Hey, I'm new to the site and a complete noob when it comes to extractions, so I apologise in advance if this topic is already here or been asked, i'll get the hang of it eventually.

I have done two Acacia Maidenii extractions. Method 1:

Ground bark
Acidify water to 2
Add water to bark
Filter through strainer then cotton balls
Filter again through finer filter paper
Defat with naptha, shake up
Seperate layers
basify to PH9 (upon failure tried to basify to 13 in second lot) with Sodium Hydroxide
Add to solution and shake.
Seperated naptha
Left for evaporation

At the end I am left with a moderately brown residue (looks to contain crystals), does not evaporate, burns insted seems unusable. I am assuming there is a flaw in the filtration technique, but thought it best to leave it to the more experienced.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

what color is your naphtha when you pull it from the solution? Perhaps it still contains plant matter. you could take the brown goo you have, redissolve and do a sodium carbonate wash and then recrystalize

also, when you are using naphtha, a freeze precipitation often yields cleaner product.

I have no experience in acacia extractions so I'm not sure if there is anything specific you have to look out for. the PH should be at least at 12 afaik. Check the wiki for more info.

good luck

oh and DON'T THROW ANYTHING OUT... you might be able to get a yield out of it even though it seems like you've failed. you can still clean it up or change the PH etc.

A likely factor of your failure (if its even a failure that is!) is the strain of maidenii your using.. there's a lot of inactive strains, and its likely the one your using is one of them. Also ph 9 is probably a bit too low. 11-12 is best for acacia. Oh and ph2 is way too low for acacia.... its been indicated that they don't handle the low ph the way mimosa does. a ph of 4-5 is preferable.

That is a very good sign if you can see crystals appearing though even if its amongst the goo.. its perfectly common to get a more gunky extract if you evaporate. This may contain other alkaloids too which don't precipitate out of the naptha like dmt does... and in such a case I would leave the extract as it is. Other alkaloids add flavour. Have you bioassayed the extract at all? And did it cloud up when you add the sodium hydroxide? Thats always a good sign. The first time I ever got spice from an acacia it was gunky with round star shapes... looked like crystals but was a wax and being a noob I assumed I'd failed. I thought very little of trying a small amount of the extract until I was thrown headfirst into the universal womb.. the extract was differen't to any crystal I've tried since. Much slower. So yeah... goo isn't neccesarily a bad thing.

a photo of the strain of maidenii your using would be good. maidenii used to kinda be regarded as the main source for dmt.. though it turns out its only certain strains that have it. Here is a photo uploaded of an active strain of maidenii by a member here who has experience with this species. They would be good to talk to. https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=403925#post403925

i echo what enoon said.. don't throw out the extract as you may well have something promising

oh and what do you mean by "burns and seems un-usable?"

thank you very much for the info, I will double check the maidenni strain and freeze percipitate next time. Also thanks for the PH tip, I'm using a Mimosa tek so not too surprised to have botched it, lol.

The end product starts to heat up and then turns to a black charred residue, must be too much plant matter making it across?

Will get new bark and try, try, try again.

Tahnks again

Good on ya Peto... your efforts will be rewarded. You should jump over to the "Trying to improve Acacia Info" thread in the collaborative research section. There is an updated list of tryptamine containing acacia species which is still growing. Maidenii is but one of many https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=23472

one other thing... phyllodes, branches and stems of active species are fine to use. It would be good to avoid using trunk bark as it causes damage to the tree. In Acacia Obtusifolia for example the twig actually contains the purest alkaloid profile and the phyllodes have good amounts too, however the species has been badly damaged by wildharvesters who took greedy amounts of trunk bark from living trees..

Thanks acacian, will do, and thanks for the extra info.

I will post (try to) some pics of the residue i'm talking about, maybe it might help pinpoint the issue.

That would be great the fact that there is visible crystalisation sounds very promising to me. may I ask what general area of aus you are from?