50 g fresh Acacia maidenii brewed 3 times and reduced to ~100 ml.
I added a lot of salt and NaOH, then fresh naphtha and stirred it on a mag stirrer.

The worst emulsion I've ever seen and that with naphtha

The picture shows the emulsion after settling for 24 hours.

Did you filter the extract? Plant matter often leads to nasty emulsions.

You can keep the mixture warm to accelerate separation.

Another thing you can try is pouring everything through wet filter paper. It acts as a membrane - the aqueous layer passes through, the hydrophobic layer is retained.

I once had an emulsion that congealed the entire contents of my extraction vessel into a gel that was so thick, I could turn it upside down and shake it and nothing moved. The addition of a little more strong NaOH solution broke it completely apart in a few minutes.

No, I didn't filter it.

Might try the filter paper thing, but I don't imagine the basic soup would run through the paper easily.


I've already added a lot of lye, but will try with more.

Did you find a way to complete this extraction, Jagube?

Yes, adding more lye helped.

It was a small amount of plant material, as my plant is still small, but should be enough for testing when that becomes possible.

Great news, Jagube! I have been considering adding a maidenii to my entheogenic garden, and look forward to your analysis post if/when you can.