There are many methods of preparing pejuta. I will share a few of those that I have experience with.

1. button dried eaten size of palm. Tastes bland this way.

2. Glass jar, fill 1/8-1/4 full of fresh or dried pejuta with root removed. Fill with water and let soak for 1 week in sunlight. Add honey to sweeten. Tastes too good to be true.

3. Glass jar, filled to same level with pulverized dried pejuta brought to low rolling rumble for 1 hour. Tighten lid onto jar and let sit buried for one month. This is the most aesthetically unpleasing method I've known and will remind one of diarrhea in almost every way from consistency to looks, but it is also one of the most potent methods I've had.

4. Dried, powdered, and stored away in a jar. When your ready to partake you pull out a pinch and place in the palm of your hand. Add a little bit of water and roll into a large gum-ball size in your hand.

Now, obviously there are many more variations to making pejuta. This first post is not meant to be an end all be all to how to prepare pejuta while out on the rez driving your rezerati.

That sun infusion sounds really nice!

Sun tea made with fresh living pejuta will have a soft green tint to it that almost seems to glow when it is ready. To say it is nice tasting is an understatement in my opinion as I could easily imbibe way too much if left to my own devices as one can tell from my other post where I describe a time where sun tea was given to me on a traditional Lakota vision quest.

I have buttons growing, but I've never used them as medicine. I've always used Trichocereus instead.
I have no trouble imagining that the sun tea method would be equally effective at extracting Trich flesh. Have you tried that, and do you know if the taste improvement is similar to that seen with pejuta?
I am one of that small minority that gets arthritis like symptoms from cactus teas, it hits me hard enough that I've essentially sworn off Trich tea. I've never tried pejuta tea but I've heard reports of arthritis-like effects from a few people. I get none of those effects on moderate doses of refined mescaline and at 500 mg the effect is still barely noticeable.
Fermentation obviously occurs in the sun tea method, do you know if that processing reduces the arthritic phenomena in susceptible people?

My twisted sense of humor might encourage me to try hallucinogenic diarrhea at least once, except for the fact that this method has been linked to people getting botulism.
Botulism from Peyote

First, let me thank you for your post. You site a very real danger of botulism that I am lucky not to have direct experience with. Trust me when I tell you that you are not missing out on anything with that method besides the very real looking diarrhea like look to to the medicine which I can not imagine would appeal to anyone... and yet it does. Even one incident of botulism is enough to warrant not trying this particular method.

I am not sure if sun tea will present to you the same problems as teas made other ways. It is certainly worth a try in my opinion, but as you state you get barely any of those effects on mescaline at 500 mg doses I might be inclined to stick with your current regimen unless you feel a specific calling to the medicine of pejuta. I have presented methods that work with peyote. I would assume as you do that they will work with Trichocereus to extract as well, but I can make no claims as to the palatability of those extractions when applied to another cacti.

While I have mixed Trichocereus with Pejuta, I have done so largely by extracting via boiling with the Trichocereus. I will sometimes add in pejuta to the boil as well and sometimes I will add in the sun tea at the end mixing the two in that way.

When it comes to the advantages of more natural or less processed teas I will state that from a purely spiritual perspective many cultures look at plant medicines as something one can take and also get into contact with the particular medicine/spirit of the plant itself. The less refined that is and the more one can imbibe of said plant the more likely a deeper connection can be made. With that said, one can also get in contact with a medicine/spirit without ingestion of that plant in the same way some medicine people are said to have Eagle/Wanbli medicine etc. When one goes on a vision quest or cries for a dream one may come back with an animal medicine for instance. Interestingly enough... any plant that animal is associated with eating... those plants also often become ones medicines.

Wakinyan are associated with thunder, lightning, stone, cedar, etc. type medicines. Bears are often associated with medicines that are dug from the Earth. What I am getting at here is that if it is the medicine you are trying to get into contact with and not just the chemical.... you are already on the right path by taking care of that medicine. On the shamanic path everything is about connections and how deep those connections can be made. Now, besides having lived and studied with medicine men/yuwipi men I have read books as much as I could on the subject of shamanism in other cultures as I wanted to understand similarities and differences of practice. While much of that information has been assimilated and I no longer remember precisely where much of it comes from I can tell you that the one constant I have come across is that contact or forming a relationship with the medicine is key. Now, one may suggest that the spirit of the plant may escape if one harms the roots of a plant or does not ingest the whole plant. For this... I would suggest that a very small seedling with roots and all in its entirety could be ingested to help one get in contact with the medicine with hopefully minimal negative effects that you are currently association with your ingestion of cacti teas. While not active on its own chemically... it would provide that association you are perhaps looking for. I personally would rather save the roots for growing another plant... but I present that information to you as a suggestion or possibility.

Iktomi or the spider.... he is a trickster, but he is also medicine of the mind. He can unravel the mind in a negative or a positive way. I think there is good reason that he is associated with the mind as well as being a trickster as he is frequently seen on high doses of pejuta. I mention him as everyone has at their center their spirit or essence if you will. Everything is looked at as being either a spoke on this web/medicine wheel or a center and everything is connected or related. In that sense you are on the same spoke as humanity. You would represent a single spirit of the Homo sapiens medicine which would make a spoke of a medicine wheel/web. Bear medicine would represent not a single spirit of a bear, but all bears. So, when someone says they have Bear medicine it means they have a connection to all bear spirits/medicine. If one has a deep connection like that to a particular medicine one does not need to have a physical representation of that medicine to get into contact with it. However, many medicine people will have a physical piece of that animal or plant represented in or on a medicine staff, medicine bundle, medicine bag, etc. In fact, many people who have simply went up on a vision quest, sun dance, etc. may carry something physical to represent a medicine they feel a particular attraction with.

Before this gets too serious with the spiritual questions, I present the above information as a resource that you are free to discard or disagree with. One thing I know for certain... there are always different opinions when it comes to medicines/spirituality and I do not want to appear dogmatic. I present that information merely in an effort to shed some light on how the feelings/connections to the medicine may contribute to the experience for those that hold these or similar beliefs.