I am aware of the wiki saying 2 minimum and 5 maximum

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...Q#How_many_acid_cooks.3F

But what are the figures like for the content per acid cook?

for example:

1st cook: 10g

2nd cook: 5g

3rd cook: 2g

4th cook: 1g

5th cook: .5g

I am trying to see if I can get away with just two cooks. This will inevitably save me solvent as a 3rd acid cook would end up producing more liquid that I need to basify and pull from because, IME, you can only reduce so much before emulsions start getting bad (not less than 1/4 IME)

The patern is probably more like an acid cook get 80% of alks each time. So for example imagine there is 10g in total:
1st : 8g
2nd : 1.6g
3rd : 0.32g

IME, after 2 pressure cook (2x30min) it's enough but most of the time i process a third just to be sure (with MHRB).

And if it's true the first water pull become to "thick" quickly when you reduce, it's not true with the next ones as they are more dilute. For exemple the third pull can easily be reduced less than 1/10 of it's original volume.

Powder, pieces, roughly shredded, finely shredded,...
all matters.

with powdered plant material you'll more than likely get the most out in the first cook.. a 2nd is advised. I often don't bother doing a third (but I always add ethanol to my "pulls" so its more efficient)..

with chips 3 is a good idea

I don't even do a second acid cook. My yields are consistently near the 2℅ mark using powdered ACRB.

I plan on doing a lot of fiddling with the extraction process once i get a new lab set up.

How much water are we talking about here though? Enough to stir without any effort at all? Or takes a little bit of effort to stir? (IE. Fill up half the pot with bark, the rest with water?)

P.S. Thanks for the replies

Yes, mine is always finely/roughly shredded and I have done tests in the past with a second cook still producing lots of DMT. This could be that the first cook didn't have enough water though.

1/10 its volume? If I go under 2/5s of the the original volume I usually run in to emulsion troubles after basification.

Thanks for the clarification of the percentages per cook

What is it really doing? How long are you soaking it for? Are you boiling it with the ethanol or soaking then boiling? Is there actually a substantial difference? What sort of ethanol is this? 100% or should I just dump in some vodka?

The amount of acid required to react with DMT is actually miniscule compared to the volume required to cook plant material. So the volume should be enough to suspend all of the plant material, and so it can be stirred easily. You could try a minimalists slugde tek, but it's just really messy.

Here's my process in short,

1) Microwave.
2) Acidify.
3) Salinate.
4) Basify.
5) Add solvent and agitate. You can shake, but it takes longer for the emulsion to settle.
6) POUR INTO A LARGE MEASURING CYLINDER (This step makes the pulling soooo much easier, all of the sediment accumulates at the bottom really quick since it's so narrow).
7) Pull.
8 ) Freeze precip or evap, depending on my mood.

Is there really any volume of acid actually needed for cooking the plant material? my understanding is that dmt as a salt is still soluble in close to neutral water so acid isn't a requirement but more of helping hand.. the plants are generally acidic enough to pretty much get your ph near 5 .. and when you combine that with heat its pretty efficient. I've done extractions without acid a few times with no problem.

[EDIT] Bodhisativa I misread your last post sorry.. didn't realise you were talking about water.

How would we define 'it needs to'? It's not like it doesn't work without unless you have really mineral rich tap water.
I've found for example rue powder cold water extracts better in muriatic acid water pH 1.5 than when tried with just a spoon of citric acid to pH 3 - 4 boiling. So it does matter when we push things this far in lysing cells. Of course this is not the same discussion like between ph 7 and pH 3.

Ayahuasca: Add acid or not?
Acid vs. Non-Acid Brew Experiment: Comparison of Alkaloids Remaining in THP Brewed Caapi
Also, the herbal percolator worked better with acidified water.
I tend to consider mimo and aya quite the same when it comes to boiling the wood.

I have tried muriatic acid (Hydrochloric acid) with a ph of 1-2 before and got nothing from tested viable bark. Something about low PH destroys the DMT.

I now use white vinegar as I don't want to risk it anymore




Ok thanks, that clearing that up for me

Does the microwave actually do anything more than just a standard cook?

Did you heat that low pH brew? Some people that have heated theirs report failure.

I would never advocate using such low pH's in general, my note was only illustrative that acid does a job, which is more noticeable in the extremes. The limit where harm is done due too low pH is an unfinished discourse as far as I know of. And I would not be surprised if the cold versus hot/warm makes a difference.

QT's extraction tek (now withdrawn from erowid) suggested to use pH 2 muriatic water. While the tek had a storm of corrections on several points, never was the pH considered harmful for dimitri, it was only considered unnecessarily low to make a tek work OK.
Cant find the full tek to see if they boiled or cold water soaked

Yeah you are right in that it does have a role to play Jees.. but I think with dmt extraction it is a little overemphasized. If you are boiling your plant material for an hour (x3 as is standard with a/b) then I reckon you'll pull all the alkaloids acid or no acid.. I'm not having a dig at people using acid in their process anyways it was actually a reply to a misread sentence of Bodhisativa's where I thought he was claiming acid to be a "requirement" in extraction.

Shredded MHRB, 2x30min in a PC, no acid, done.

Just some quick calculations:

Assuming 1:1 stoichiometry.

HCl + DMT ---} DMTHCL (can't find the damn arrow keys on this stupid phone.)

Number of moles on 500 mL HCl at pH 3, c = 0.001 M

n = CV

= 0.001 x 0.5

= 0.0005 mol

Number of moles in 1 g of DMT.

n = mass / molar mass

= 1 / 188.269

= 0.005 mol

Therefore, 500 mL of this acid can theoretically dissolve 10g of DMT.


The microwave just aids in cell lysis. I like to be thorough and eliminate all variables between extracts, except the variables i'm testing. That way, i have usable data.