Firstly apologies if this has been posted before - i did have a look around the forums but i am new so i may have missed something. Is there anyone out there experienced with extracting both with the acid to base method (example; http://www.erowid.org/chemicals..._extraction_guide1.shtml) and the straight to base method as described by Norman here; http://www.dmt-nexus.me/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=460? Someone i met once had a pet goldfish that swam out into international waters and performed the acid to base extraction as described in the first link, with good success in terms of quality and quantity. His goldfish intends to SWIM out there again at some point in the next couple of weeks or so and was considering trying the simpler tech as described by Norman. Has anyone done both techs (or similar) side by side (or is experienced with both), and if so, what are the differences in results in terms of quality and quantity in the resulting DMT? It would seem silly to perform a more complex extraction than necessary unless there was some benefit involved. I should add that the extractions were done / will be done with mimosa hostilis. If no one can say then check back in a few weeks or so and hopefully i can report on SWIM's swimming goldfish's results...

http://www.dmt-nexus.me/...BB2/viewtopic.php?t=1410 5 posts down.

Thanks. makes sense once i realised marsofold's technique is similar to the one i wanted comparing.

I would be interested to hear from Noman who wrote one of the prefered simplified extractions, but who seems to still favour the acid / base extraction method himself as to what he perceives to be the advantage with the acid / base method? I've read a lot more of the forums now and i couldn't spot anything on this specifically.

Well, I asked my friend in Antarctica about this and he told me that he uses the Noman tek when he wants to work up a small (under 200g) batch of bark of a known quality in a short time - like if he wants to compare two different extraction solvents, for example. He uses a version of Marsofold's tek (simmering overnight in five changes of acidulated water and then reducing it all down) if he wants to wring every last bit of alkaliod from the bark to see for sure how high yielding it is, or if he's working with a large quantity of bark. He's not happy working with a kilo of lye at a time and there's no such thing as a quick extraction for large amounts anyway. This A/B method yields 10 - 15% better than a straight to base and is thus worth the extra effort with large batches - 1/2 gram more spice per kilo - but the difference is negligable with small batches - 25mg per 50g, half a hit.

Excellent info Noman, thank you.

So your friend in Antartica notices no real differences in quality of resulting DMT, just quantity? That is definitely interesting to know, thanks.

No, the A/B definitely yields a cleaner initial product, but he recrystalizes everything anyway.

good info... i also think the a/b is superior... also i believe that citric acid would be the most effective acids for high yields, rather than acetic......

plus i red that xylene reacts negativly with acetic acid... whatever that means

Why so ?

Because it yields a very pure product, allows to reduce the basic solution and pull with a sep funnel.
However filtering the acidic solution can be very tedious. If you use a vacuum filtration device you can
spend a whole night simmering + filtering. Using a t-shirt to filter the bark may drastically speed the process
up though.

Yeah just do that. There is no reason to take forever filtering further.

The best acid that I've found for an A/B is phosphoric.

what do you guys think of this. it makes sense in my head and what not but SWIM has not completed it with results. would like opinions though, becasue i have seen this done on cappi here as well and dont know why it is not done on mhrb.... not the a/b/a/b part but flushing freebase with water... my a/b/a/b/ theory is to remove all possible left over tannins to allow freebase to remain when water is evapped.

this method is meant to be product efficient, NOT time efficient, nor chem efficient(at this point).

but this method is THEORETICAL and has been created by the results of experiments that have led to a possible conclusion... these have not been acted out in order, by myself or someone other than myself. but merly a thought of what could be due to substantial evidence.

I don't understand why citric acid would yield a purer product than acetic ? Also pH is log based so reduction for a factor of 10 would only change the pH for about 0.4, meaning there is no advantage if the acid evaporates with the water or not ?

Noman: Could you elaborate why phosphoric is "THE" ? Thank you.

i just think i read somewhere that they have stronger bond,

i just think that if you dont use good enough acid that some micro dmt stayes bonded to tannins and not in final product... i could be wrong though. but if you have two acids that dmt bonds too why would it only bond to the one you want it too? then in the end evap if there were tannins remaining i think they will rebond and form a non smokeable product when expecting freebase, when not using solvent.

i would presume that phosphoric could be best, but i like the idea of citris.

[quote=Shaolin
Noman: Could you elaborate why phosphoric is "THE" ? Thank you.[/quote]

I dunno if it's "THE", but it gives better and cleaner yields than either acetic or HCl.
Never tried citric.

Noman: Can you throw some numbers (acetic/phosphoric/HCl) my way ?