so everyones using acetic acid soaks now... to break down the cell walls further is the logic right?

why not use cellulase, a readily available enzyme that has been created by the universe over the course of billions of years specifically to break down plant cell walls.


so my "tek" would go like this:

water heated to 50c (the optimum temp at which the enzyme works) and lowered to a ph of 4-5 with your acetic acid (the optimum ph at which it works) and water. it wont take too much vinegar to do this. i would test with ph strips and measure how much you used. add a bunch of cellulase (how much? well, its a catalyst so you probably wont need that much... i would just pop open a few of the caps of the stuff and throw em in).

add 10 and 1/2 cups of this solution and 250g rootbark to a gallon sized glass pickle jar (toluene, no hdpe, i kno its a bitch, but worth it)
or a blendtek blender (and press the hyperspace button)

let it do its thing for an hour then kill it with koh or lye and zoot that ph up to extraction levels

extract with toluene and patiently wait for your crystals or goo. personally im happy with the goo because i have a technique where i use a credit card or something and scrape paper thin layers over the pyrex, wait a few mins, then scrape it into a pile, kneed it, and do it again until it turns into a very nice workable dense wax.

i have heard of someone producing crystals of the jimjam with an acid soak, followed by koh and toluene. if anyone has more info on that or some pics that would rock.
if results are reproduceable it would raise question to what effect the acid soak has on the goo, and not knowing the results of a cellulase tek (with crystalized jimjam being in my oppinion the ultimate product) it might be prefered.


i will do some experimenting and write up a good tek with yeilds and the like

adding this enzyme to ayahuasca would probably make it taste a lot better, as it turns cellulose into glucose (sugar). you could also theoretically eat grass like cows.

Not a bad idea, but you'll need to demonstrate that cellulase has some advantage over acetic acid (which is more readily available and cheaper!), e.g. does the job faster/increases yields/less messy etc.

You could do a side-to-side comparison, that'll be great!

its an enzyme, of course its got an advantage in getting it done faster with increased yeilds (if yeilds CAN be increased that is, this is the way). it will be just as messy however.

in theory could be but how do you know until you tested it side by side?

Maybe with powdered bark it makes no difference because surface area exposed to acidified liquid is very big and dmt is readily soluble in that solution, so even with enzymes it wouldnt increase the yield, but maybe it would help with non-powdered bark ? Who knows.. point is, until you tested it, you just dont know. So go ahead and do a side-by-side and let us know

faster than acidic phase in a pressure cooker? I doubt it.
I also doubt questioning whether heat-catalyzed acid hydrolysis is effective is even a valid argument. it's be thoroughly tested time and time again, shown to be quite effective.
even more effective on small batch scale is ultrasound-assisted and microwave-assisted extractions.

(note: the microwave-assisted extraction is effective in general extractions; when used in tryptamine extractions in acidic aqueous phase, there is a good chance Pictet-Spengler cyclization may occur, causing the formation of beta-carbolines)

boiling an acidic solution in a pressure cooker beats just about anything.. this is probably not better than that. and im not arguing heat catalyzed acid hydrolysis, of course its proven. but so is cellulase.

i agree, a side by side must be done.
(and not side by side with a damn pressure cooker lol, its just going to be strait boiling vinegar poured into a jar.

to tell you the truth i think adding cellulase at optimum ph followed by boiling vinegar will be the best. we will see, we will see

i was wondering why there are so few mentions of using pressure cookers, i mean the multiple boils for multiple hours....

http://www.sonicmixing.com/homogenizer/

i used to drool over this unit when i was into biofuels. a friend might actually be getting one soon.


...and cellulase, interesting idea. i wasn't aware one could just buy some like that. when i was researching such things a few years ago, all of the enzymes used to convert cellulose into fermentable sugars were proprietary, and only a few corps. and universities had access. Iogen in ontario was the first commercial pilot facility (in N. america) using enzymes to convert the cellulose in wheat straw into fuel ethanol (bio ethanol). this was just after the enzymes became economical to produce, before this, the process was too cost prohibitive. so where will you find such enzymes?

some biotech companies sell them, and apparently,
so do some commercial vendors

frankly, I'm skeptical about any advantages of using cellulase for this application, both time-wise and yield-wise; a 40 min cook at 15 psi would thoroughly do the job. sonication usually takes 5 - 20 mins. a cellulase treatment would take several days.

in synthesis, the advantage of using enzymes is obvious; but for the application of extraction, not so much.
but, of course, the only way to know for sure is to experiment

diy sonnocation machine ideas anyone?

health food stores sell cellulase in digestion pills. you can just google shop cellulase and find it cheap as hell

it would certainly make for an interesting experiment.
from an energy standpoint, it probably uses less energy than physical methods;
it would just take a while, perhaps a week or two.

now thats just stew kewl.

now im not certain, but in the bio ethanol process, it (must) be a continuous or semi continuous flow to get any decent yield.(gal per day) so the enzymes must be doing their job at a healthy pace. that and probably some acid pretreatments of some sort to the cellulose to optimize the process i would think.

I googled this yesterday and couldn't find anything that looked promising.

But I was looking for a different application.

This thread actually makes me want to do an A/B now that I have a pressure cooker.

Enzymes generally only work their magic under specific conditions. In order for this to work, the pH, temperature, and possibly even pressure may have to be manipulated to be within a certain, specific range..just like cheesemaking.

That being said, I personally see it being a good idea, especially when combined with the tried and true methods. After all, the point of the pre-freezing of the bark is to break down the cell walls a bit and free some of that "stuck" alkaloid. If this converts a good portion of the cell walls to sugars, which are completely soluble in water regardless of pH, then that could increase yields immensely.

That being said, it could also cause an increase in extra unwanted goop. That may be trickier to get rid of.

the alkaloid in question has a net neutral charge in the free base form.
separation becomes more of an issue when dealing with zwitterionic compounds.