Hypothesis of Wetness: I am wondering... say we have fresh wet bark, would the moisture aid in the DMT moving in to the water? Seeing as there is water in the bark that might assist the DMT out in to the water like a conveyor belt.

The trouble is there is absolutely no way I can think of to grind up wet bark because it just raps around the blender blades and stalls the blender and does the same with the garden mulcher.

I was thinking of stripping it in to thin pieces by hand and then cutting it up BUT... Would my hypothesis of wetness work here or not? Because if it did work, it would mean that you wouldn't need to have the bark ground up a lot like powder which is quite hard to accomplish as well as time consuming!

I always saw people promoting the freeze thaw but I tried it so many times and it NEVER worked. The temperature would drop WAY TOO FAST and the bark just turn even more watery in a matter of about 20 seconds. You need liquid nitrogen or something for that too work lol.

So I always dried it out in the oven or in the sun until it was cracker dry and the processed it through a garden shredder and then a blender and that would usually turn it to powder.

I would say the opposite actually.. I remember nen mentioning in the acacia extraction workspace that material not being dried properly was a probable factor in some people finding species to be inactive.. as to why this is I am unsure .. perhaps some more chemically savvy folk could help chime in with this one..

also the other con of not drying and reducing to a more workable volume is the amount of water needed... depending on the plant used you may not want to expose the alkaloids to overboiling in the reduction process.. I've encountered this a number of times using semi dry material that I couldn't get off the stems/branches.. i had to leave it on the wood and thus needed more water to cover it properly

.. stripping it into thin pieces works well.. I would personally go the extra step and then either sun dry/put in dehydrator or oven..

hope that is of some help

What about microwaving or pounding with a large pestle and mortar? Or if your strips are thin enough would they fit through an industrial strength paper shredder - preferably with cross-cut blades as well? (What a way to get sacked from the office! )

What would microwaving do? Pounding could work but it seems like a lot more effort than drying and putting it through a garden shredder. I don't think I could source an industrial strength paper shredder or if it would even not tangle the blades with fibers.

I am still amazed how proliferated DMT is with people I meet, yet it is actually a massive process that takes such a huge amount of time. IE

1. Sourcing the bark (1 day at least, driving, walking, cutting, pruning)

2. Drying the bark (a few weeks or days in the sun)

3. Source garden shredder (2-3 hours)

4. Grinding the bark (half a day or more depending on quantity and issues like blades getting stuck)

5. Blending the shredded bark with a blender. (3 hours)

6. Boiling the bark (2x 2 hours minimum)

7. Reducing the tea (3 hours)

8. Letting cool (half a day)

9. Basify and extraction (1 full day or 2 if divided workload)

And yet DMT still is quite a heard of phenomenon around my parts with most I meet knowing someone who has tried it or extracted it.

As you mentioned earlier, striping the bark and then cutting in smaller pieces will prevent long fibers to form and wrapping around the blades, so it will blend easier..

Adding the mimosa to water and microwaving, as suggested, helps extracting the dmt into the water. There is such a thing as microwave-assisted extraction, you can search around it has been discussed before in the forum.

Alternatively you can always just forget shredding/powdering and instead leaving the bark for long in lye water to break it down.

Drying and garden shredder should work if you have that option yes.

Either way good luck

Alternatively, find a species that has active phyllodes

People who buy bark online have it a lot easier and get to skip a few steps.. but they miss out on an beautiful part of the journey!

Travelling and meeting the plants in the wild, feeling their life force and in turn finding a harvesting method that does as little harm to it as possible - in my experience deepens the journeys that ensue.. It takes longer but I think there's more ritual about it - and the dmt experience benefits greatly from ritual. It takes dedication... and rewards proportionately...

Also .. depending on the species being used, its highly likely you don't need to use the bark from the trunk at all. Species with known active trunk bark in the case of acacias should contain healthy amounts in the phyllodes, branches and twigs. I may be telling you what you already know but I thought I'd throw it out there anyways as taking trunk bark can damage and sometimes kill the tree (which are an important friend on the journey)

If you are having trouble grinding your bark try cutting it into chips and soaking them in ethanol for a couple weeks (add water and a small amount of vinegar too).. I mostly just soak my material these days as I am pretty busy with work.. the advantage is that you don't have to be there with it all the time and it will still be working away.

When your satisfied it has soaked long enough, boil the ethanol out and you should be left with a nice workable solution .. the disadvantage to not grinding the bark is that some of the solution gets trapped in it, so you may need to soak or boil again.

Thanks for the posts, I will keep this in mind