Dear Nexus,

i'm on my fifth or six extraction, it was going so well up until this one. this time was an all around experiment. i combined 50g powdered with 50g shredded and i also decided to add a couple extra scoops of lye to help the process out thus further. good thinking right? ...wrong. i did 4 pulls, washed and combined, evap-ed down to a third and freeze precip... and nothing. well maybe a couple flakes, but nothing that would even equal .01.

does anyone know what went wrong here? is this the dredded lye lock i've read about?

Your PenPal,

Black

So how much lye did you add? Usually adding more lye, (one cannot really add too much!) doing warm solvent pulls and allowing for maybe a day or so before doing the pull to ensure lysis of the bark fix those problems.

Good luck!

i used maybe 130 grams of lye. i did add warm naptha and let the first pull sit for a day, second for 3 days, third for 5 days and the last for a week. maybe i'll try a bath.

Is your bark from tried and tested supplier?

yeah, its bark i've used before and gotten consistently over 1% yields with only with in the last 2 months.

Well it sounds like it should be in your solvent... all I can suggest is evapping down further.

But I am quite confused myself as by what you have typed you should be sitting on the goods by now.

i'm evapping it down more right now. could it have something to do with the washes i've done. i noticed that before i did washes on extractions, i got larger pulls. they end up being the same color and everything regardless if i do washes or not, however, less final product. i'm now starting to think i lost it in the water.... maybe?

thats what I would say, evap further. Also, you may have failed to allow enough time for dmt -> dmt freebase in the mhrb. Another problem could have been failure to shake sufficiently. Usually a good pull will need to have run through that mhrb sludge atleast 20 - 30 times. (that I beleive, is alot more mixing than alot of people do, but it will substantially improve yeild.)

In SWIM's experience stirring is essential. She remembers somebody's advice given to her years ago that a magnetic stirrer/heater is worth its weight in spice.

Now usually SWIM's 3rd pull is a waste of solvent because most of the actives are extracted during the first two. Couple of hours of vigorous stirring is all that needed.

I personally just like to be able to shake the shit out of it every time I get bored for 3 days... like, really give it what for! Then after that I do a heated pull and generally that's all that's needed if I get the solvent amounts just right.

Probably that is fine if you like to shake it so much, but in SWIM's experience a stirrer makes extraction approx. ten time faster.

Well that's fine you you don't want to shake it so much and get it done quicker, but also don't mind buying a stirrer. There's probably less risk of spillage with a stirrer as well but...

I like to live on the edge

I see what you mean, but for SWIM the challenge is to get as much goodies as possible from a particular plant.

now that i think about it, i've stayed away from doing any intense shaking due to hearing about emulsion. i would give em good rolls, but you guys are saying... "shake the shit out of it" i'm going to try that than... add a hot bath and viola! i'll hit ya back with my results.