What about distilling the used limonene? Everything on the net seems to say that steam-distillation is necessary, so maybe adding water and then drying the distillate with dried MgSO4 would work?

forgive swim but this is swims first time trying this one... and is in the middle of it. does it matter much if there is a little limo in the evap pan? Also what color should the vinegar be? the limo is a greenish yellowish white color, and now the gar has a slight whitish yellow hue. when placed in the evap pan it looks clear though.
swim is using a bit more vinegar in the process because swims gravy strainer is large making it hard to use other wise. should this make much difference outside of evap time? swim has also just been leaving the 300ml and after straining off adding the next pull to it and then vinegar as well. swim does not foresee this will be a problem either. any words of wisdom?

I think distillation alone would be more than sufficent for this purpose. I just never had the right tools to set it up.

A little limonene in the evap pan won't hurt anything, it will just make your resulting extract a little less pure. The vinegar won't look like much until it starts to get thick. More vinegar will take longer to evap, but won't hurt anything.

Save everything, that way if you get a lousy yield you can just pull again and refine your technique.

My only concern would be whether added water would be necessary to home-distill the limonene, and then how to get the distillate sufficiently pure so it would work for this tek. Anyone know of a way to test the purity of limonene?

thanks SWIM really appreciates it...
happy new year!

That may have been the reason for my friends low yield. Half of the Limo was from a previous extraction and my friend reused the limo for all 5 pulls as well.

I guess its time for my friend to to call up GreenTerpene, the only costly part of the tek.

after swim cleaned twice with mek the result is still a brown stick resin.

Did he break it up in the MEK and stir it up real good? It must be agitated and broken up with a knife or something to clean it. Did the MEK turn brown?

yes swim did, it got lighter actually and the mek did turn brown. it was a really sticky mess,swim thinks there is left over limo in it.

and after 5 hours it still tastes like mek alittle...

The problem with this tek is that you are extracting from a big dough ball of squdgy cactus. (cacti and water = cacti dough)



This makes it difficult for the solvent to extract well as it won't make much contact with all the cactus dough unless you want to be kneading cactus dough and d-limonene. Far to smell & messy!



69Ron my suggestion is that you allow the dough to dry before extracting. I'm assuming this will work, what do you think?

Drying the mix doesn't seem to help all that much in my experience.

your making a resin... resins do not dry very well honestly. the fats and oils need to be fully gone for that to occur.
Swims real concern is that what swim has now tastes of MEK, and swim is concerned with eating it.

Sounds like you had a lot of impurities in your pull. If the MEK turned brown its cleaning it. My friend cleaned his 3 times with the MEK. I would recommend a few more washes. Put the beaker in freezer with the MEK and alks before siphoning off dirty MEK.

On the thread I made with the pics; in the cleaning stage there are a few pics of the alkaloid mix in the clean MEK then the next pick is brown MEK with a tan powder at the bottom, That is the 1st cleaning after mixing with a knife and breaking up the resiny alkaloid mix.




After cleaning a few more times put it on a plate in front of a fan over night. It'll all evap out.




After sufficient cleaning it will not be resiny any more. It'll be a semi waxy powder with no smell of MEK. At least it should be

Thanks... swim will give it a shot...

nope, no real difference...

Does the MEK change color?

Quick question...

Do I have to have dried cactus, or can I just grind up fresh and use that, seeing as its mostly water anyway? I dont have the time nor the tools to dry all mine..

Follow the tek word for word otherwise?

Not at all not even after smooshing it around in the mek for hours, swirling it around... and then just letting it sit.
eventually Swim evaped the mek off. it was slightly active.
one positive though is that the resin is very soluble in 80proof vodka which means a tincture of mescalineis possible.making it easier to absord as well as to preserve and dose.