Awesome write up... I have been soaking my powdered bark for about 15 hours and by what you have said it seems way too long to have done so. Thanks for the easy tek!

Thanks for clearing that up, twilight. I have been using powdered bark and i read so many different things from so many places it's hard to know what is right, unless you just do it yourself. I will not wait as long next time and will hopefully get the same yields. What's good about the STB tek is that if you fail the first time round doesn't mean you can't go back and try again with more NaOH (like you said). It's pretty much fool proof! Thanks again!

Hey im a proper n00b to all this extraction buisness but a freind of mine has asked me to gain some info for im. he wants to do the lazy mans tek as he says it seems real easy but has a few questions! if using powdered bark does it only have to soak for a short wile and is it obviouse when the time is right to move onto the next step? and he said he can only get 50-60g of root bark is this enough to get atleast a few pipes of spice if all goes well? do u know of any video tutorials?And finally do u know a realiable source for root bark in the UK? sorry to bombard you with questions but my mate is chomping at the bit to get this extraction going.ty! ...HydroBlowBack...

I was thinking the same thing!

Hello Twilight (Vortex),

Welcome to the DMT-Nexus and its nice to see such a well written tek.

Just for your information, your tek is also available on the DMT-Nexus Wiki. Feel free to join and change the tek as you like on that Wiki.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Hey Twilight,

Welcome to The Nexus. This tek seems extremely straight forward. Can it really be so easy?!

I'm going to give this a shot. I might have some q's for ya, but if not I'll certainly report back on my results!

Thanks for sharing!
-idt

If your "remaining" half of the naphtha is "gone" the only place it could have "gone" to is the air--i.e., you left the cap off and it evaporated. If so, then the spice is still in the jar. Re-add the prescribed amount of naphta (it was 150ml, right?), splash/swirl it around (don't shake), wait for it to get yellow, and pick up where you left off--and this time don't leave the cap off the jar for extended periods...

I'm only going by what you're saying: Naphtha can't suddenly decide it's going to dissolve into water. If it was there when you left it, and you capped it...then it's still there. Just add more and wait til it colors, then evap/freeze precip as you choose.

I checked out the freeze precipitate and it's got a little bit of dark orange stuff in the corner, and little dark orange stringy specks on the bottom of the jar. I was afraid of this! It also remains smelling like gasoline, (ronosol).

What should I do? Throw it out?

The little orange things are spice plus MHRB fats, other alkaloids/jungle spice. The ronosol is SUPPOSED to smell like ronosol. It's possible to clean out the orange coloration if you want--or use it as is...although a proper freeze precip SHOULD come out without the orange...

I'm not nearly among the experts...but to me it seems pretty likely that you've done something wrong in your freeze/precip. It's perhaps ALSO likely that you brought along some other goop with your ronosol--you need to be careful to ONLY get the ronosol plus spice off the top.

Well I added more naphtha, gotta wait a bit to see what will happen. Here's hoping for clear layer!

If you're following exactly the tek you link to, then you don't WANT a clear layer. To avoid orange spice it's best to try a defat step before basifying.

You did pour your spice down the drain. A freeze-precip. will re-dissolve when it begins to warm near room temp.

There's no need to get flustered and throw stuff out. There's VERY LITTLE that can go wrong with the simple tek you're using.

Next time why not start with some naphtha washes of the bark itself (before basifying)? And when you do that, DISCARD the naphtha. That way, most of the red stuff is washed out of the bark and discarded before you even BEGIN your extraction. (The exact defatting method is giving in the first post of this thread).

I have NO explanation for where your naphtha is "disappearing" to. I hope you're not really SHAKING the entire bottle, with naphtha plus basified bark--doing that could cause a MAJOR emulsion, almost to the extent that you might not even be able to SEE a naphtha layer (I think). You just need to swirl, and warm the bottle in the sink with hot water from the tap.