I plan on using Lazyman's tek for my first extraction. Also, the tek seems to jump numbers around, he first says to use 200 grams NaOH. Later he explains that for his first pull he uses 75 grams, then 75 grams are added for the next pull, so on and so forth. It doesn't sound like the most consistent process and I'd like to hear your ideas.

Should I do my first pull with more NaOH than suggested? He states the yield is much higher in his second pull with the added NaOH.

200 grams lye for 2 liters of water sounds right...the 75 grams you saw were probably in the extraction notes. Also i sugest keeping the lye/bark emulsion in a warm water bath while you do the extraction so that the naphta will be able to hold more goodies that way .

It just sounded to me like he used 200 grams lye total, but gradually adds it in each new pull.
Tanks for the advice on warm water bath.

Use Noman's instead. It is better documented, and besides, the author is around to help you in case of a problem. It was my first tek and it yielded ~1% on my first try.

Yes, Noman's is much more straight forward. Is the extract easy to get off of the coffee filters?

If you evap the naphta to about 1 third of what it is after extracting all the goodies and then store in the freezer to freeze precip, the final product will be very pure and the quantity lost negligible due to the big difference in spice naphta can hold on very low and very high temperatures.

I never used a coffee filter and always got yields around 1% using STB tek and generally being an impaciend guy

Yes. It works. Usually spice crystals stuck to the bottom or walls. Even if they are loose they sink to the bottom and you can easily decant naphta without a filter.

Very cool, thanks for the advice fellow nexars. I think I'll do a mixture of Lazyman's and Noman's tek, like balaur said, evaporate naptha then freeze precipitate. I like the sound of that.

If I run into problems I'll be posting again. If not well, I'll let you all know how it went. Now I just have to wait for my MHRB to show up!

I evaporate naphta until it becomes cloudy. It is a good indication that it is supersaturated. Usually it happens at 1/4th, or 1/5th of the original volume of combined pulls.