i just dont get why i cant use as much lye as is needed to make the base liquid ph 12-14. why do i need a 11 ratio of it? i have ph paper, i know how to test with dyed liquid.

is there actually a reason for this? it seems an element from before our beloved supper pulverized mhrb.

Specially because it helps prevent emulsion. Also it depends on solvent used: If you use something like xylene or other 'better' solvents for dmt, then a lower pH (say, 12) can work fine because it will dissolve dmt very well... but for a solvent like naphtha, which doesnt dissolve dmt sooo well, you want a higher pH because then it increases the 'desire' of dmt to migrate to the non-polar solvent.

Lastly, it helps break up bark, further releasing dmt (though I also suspect for powdered bark it wont help too much since the dmt is mostly exposed with the large surface area anyways..). But only side-by-side testing would say if it really makes a difference in yield or not

Well, to raise your pH as high as 14 you will need a lot of NaOH anyway, quite close to 1:1 ratio. I believe this ratio is chosen for the sake of simplicity. Not everybody has/uses pH paper or pH meters.

STB is messy and inefficiend chemicals-wise. Extracting 100g of mhrb with an A/B you'll use a few grams of NaOH instead of ~100g with an STB.

I’m not sure what the minimum is for STB, but one of the many advantages of an A/B extraction is how little lye is required. My last extraction of 300g MHRB needed less than 50g NaOH.

Which pH gibran did you aim for gibran ?