Hi, I'm new here and havent really posted before. I couldn't find the info I'm looking for, and I'm not sure this warrants a new post, But if the info is already posted somewhere, I can delete this, or feel free to move it.

Anyway, I'm trying to make a batch of yopo, first time making it, but I've had it from others who made it. I feel I know enough to get it to work, but Id like others opinions on if this sounds like I' not just wasting my shells and yop.

I decided on shells since its traditional, and I already had a bunch. I'm using a small handful of garden snailshells and a old large snail shell, probably from a seasnail, but it may or may not be a fossil, it looks that old on the outside, but still smooth on the inside. I figure it is a fossil, its probably already turned to limestone, which still works from what I understand. Calcium carbonate is supposed to be too weak on its own, and Ideally you want to convert it to Calcium oxide, which is a stronger base, but I read that temps required to do so require temps over 800c, which requires a forge, furnice, kiln, or one hell of a fire, unfortunatley I have none of those, and its been raining constantly here. I hear some people just bake the shells in their oven, but mine only getts to 500F, so I dont know how well thats working for people, so I don't want to do that. and Some just roast the shells in a fire inside a cookie tin, don't douse in water, and grind and use as is.

I do, however, have a butane torch, which can get up to 1430c. So I started buring my shells until they were red hot and starting to crack and peal, and then immediatly douse them with a little water from a spray bottle (because CaCo3 breaks down to Co2 and CaO in the presense of high temps and water). The doused peices then let out a cloud of burnt hair smelling vapor, and then just crumble apart to smaller peices and coarse powder. Then I let it dry, and grind it in a mortar and pestle.

My question is will this work? Is the heat from the torch enough to cause this reaction? Is it too much heat and breakingit down into something else? Is the water needed at all? And how much of the end product do I mix with the seeds? I'm planning a 1:4 ratio, but something tells me I need more than that. Should I add anything else like baking soda (Why if I already have a stronger base?), or plant ashes, or tobacco? I have some rustica rape I could add, but I want it to be as traditional as possible, and I'm not sure all whats traditionally added. I aslo want it to work well, and that trumps tradition to an extent.

Also, I have 17 seeds, should I use them all and make one big batch? Or does this stuff spoil quickly, and I should only make a few seeds at a time? Whats the shelf life of prepared yopo? How long will the seeds stay active if stored properly?

Thanks for the answers, it this is in the wrong place please feel free to move it, or ask me to delete.

I don't have answers, just my experience with trying to calcine egg shells. I had them in a steel can in reasonably large fire (for being in a city), and I do not believe it was hot enough. I doubt a typical oven is sufficient.

I don't think dousing in water is necessary, but reaction with water is an indication that you have CaO (i.e. slaking quicklime to Ca(OH)2). It might be slightly more difficult to tell if it is a reaction when it is quite hot (both in terms of steam etc., and if you use room temperature water with cooled shells you may feel the water warm up... the water would also make your hands feel soapy if it dissolved). For small amounts of shell a torch might be practical, but maybe it will take an unreasonably long time. I don't know.

Awesome, thank you for the in put. It was just a spritz from a spray bottle, just enough to douse it, and there was definitely more steam than just the water, so hopefully that was enough to produce at least some reaction of the CaCo3 to CaO. I've also opted to use some ash, just in case thats not quite enough. In lieu of any traditional wood for this purpose, I burnt about a gram of high CBD low THC hemp flower into almost pure white ash, and I plan to add some of that to the mix. Also, in addition to having it available, I kind of feel safer snorting cannabis ash over most other plants. I considered tobacco, but I only have some uncured leaves and flowers I plucked off my Rustica plants, and I'd rather not fast dry them and use it green. I also have a few grams of rapeh (feels weird writing it as "rape" w/catauba that I considered using a few dashes of for whatever alkalizer is in there, plus the mapacho, but I don't want to add to the bulk of it, and I wanna see how well the shells work on their own, and that rapeh has lime and cocoa ash in there. (I bet cocoa ash would would probably make it feel like you shoved a reeses up your nose, lol) Also I suspect that little bit of tobacco isn't doing a whole lot, and if it is, I can probably just do it separate. Anyone had it with tobacco/mapacho? Does it help?

Yeah I could see this being a pain doing a big batch of them, but I'm probably gunna be sticking to small batches anyway. Don't get me wrong, from the couple other times I've had it, it's in the runnings for favorite substance. I experienced none of the awful side effects others report, no nausea or vomiting, no headaches, no body achs, flushing, or extreme vasoconstriction, just clear, calm, and highly euphoric, with gentle DMT like visuals for over an hour, and no hangover to speak of. I didn't even get much pain from insufflation, no more than I get from any rapeh blend, less in fact than most.

I don't know if I just didn't have enough to get sick, but it was definitely enough for a nice little blast off. At most I did 600mg in one sitting, but I have no idea how many seeds per gram were in his mix, and I'm unable to ask. I just know he uses a mix of snail shell and a small amount of baking soda, It's dark brown to almost black, and it tastes/smells like slightly burn peanut butter, and hardly burns your nose, and just for a couple minutes. Its easily one of my favorite experiences so far, but I want to push it a little deeper, without risking being so sick and in pain that I want it to end. I get thats always a possibility, especially with something that's supposed to vary so much batch to batch, but I feel like its always a good idea to minimize those risks.

So I just know I want to make it as close to that as possible, hence opting for snail shells. All the Lime stories I hear sound just awful, and the baking soda alone stories sound like a flop. This felt PERFECT, but I wish I had done just a little bit more to see where it goes, or if a breakthrough is possible. I suspect its not, and negative effects are likly to increase at higher doses, but even if I can't go past the level I had it, it was still a usful tool for me, and might even combine well with some other substances I want to experiment with.

Also it was just extremely pleasant. I know this might just be his particular batch since theres so much variation, not to mention mislabled Peregrina and colubina seeds that look almost identicle, but I'm hoping I can achieve something at least close to it. He said he used Peregrina, so thats what I bought (I hope), but who knows if his seeds were mislabled or mine were mislabled. Is there any definite way to tell I don't know about? I just know people say one is really heavy with the body load and sickness but powerful with the experience, and the other is supposed to feel a lot less toxic feeling, but not as visionary. I've heard some argument over which is which, but it seems most likely peregrina is the gentle one from what I can tell, which makes me suspect Peregrina is what he used, but I have little frame of reference, and could be the lack of CaOH too, I just don't know.

I've heard people say its more of a "long term substance", where benefits come after many uses, getting more familiar how to work with it. Its also apealing that the seeds are so cheap, though I suspect not for long since apparently there are supply chain issues for importing this and other entheogens that I don't fully understand.

Went off on a tangent, sorry. Anyway, The plan right now is snail shell, seeds, hemp ash, and water, made into a dough, kneed it for an hour, let it sit overnight to let whatever reactions take place,(some people suggest there's some fermentation needed, and will forment for up to 4 days, or that the remaining CaCo3 can continue to react to form the CaO, or turn into calcium Bufenate, I've heard others say thats complete nonsense, and I pretty much agree, but I'm doing it anyway unless someone gives me a good reason not to, because theres enough reports of it doing something extra that I feel it might be worth it, and there doesnt seem to be a downside to trying it), then dry it in an oven at 200 until its hard enough to grind back to a powder. I'll definitely report back with results when I try it.

Just a few more questions. When trying to pop my seeds, I threw em in a frying pan on low heat, as everyone suggests, but my seeds never popped, a could just split at the seems, but they never swelled and popped like the videos I've seen. Is this a bad sign? I heard they were supposed to pop anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes, but after 30 minutes and just two splitting a little, I decided my pan ust not be hot enough, and turned the heat up on my electric stove to almost medium for another 10 minutes, and still nothing. Not wanting burn the things I took them off and started peeling them by hand. I started with only 8 seeds just to make sure I'd have another chance if this was a failure. My question is, do you think I burned off the alkaloids by added the 10 minute on higher heat? Can you overcook these things? My understanding is that 5-ho-dmt is pretty heat tolerant, but I'm sure theres a limit to that, I'm just not familiar with. Also, is them not popping a bad sign? Do I have old/beat seeds? The vendor I bought them from said they were fresh and viable, but I also had tried to sprout 3 in a paper towel, and they all just molded over before they could sprout, so I'm kinda thinkin she lied to me. How long do these things stay good for?

Also, I'm finding it difficult to decide on a ratio, Ive seen "2 parts seed to 1 part baking soda and 1 part shell" suggested. I've seen people suggest "half and half seed and shell" but I've also seen 1 part shell to 3 parts seed" and even someone treat it like lime and do 1/10th shell, and its all a little confusing what works best. If anyonw has done this before and has experimented with the ratio a bit, I'd love to hear your advice. As of now, without reccomendation, I'm planning on doing 1 third 80/20 (give or take) shell/ash mix, to 2/3 seed. That seems like a reasonable place to start thats not too far in either direction, and it minimizes the amount of shell and ash I have to snort a bit. If this is definitely not enough to provide proper absorption, please tell me soon, because I'm about at that step now.

Also, sorry, I forgot that this is basically my first post so I should introduce myself a little. I've been experimenting with various substances for the last 20 years or so. Its always been a fascination of mine, I love talking about it, and I've successfully treated depression, anxiety, and other nuerosis through altered states of conciousness, where modern medicine has usually failed, and I feel its made me a better person overall. I've worked with Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline (pure synthetic and sanpedro/puruvian torch), DMT, Ayahuasca, Salvia, 2cb, 2ci, TMA-1, TMA-2, MDMA, MDA, ketamine, DXM, N2O, Amanita Muscaria, and a pretty long list of various RC chemicals. I've had some pretty life altering experiences, and I've definitely had some struggles and difficult experiences, but I continue to experiment, because there seems to always be more to learn and I feel I've barely scratched the surface. I treat every experience like its a potential disaster, and I try to always promote harm reduction in all instances of substance use. I try to stay humble and aire on the side of caution, because I know, no matter how experienced you are, something can always, easily, come and put you back in your place, but I try to face my fears head on whenever possible. I'm pretty introverted, paranoid, and I have a tendency to self isolate, but I'm trying to be a little more outgoing. I don't want to go into too much detail about myself, because this post is already too long, and I don't want to post too much identifying information. I've lurked here for a while before I actually decided to post, and this yopo experiment seemed like a good excuse to get involved with the site and get some answers.

Thank you for having me here, and I hope I can contribute in one way or another. Don't feel like you have to respond to every question, and I get thats kind of a lot to read, so I don't blame anyone that doesn't.

Steam is water. Water is not needed to go from CaCO3 to CaO. It is used up in the reaction with CaO to make Ca(OH)2. Not sure if I am misunderstanding.


You're trying to make lime here. CaCO3 is like chalk, it serves no purpose. Plant ash might have some CaO (CaCO3 is generally a major component of plant ash, and it can turn to CaO if the fire is hot enough) but K2CO3 is probably moreso what makes it basic (and is quite soluble). You could also try sodium carbonate... all you have to do is heat baking soda.

As a foot note to all this, my benchtop-scale attempts at producing calcium oxide from limestone have only seen true success when using an oxy-propane torch. Granted, this is due in large part to the radiant heat losses at this scale - it was literally just the stone on a stand and the torch. In other words, not very efficient . On the plus side, the completion of the reaction becomes abundantly apparent as the freshly formed calcium oxide emits a dazzling white light (wear eye protection!) This is, of course, the origin of the term 'limelight' and makes for a fun experiment if you are so inclined. And so is the hydration - slaking - reaction of the calcium oxide, which never ceases to entertain me.

Another route to calcium hydroxide is by the addition of a soluble alkali hydroxide to a solution of calcium salt, typically the chloride. Calcium hydroxide precipitates (largely) and, assuming you're using sodium hydroxide, sodium chloride remains in solution. Calcium chloride is far more soluble than sodium chloride so the latter salt may start crystallising out if you started with a high enough concentration of CaCl2. It's also worth bearing in mind that the solubility of calcium hydroxide decreases (slightly) with increasing temperature, whereas there is a very slight increase for the solubility of sodium chloride. To that end, filtering while hot may be advantageous.

That simply ain't gonna happen here. Firstly, CaO would be hydrated to Ca(OH)2 under these conditions, and secondly, left to it's own devices Ca(OH)2 will react with atmospheric CO2 to form CaCO3. The temperatures at which CaCO3 decomposes to form CaO would destroy any and all organic substances found in the yopo seeds.