided to just evaporate the solvent at that point. Upon evaporation.....hardly any DMT at all. I have used this same bark with STB methods numerous times. It has worked fine though the yields are low compared to bark I have used in the past.

My question is "What am I missing?" I don't understand what I could have done wrong. My PH meter (digital) was broken the day I started this extraction but I used the same chemicals and concentrations that everyone else uses based on "Boil n Base" here on the forum. Could my PH have been all wrong and I not known it? Would that really make such a huge difference? I have been extracting for a few years now and I have never (since the first few attempts) had an unsuccessful extraction. Now, I have been pretty much strictly STB in the past but A/B is not really more difficult. I just don't understand what I could have done. I am starting to think it is the less than average quality bark that I have. Does anyone else have any ideas or similar experiences? I'm really dying to know here.

I hope you haven't tossed the residual bark from this, it may yet yield something from a STB. I have a feeling the goods may still be trapped inside un-lysed cells.

Is this the first time you've tried this method with this batch of bark?

I did perform a STB on the residual bark. It yielded a very small amount. After performing more STB extractions on this bark, I have come to the conclusion that it is simply shit bark. I was duped. I bought a kilo awhile back and the top of the bag had very purple and quality looking bark. It had lowish yields but much better than I have gotten the past few times. Now that I am reaching the middle/bottom of the bag, the bark has a different texture and color. It is not as finely ground and definitely is not yielding like it should. I believe that I was sold half a kilo of decent root bark on top of half a kilo of regular trunk bark. This would explain the diminishing yields and the change in texture/color. I know that I am doing things properly because I just performed extractions on a separate batch of bark from a separate source. That bark provided me with extremely satisfying results.