I am trying different solvents and tweaking the extraction tek here and there.

This time have used 200 proof ethanol for initial extraction (Soxhlet) and washed the toluene with 10% NaOH. Now the crystals look very nice, not the orange stuff I get when extracted with 190 proof EtOH.

Unfortunately, I am not sure if the improvement is due to higher proof ethanol or the solvent wash. The expected yield is 430 mg of mescaline, which is maybe low (0.6%) provided that I used 70 grams of dried cactus (skins only).

Next time I will try 99% IPrOH as a solvent, and fresh toluene. I will do an A/B test to see the difference between washed and un-washed solvent.