to keep it short and simple:

1) is a crock pot a good method of warming naphtha to use in extraction? SWIM's stove is gas so obviously they can't use it without the risk of an explosion, and SWIM doesn't have an electric hot plate. however, they do have a crock pot (which I've used in the first stages of a/b extraction). I figured it's about as good as a hotplate, but I wanted to ask if anyone here knows from experience.
1a) will the ability to cook food safely, cleanly, and without any chemical taste be affected by doing this?

2) SWIM being an engineer...it seems like adding a relatively small volume of warm solvent on top of a large volume of cool bassified extract water will just cause rapid cooling of the solvent and yield little benefit to DMT absorption. is SWIM correct, and if so, how should SWIM go about warming the extract? hot water bath I'm guessing but again it would be nice to hear the voice of experience.

SWIM has done a few extractions before always using cool solvent and evaporating, but now SWIM has a much colder freezer and wants to try a freeze precip. Hence using warm solvent to help increase the DMT concentration without having to evap down a lot of solvent. also it seems like it could increase the total yield.

thanks for the help!

1- Just boil some water normally in your stove (with the solvent far away of course), then turn the stove off, add your solvent to a glass/container and submerge the bottom of the container in the water, leaving for a few minutes to warm up...

2- yeah hot water bath on the whole thing can work

indeed warm solvent and freeze precipitation is the way to go Just remember to not make too big pulls, rather more and smaller ones

good luck

A sink filed with water as hot as it can go, is plenty hot enough for hot water baths imo.
I like to have the aqueous and NP solvent around 80-85F.
going higher you get alittle bit more solubility but you also solute more unwanted material.

thanks for the quick and helpful replies! results to follow soon...

one other question: I just read elsewhere in the forum (I think it was Acolon posting) that tryptamines degrade fairly quickly in acidic solution. SWIM's mhrb extract has been sitting in a mildly acidic state for 4 or 5 days because of extenuating circumstances that prevented him from finishing the process on his normal schedule. the liquid used for the extraction was a pH~3 dilution of acetic acid but with the effects of evaporation and acids in the bark it's impossible to give a number (SWIM doesn't have a pH meter). how much of a loss of yield should be expected at this point?

None. Don't know where you read that, but I don't believe it. The 4-5 days soaking in acid is a good thing for yields.

Pokey

DMT is a stable salt (acetate, tannate, phosphate etc) in an acidic solution, so leaving it in that state is no problem. Its less stable in a basic solution (as freebase).

right on. thanks again!