Last night i was performing a standard STB with 100g of bark, 1000ml of distilled water, 100g of lye, and about 60ml of Ronsonol lighter fluid per pull. During extracting i usually shake very carefully to not create an emulsion and I try to shake and let separate about 10 times to make sure i get all the goodies. I have begun to realize that all that shaking is unnecessary, as well as the carefulness used to help prevent an emulsion. With the amount of lye i used i am beginning to think an emulsion would be impossible to create.
The reason i think shaking so much isn't necessary is because i tried a little test on saturation (not a very accurate one mind you) with minimal amount of shaking/mixing. So i shook the jar for about 3 seconds and allowed my solvent to separate. I took the lid off my jar and slowly blew on the surface and clouding formed pretty easily, which makes me think the solvent gets saturated even quicker than i initially thought. It obviously depends how much solvent is being used compared to the amount of bark, but smaller pulls are the way to go.