Hi everyone,

i do my extractions with heptane and transfer it from my base mix bottle to a small bottle with a slightly basic mix for a quick wash, also this bottle is more narrow so it is easier to do clean work.

this time i found a cloud within the heptane. when i turn the bottle it behaves like jelly within the haptane.
i am wondering, did i pick up some small particles what else could be the reason for this?
i am not too worried about the product since i am going to re-x anyway, just curious

edit: it is difficult to see this in the picture, but the edges of the could are quite clear and it seem so almost keep its shape, even when disturbing it more it does not mix with the rest of the solvent.
when i really shake to create emulsion it takes some time for it to form again

how much bark did u acidify? its kindalooking to me like theres just not a high content, i hope otherwise though

i used Cyb's Hybrid ATB 'Salt' Tek with the exact amounts specified in the wiki - 50g of MHRB

what you see in the picture is the 2nd pull
first pull was done pretty quick as i wanted white crystals, for the second pull i had the heptane in the base mix for a longer time

Jiva, did you do heated pulls? I’d say a yes but I’m curious how you actually did it. The jelly seems to appear during heated pulls, mostly with reused solvent. Can’t give a guesstimate on its content but note that mhrb and the like, also secrets saponins among various other things. What facilitates the migration of these things, what the mechanic behind it all is, if even there is such a case, I can’t say. My observations are limited to heat and reused nps. Nother case could be that they’re very fine particles of plant matter, if fine ground was used to start with... I’d definitely go towards the latter, in which case you could try to filter the naps through some paper filters.. the jelly should not escape that. Hope this jellps

Something similar happens to me when the heptane is quite saturated, then even slight temperature changes cause clouding.

So my best bet is that the aqueous layer is colder than the organic layer and the temperature drop causes some precipitation.

I did basic washing once and both the heptane and the water turned white. I don't do it anymore because of the losses though.

i did not do a heated pull but the heptane was reused and at least some of the root bark a very fine powder was so it might be related to that.
i have not thought about filtering yet, but i guess a coffee filter should work






i hope you are right, highly saturated would be great, i hope filtering it will not reduce my yield to much

if i was in your shoes, i wouldnt try filtering it right away just yet,,
have you tried a heat bath, even if it was just kinda warm in a bath tub or something? get the temp thorugh throughout, lol,,
some of my fondest memories of the process was always jaming out to good tunes and taking a shower with my dozns of my basifieed colt 45 jars, id plug the tub and let it fill and pretty mch make love and agitate them, picking one up after another and swirling,while letting the other jars/bottles sit and soak while i took turns rolling them, all the while observing the freebase molecules while they bubble to he surface and get the solvent cloudier and cloudier. it really was very relaxing and turned into a ritual of mine!!
make love to dem dere jugs!

instead of filtering, i gave the heptane another wach with a slightly more basic water than i used for the initial wash...
the heptane cleard up completely while the base water was extremely cloudy.

Surely do a few small "pulls" since liquid-liquid extraction is a stochastic process and fresh heptane can pull the last tens of milligrams out of the water.

i totally forgot about the fact, that there could still be dmt in the base water...
unfortunately it is too late to do that now. but the result i got was pretty good. very fine powder with just a slight yellow tint

Yes. I once made a thread about this washing step having experienced losses.

The experienced members discouraged me from this basic water washing as this process is considered obsolete. One should be better off doing just recrystallization or mini A/B, if the spice is really really dirty and you are OK with the inherent loss.

The only reason for washing spice would be some presence of lye water in it. But as long as one carefully separates the organic layer, there should not be any.

Yellow spice is perfectly fine

foam?

I got a similar snot like material in the two MHRB extractions I have attempted with limited success so far. It floated on top of the aqueous layer. I collected it and buzzed it in my ultrasonic cleaning bath in 30 sec bursts till it broke down into naptha, water and a small amount of particulate solids.

I think it is just an emulsion/foam from some mucilagenous material in the bark.

EDIT:
I thought it was due to a temperature difference between the naptha and the MHRB soup in my first attempt, so I made sure that they were both the same temperature the second time around. It did not seem to make any difference to the snot formation.

i think this will most likely be the case here too. i can not think of something else that would make sense.



it did not behave or look like it




i actually prefer yellow spice. the main reason i do this small washing process is that my main extraction bottle has a rather large surface area. it is very difficult to get all the naphta without picking up base material. this is why i transfer the naphta to a very narrow bottle so i can do clean work there.

i wonder how much spice i have lost this way?
if i transfer saturated naphta into a bottle with slightly basic water, i think most of the spice should stay within the naphta, especially since i am using heptane (to my knowledge, spice should prefer to stay in the heptane - please do correct my if i am wrong)