In the past I've only done Q21's vinegar/lime TEK with excellent results.

After reading through the max ion tek where up to 3% yields are possible,
I want to try it out.

Right now, I'm just in the freeze/thaw cycle of the tek but i have some questions.

I'm using 100g powdered mhrb. I was satisfied with the wetness after 300mL
of distilled water. I did the heat bath for an hour, let it return to room temp and put it in the freezer overnight. It is currently going through it's first thaw.

Now, the TEK says to use a small amount of vinegar, but no precise amount. I don't have a PH tester but will get some test strips today. So how much vinegar should I use?

My next question is, can the lye in this TEK be replaced with Lime? I have both but prefer lime because it's not lye.

Use only a minimum amount of vinegar - a tablespoon or two. This is only to make the water acidic so the alkaloids will stay in salt form and better dissolve (AFAIK). You don't need more acid as long as your water is not overly basic of course.

Lime is very poorly soluble in water (less than 2 g/L).
You need high pH (12.0 or so) so sodium or potassium hydroxide are the only viable options I am afraid.

Ahh, I see.

So now that I'm done with the freeze/thaw, I've decided to add the vinegar and stuck it back in the freezer for another freeze/thaw cycle before salinating.

I'm actually wondering why the vinegar is not added sooner. Wouldn't it aid in the freeze/thaw break down of the bark?

And for a final, the TEK says to do 6 pulls on
the mix. Should these be done one after another?
Or how much time should i wait before pulls?

Just going along here... yesterday i did three pulls with 60mL each. Im not using a bottle so it helps keep a thicker layer of solvent to allow me to suck the layer off easier. In the future I'll find a narrow neck bottle for the solvent pulls.

Anyway. That first series of pulls netted 1g+, I left lots of crystals in the dish and added the second series of pulls. And am waiting ng on the yield from that until tomorrow.

Let mw juat say wow. 1% yield on the first pulls. I'm thinking this might be my new go to TEK depending on what I can get for final yield. I'm able to hit 1.5% consistently with this bark and the vinegar/ lime tek. Will see what Max Ion has in store.

Great yield! But is it also white or more likely yellow or even brown?

If it is pure white or only slightly yellow then you can definetly expect an above average yield ;D

If it is as yellow as this or maybe this then 1 g may only be like 0,7 - 0,8 : o

It was all white! With just a couple yellowish spots of crystals.

Wish I had pics, but I could actually see the plant oils that sunk to the bottom before freezer precip. Just a few drop sized globs. I sucked them out with a pipette and let dry on a mirror. Those clear globs dried out into sticky yellow powder. This is the first time I tried something like that and think I'll do it every time I'm going for pure FB.

I'm drying my second set of pulls now. 2 pulls @ 60mL NPS. For a total of five pulls. Looks like this batch will only be .5g if I'm lucky.

Also, using ph paper, how the heck do I test a solution such as this tasty is already basically black?

Edit: yield from the second set of pulls was .45g. Putting me at a total of 1.45g pr 1.45% total yield. I feel like there's gotta be a bit more in the barkso I'll probably do a third set of pulls. I'd be happy with 2% yield. It's much faster than vinegar/lime so I'll give it that for now, if i can top the vinegar/lime yields I'll make the switch.