Hello Nexians! Time flyes.. and so did my first two extractions!
I hope you are all well!
Ive been meaning to post this sooner but havnt really found time. However, let me begin by thanking everyone I spoke to in the chat (you know who you are) !!
I wrote down every step of my first extraction in order to discuss any problems or steps that I didnt understand or
should be doing differently. With your help I want to build on my understanding and technique (hope im not a pain)
..I really did not have any bigger problems so I won't go through the steps too thoroughly (If anyone wonders about something I excluded
please ask!!) ...the post got pretty long anyway, sorry!
I studied a couple of weeks until I really understood the different steps of a STB extraction (read a lot different teks, posts etc) and got interested in doing a hybrid style STB.
First off I did my own version of Cybs hybrid Salt tek (measures were different and couple details) with great results:
1.9gr completely white xtals out of 100gr mimosa hostilis (friend told me he never got that white xtals without re-x).
And then I did Cybs hybrid salt tek
to the mL: with slightly different - but also great results:
2.3gr yellow/white-ish xtals out of 100gfr mimosa (same batch).
Let's see if I can define the differences in a condensed way:
The first extraction was made in a large stainless steel pan up until the separating part whereas I poured it into glass bottles. The second extraction was made in bottles from the very beginning.
-->What I noticed was that the powdered bark and vinegar solution had a tendency to separate more in the bottles, and therefore needed more shaking/rolling - which created more emulsion and less flow compared to stirring (although it was more comfortable using bottles from step 1).
Both extractions were heated in intervals and put in hot water bath during pulls. Differentiating the two extractions in this regard: I nearly boiled all of the solutions before adding them to the soup in the second extraction. The first extracton the soup was heated all together.
Moreover, I think I had less patience the second extraction when it came to rolling the bottles around with the heptane (before pulling). The first extraction I took my time, rolled around the bottles for several minutes really slow and gave it a lot of my intention and energy and did 3 pulls during almost 4hrs.
Second extraction I had less patience and shook the bottles a little bit more aggressively --> it took a lot more time for the two layers to separate and at first there was a kind of cloudy emulsion going on. After a couple of searches and chats on the nexus I cleared the emulsion with heat.
Both extractions were made with calm (besides from the above). I let every step take hours (vinegar soak for 24hrs, salt soak for 5hrs, base solution was made with caustic soda and soaked for 24hrs, 3 pulls first day, then 1 pull/day for 3 more days), and now I still have the bottles with base solution resting in the kitchen. Maybe ill do another pull from all of them in.. a week? ^^
Ok.. Now that youve read all my jabblering let me at least give you a couple of concrete questions that Im insecure about:
a) Should I use the larger pan so that I can stir better? And in that case just use bottles for pulling. Or maybe buy a large pot of some sort? or do you think bottles straight away and maybe buy some kind of stirring device that fits down the bottle?
b) Ive now read that the base solution should not be warm when pulling. Ive gone with hot water baths during all pulls- -should I avoid that and heat the heptane before pulling?
c) Was the difference in color of the xtals (white vs slightly yellowish) due to the impatience in shaking/rolling the bottles before pulls?
d) And if I am to make some changa/enhanced leaf - do I need to re-x the yellowish?
e) how can I reduce the amount of floating xtals (in the heptane, when i take the pyrex plate out of the freezer)? Should I always evaporate some heptane before freezing? its like 40% dosnt stick to the plate.
f) I scraped the plates when dried - should I avoid that? Ive read people saying you want to avoid the oils underneath the xtals, and just shake the pan when dry.
g) I am doing some vape-research and have the Silver Surfer Vaporizer on the top of my list. My idea is to use different tubes for herbs/mj/changa and spice (cut the tube short on the DMT one). They even sell a kind of mesh for vaporizing oils. - Has anyone any idea if this is worth the investment? I prefer it more than the vapor genie cus i also want to vape herbs and mj.
h) Last, but not least, do I really need to wait so much between each step of the extraction? I have the patience, but with work and everyday life it would be nice knowing that I would get the same results in a day or two. ..is there any step that really isnt necessary to wait?
If anyone cares to comment on anything at all I would be glad!! And thank you for taking your time!!Now I am waiting on some mullein, damiana and passionflower to show up for my first changa experiments (i have almost a gram of rue extract)
..I will keep you updated!!
I love learning.
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By generalization it means the instantaneous spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability by some unknown process currently beyond the scope of science.