So my good friend recently performed a STB extraction using the Lazy Man's Tek. Since he has has very good success with this tek in the past, He decided to go the same route and also try some new additions to improve quality/yield. He used distilled water instead of tap water, and instead of letting the spice evap in a pan, decided to freeze precipitate. Everything went well and the yield looked very promising. Now, here comes the part that causes my friend some concern...... Since hearing that the ammonia wash is now a defunct and inferior method of washing your final product, he went with a sodium carbonate wash method. A small amount of powdered sodium carbonate was mixed with room temp distilled water. The PH was carefully measured around 8.5 (since he has heard this is the ideal acidic level for usage). The spice was washed with this solution, left to dry and later that night was tested to evaluate its potency. My friend expressed a moderate level of disbelief and concern as he was unable to travel to hyperspace..... at all! Is it possible that this wash method does something to the final product to reduce it's potency? My friend definitely used enough spice to send even the heaviest of hyperspace travelers to legoland... and still can't get there on this batch. I told my friend that maybe wash methods as a whole do more harm than good and maybe to just avoid them altogether down the road.....

How was the wash performed?

Did you swirl the S. Carbonate solution round in your solvent?

Did full crystals form or just crumbs?

nah it wouldnt kill the potency.. the only damage it could possibly do is losing some yield if your pH is too low.. But this would make a difference in quantity, not quality...I would wash with higher than 8,5, btw, I would wash with more like 10, to make sure no DMT dissolves in the water...

The only possible thing is, if you smoke a more oily impure dmt, the impurities can 'protect' the dmt from heat of the lighter, for example, an you vaporize it more effectively thus having a stronger trip.. But then if you have pure stuff, all you have to do is be careful not to put the heat too directly

What is your friend's smoking method? maybe he's burning the spice with too strong heat or doing something else wrong.. Is he holding the smoke for long enough, taking big enough hits ?

endlessness, you raise a good point I hadn't thought of before. On my first extraction I just evapped my naptha down and was left with a more yellow oily dmt that was surprising resilient to melting down sometimes in the pipe. But in all the rest of my extractions I've done freeze precip and the white crystal burned very easily.

desiderata: I believe if you do a proper STB extraction followed by freezer precipitation, you're end quality will not need a wash, and doing said wash could just waste potential spice.

A SC wash at around ph 10 shouldn't cause any loss of yield and is an excellent way of making sure no residual lye hides in your product.