2headsARE1 wrote:I've been experimenting with a "new" technique to defat the initial pulls. It's not new, but I haven't read about it being used at this point in the extraction.
I'm doing my first pulls with an NPS that should grab everything - xylene. Instead of aiming for crystals on the first pulls, I'm going straight to an acid (vinegar) wash. The vinegar is then based again, and I do my pulls as normal with naptha. It seems to work pretty good at separating the fat, as it collects a milky white layer in between the xylene and vinegar. This is different from how I previously did my ABA extractions - normally, I'd recrystalize, and then repeat the procedure. Why did I do it? I guess the crystallization step seemed like an additional unnecessary step.
My question is about the fat. I understand why the fat initially migrates to the xylene, but why does it come crashing out when the xylene is exposed to vinegar? I suspect that it "crashes" because it has DMT stuck in this layer. Is this correct? I really don't want to throw this layer away just yet, and I wanted to see what others think might be in this layer.
The fat (or lipids to be more precise) does not crash out, that milky whit layer is an emulsion in the interphase between the xylene and vinegar. The emulsion is discardable.
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