Hi

I'm having trouble getting a clean solution after acid cooking powdered MHRB. Filtered through cotton balls and stacked coffee filters several times, but solution is still murky. Letting it sit overnight did not improve the situation much either.

Attempting to basify and extract with NPS (I thought maybe I'd get a clean organic layer...) yields nothing but a mess.

I'm keeping an eye out for coarsely ground or whole bark.
In the meantime, would getting a 1.5 micron filter help?

May I inquire as to why you are filtering?

One love

Sure, just because it's hard to separate aqueous and organic layers with a bunch of junk floating around (I am using a separatory funnel).

Ah! okay, gotcha now.

At one point I was going to try the separatory funnel, but was talked out of it by a few of those more versed in chemistry on the forum.

My concern would be the DMT that gets trapped in whatever you filter through, like cotton balls, and thus potentially reducing your overall yield.

Also if you filter before you base, then there will be DMT left in the bark.

There seems to be a consensus for better yields by keeping the bark in the soup.

Some of the conversations the information has been in have been somewhat recent, and if I can find some of them I will share them here for you.

However, you may be onto something that I am simply unaware of. I'm still always learning more and more chemistry-wise.

One love

Oh, I see. Thank you.

So what I should be doing is keeping the bark in the pot containing basified soup, adding NPS, then drawing off the top NPS layer once the freebase has had a chance to migrate to it?

I'm not the most skilled at this stuff, so I was concerned that if I pull any of the small bark particles, they'll make crystallization less selective and give me worse purity.

Yep, that's exactly what you'll want to do. Mix in hot solvent in a rolling process, moving the NPS all through the soup. Allow time for the solvent to separate and then siphon off the top layer that's the NPS.

The first few times you do it, you'll probably pull a little of the soup. There's ways to mitigate this. First, if using a pipette and you suck up some of the soup, allow it to settle at the bottom of the pipette and then spit that little bit back out into the soup. The next thing you can do is use a "chase jar" that you initially empty your pipette into, and then from there pour it into another jar, trying to keep the bit of soup in the first jar. Finally, when all is said and done, just re-x.



One love

Alright, thanks a ton! I'll use the chase jar method you suggest

Powder bark in blender!!! Put in large pot!! Add water and healthy splash vinegar!! Bring to boil, then simmer for 30 min. Filter this tea using a piece of cloth, t shirt or bandana or such, over a funnel can be helpful. Bark goes back in pot, repeat this 2x more with fresh water and vinegar.

These 3 collected boils are reduced to fit in extraction vessel and based with NaOH.

I probably would not do nearly as well or as quickly if I had to use a separatory funnel and filter the tea, etc. Sep funnel looks legit, but this works better.

Don't forget to post a picture of your big pile of spice.

Another potential problem with filtering MHRB tea is that the tannins precipitate on cooling, forming an intractable sludge. This sludge will clog virtually every filter except cloth.

I wouldn't use a separatory funnel for this kind of extraction either.


And I've learned a new bit of terminology today - "chase jar". I've generally used a pyrex jug or beaker for this purpose because the spout makes life much easier, so consider using a "chase jug" if possible.

I use a thin "flower vase" myself. Then I can just pour off the NPS and the tiny bit of soup stays behind. The water in the soup tends to stick to the glass anyways making it fairly easy to perform this step.