Hiya =)


Here is the idea : using the ron69 drytek but skipping some steps to gain efficiency.

As simple as : putting some fresh (or aged, but still juicy) cuttings of trichocereus in a good blender (vitamix).

Then adding the lime strait to this, letting sit for 24h. Let it sit in the sun for a couple more days until totally dry. Perform the ron69 dry tek.

Advantage : not having to dry the cactus, infinitly easier to blend, faster.

Questions:
1 :anything could go wrong with this approach?

2 :I see the dry tek is still using water ; should i keep the mix in the state of a "paste" or is it better to use cracker dry lime/cactus powder (would it use too much solvent) ?

3 : Bonus question (slightly unrelated): is the use of quick lime (calcium oxide) any different ? does it change to calcium hydroxide in contact with water? I always see that normal lime is required but i never understood the difference (even thou i search for it).

I'm now testing different ratio of lime to fresh cactus =)

A coffee grinder works very well to grind dried cacti. I don't think it is harder than blending fresh cacti. Perhaps a good coffee grinder could make it easier for you (?)

Drying yo cacti fully is not much work (chop, set in dehydrator, collect). Storage is very convenient and re-hydrating to make the paste is super simple.

Quicklime hydrates to lime by absorbing a little bit of water. Reaction is exothermic. If you use a lot, the process would be warmer and end up drier compared to lime. Other than that they are similar I believe.

Ive never used a dry tek for cact but with wet teks, blending cact is not recommended due to creating an elephant snot that is very hard to work with, doesnt separate well from solvent, etc.. Not sure if the calcium hydroxide will change things...

Well, actually that's the interesting property of lime ; it destroy the snot and make it much more efficient. Btw, the snot appears on re-hydrated cactus too =)

Ok, i guess i will make a side to side experiment, see if any consequent difference on working time and efficiency. I still beleive, putting fresh cacti in the vitamix and strrait to lime seems less work overall. (i have a family and a project, time is precious ; cactus is one of the most time consuming entheogen to serve to the community, i'm trying to make it as elegant as possible)

I can try with the CIELO approach too =)

Wow, nice flowers. Any tips for helping the cacti decide to bloom.

I think you will like the CIELO process 🤞

I saw some discutions on this ; if i recall, no clear consensus exists. Maybe it needs to be happy enough ; maybe it needs a bit of stress ; probably going through a natural cycle of dryer period, wetter periods... ?
There's definitly some interesting and really precise environment parameters ; as ALL flowers (from mostly clone, but also from other varieties) flowered at EXACTLY the same time!
Of course, the cactus need to be old enough. I think the best way to go, is to have a lot of cactus... That's probably the best way to have a chance.

About CIELO, i'm just a bit concerned it's "too pure". I'm after full spectrum, rich and rounded substances - that reflect the diversity of the plant. I have no interested in purity. But i'm curious to try it of course =)


PS: my last extract was so good! I used a different approach ; i cooked 3 times, reduced and perform a drytek (with limonene) on the crude extract. It yield a black oil that solified into really hard stone. 1.5g was a strong dose. No body load at all =) (which i found incredible! ). Unfortunatly, this is way too long of a process ; and i heard i might be lossing a lot of interesting goodies in the cooking.

If you blend fresh cactus with lime all you will end up with is a thick and solid mess. It will not break down the goop. Only sodium or potassium hydroxide will do this. Similarly if you add lime to an extracted/pressure cooked and reduced tea it will form a thick soap like substance. Impossible to work with.

The effectiveness of Ron’s initial lime tek and the Cielo tek resides in the balance of wet and dry. You want your basic powdered mix to be just wet enough to mix with solvent but not cling to it so the alkaloids can migrate into the solvent. If it is dried fully before adding solvent the plant matter will hydrate itself with solvent and the process of getting it back out becomes a lot of work.

I just reread your post. This method wipp definitely work as you have observed however IMO it is still better performed with sodium or potassium hydroxide.

No harm will come to most of your precious alkaloids during the cooking process. They are hardy little moleculesj

The classic approach is still the fastest route when working with a bulk amount of cactus. You just need to be comfortable working with large amounts of sodium hydroxide.

You can use one of those conical home brew fermenters with an element installed in it. Blend up 50kg of fresh trichs and add a heap of sodium hydroxide. Blend it all up and wait till it’s slaked then pour in your solvent and mix it like your trying to create a black hole in the universe!!! (Paint mixer and a power drill). Turn on the element to heat it up and it will separate if you have added enough lye and it gets hot enough (80deg).

It’s the fastest way to end up with a big pile of alkaloids, no two ways about it.

antichode, so with a lot of lye, the blended cact breaks the snot and separates well?

I've only done it with small cact pieces and several PC cycles, I avoided blending due to fearing the mess.

Also what solvent and salting/crystallization do you prefer?

By the way a magnetic stirrer is definitely a great thing to purchase

Yes the snot breaks down reasonably quickly. It stays a bit foamy for a while but if left overnight it will be well and truly slaked. When the solvent is added and mixed you need to heat it all up to separate.

Xylene works way better than limonene here as one quick vortex with the paint mixer and the solvent is saturated, heat it up to 80deg C and boom it just floats up in no time. Whereas limonene needs to be mixed over and over again and is very time consuming. Salting is also waaaaay quicker from xylene. Same thing when salting limonene. Lots of shaking is needed the alks just don’t like to migrate over on their own (although I’ve not tried a magnetic stirrer).

I prefer sulfuric acid as it crystallises directly from water with spectacular crystals

The Cielo tek looks like a pretty good advancement in ease of use (and safety) but if you wanna blitz a huge amount of material fast you can’t go past good ol foaf

I'm ok working with sodium hydroxide ; never used Xylene thou ... and yeah, with limonene at least, i would fear a fucking messy emulsion if i pull from the whole fresh cactus... this is the only true nightmare of extraction.
But i will give a thought and consider your input =)

but i think you might be wrong thou, lime does seems to break the snot, and it's easy (from either fresh or dry cactus) to bring it to the right consistency