Hey all

Big fan of the nexus here, I've been reading through hints, tips , and teks for a couple years now as a guest and have found this (compared to other forums) as the best archive of its kind, genuine advice , friendly people , and just simply great vibes. I've decided to join up to actually be able to ask the questions I haven't come across on the FAQ page, some questions I have are not even specified in teks , and could consider such questions as noobie questions .. I haven't had the need to ask any of these but now i feel I'm at the point that I'm educated enough to go about things to a good standard, I just simply want to know the answers for my specific questions purely just for "knowing it" and understanding why. I want to evolve! Like we all do so instead of throwing them all out at once, here's just one for eg.

Q. If your following a Tek say that requires 50g material but you have say 95g of material can you simply just up the volumes of acid, water , lye , NPS? I have seen 50g Tek requiring 50g lye and 100g Tek requiring 50 - 60g lye. For me the % volumes don't add up

Thankyou for taking the time to read, all my questions are purely just for knowing, because you can follow the recipe to baking a cake, but if you dont know what interactions are happening then your just blindly following a recipe and I don't want to not learn 👍 cheers

rule of thumb is to match lye and bark powder, gram for gram(some add salt as well, also gram for gram).

So why would one wright a Tek and state you need 50 - 60 gram lye to 100g bark wouldn't that make it 100g lye needed for that amount of bark? I thought it was a matter of getting the solution to the required pH not because how much bark one uses, seems like a lot of lye , what about Aquarius solution , exactly double or it doesn't really matter.. I would add salt not a gram for gram ratio, usually 35g for 50g bark do you think one would get more from the first pull with more salt added? Could you over salt it and make it too ionic? Reason I say first pull is because before using salt goo was all that was extracted from several pulls after salt being added the first pulls yeild white fluffy xtals and the rest of pulls gooey no xtals

What about basifying I've heard it's bad not to basify enough but never anything about having a too high pH, is it possible to over basify the solution

Basifying is the process of converting salt into freebase form (wich can be extracted with NP solvent in our case).
For this reaction to accomplish, the pKa of the molecule is the key : https://wiki.dmt-nexus.me/PKa



So the real quantity of lye solution you should add depend of (correct me if wrong) :

- Starting PH of acidic solution (if following Cyb's)
- Concentration of your lye solution

Reaching PH 12 seems a safe point to think all content has been converted, with lye it's easy.
Hopefully DMT is stable in high basic environment so adding more lye won't leave you with nothing.
Theses recent thread should be quite interesting in your case :
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=83691
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...px?g=posts&m=944404

Hope this helps.

Thankyou so much. That helps to understand alot. I knew lyes involvement with turning alkaloids into freebase form by raising pH but knowing the % for what's turned into freebase is good to know, can even explain some hurdles one could've ran into in the past with low yeilds

Cyb is a hero , 50g Tek is a perfect amount , I can't possibly wrap my head around these 1kg bark teks, definitely not newbie friendly

What about re xing , I have seen two methods one using a sodium carbonate wash , and one using hot naptha then freeze precipitation ,why do some do the wash and others reX in NPS and what's the difference between the 2

Just for disclosure one has never recrystalized before as never needed to

Generally a naptha re-x is easier with less chance of loss than SC wash (if solvent not properly dried).

While using solvent, make sure you're in a weel ventilated area, if you heat solvent, make sure to use a hot water bath and unscrew the cap of your bottle to avoid pressure.

Ahh K yes I thought the wash would be more trouble than it's worth, Im aware of the dangers of naptha especially whilst heating

What about evaping down your saturated NPS before freeze precipitation? One has never done so and still succeeded with results , is this just for people who use too much NPS or should it be done on all occasions?

Also sorry back to basifying, when doing so would you let the solution sit for a certain time frame for 100% freebase or does that all happen instantly?

Some posts state 1 - 2 hours some state a whole day

if your naptha pulls are not well concentrated, you can experience issue during FP. Clouding the naptha helps force alk to precipit.

Base help breaking the plant matter (cells), and releasing alk contained in, so we can think that not all salt in the plant material are into acidic soluition, in this case letting the base breaking the cells should be a good idea.
If you filter the brew (pour off the plant matter), conversionis nearly instant and can be processed.
If you have time and tools, you can compare a side by side AB vs STB, it's allways interesting

So when doing Stb always strain the plant matter? Very interesting but I've read some where ACRB is better with A/B than Stb, I've seen all pulls gooey with Stb Tek on acacia?

I've always been worried multiple attempts straining can lose yeilds switching containers and such

Also I've noticed that pressure changes in the bottle after the first pull are pretty big, when doing second pulls and mixing NPS I can shake shake shake without any pressure building up at all. No leaks either so not a jar problem, is there some reason for this ? Or am I losing something eg. pH lowered due to lose of base soup or less reaction and less gasses produced?

Happened everytime

Can adding to much salt cause issues , can the solution be too ionic

Take a look at this thread as well.


Adding too much salt will mean there's solid salt present in the mixture; that's probably best avoided.

Yes that makes sense , I've noticed that there is sort of a max limit water can hold salt, even really hot still doesn't fully disolve , the solid salt gets stuck when pouring into jars so no issue there , I'm saying like up the liquid to dissolve more salt say 50 grams to 300 ml added because I know for 200ml 30g dissolves most times fully, just wonder if the jar would be rubbish from doing that and would be interesting to know if any benefits come from it like better precipitation, or helps NPS touch all places in the mix, I no salt benifits help stop shitty emulsions so I've read