This tek is for scientific and informational purposes only.

For the longest time, SWIM had a lot of trouble extracting mescaline. He tried numerous cactus sources and teks, and failed with each one. This was not normal for SWIM, he can extract nearly anything. He finally found an extraction tek that worked for him at The Nook. A user there named Me! had a wonderful tek that gave SWIM his first successful mescaline extraction. After running the tek quite a few times, SWIM came up with a variation that he is hoping will help a lot of fellow entheogen lovers achieve the same success. There is nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary about this procedure, however this tek can be performed relatively fast, and requires some pretty easy items to get. The end product will be pure white mescaline Hcl, but you can always substitute in different acids (vinegar, citric, fumaric, sulfuric)to get whatever end product you desire. However, it is HIGHLY recommended not to make any deviations away from the directions on the first attempt. Follow everything to the letter and SWIM can almost assure positive results. Sorry about the length of the writeup and pictorial, but SWIM wanted to be very thorough.



What you will need: Fresh cactus (SWIM almost exclusively uses Achuma, but Pedro and Torch will work great too), D-limonene (at least 95% pure, can also use toluene or xylene if limonene is not available), vinegar, glass mason jars, cotton balls, glass funnel, glass pie baking dish, glass turkey baster, glass extraction vessel (can be a glass carboy, but SWIM uses either a Martinelli apple juice bottle, or 2000 liter bottle of cheap wine that you can find in a drug or grocery store for like $6) sodium hydroxide, acetone, distilled water, blender, and the key to cutting the extraction time down...a pressure cooker.


Okay, let's get started...

Despine and deskin the cactus. SWIM despines his cactus with a pair of needle nose pliers.


Deskinning is pretty self explanatory. He just makes a thin cut along each rib with a razor blade, then peels the skin off from each cut he made like so...


After deskinning, you then snake your cactus. However, SWIM many times will not snake his Achuma because the cores are so thin. He simply cuts up into chunks, core and all. But, if you're using Pedro or Torch, it is advised to snake the cactus pieces off the core. Here is a pic of all four pieces snaked and ready to be cut up.


Cut up the pieces, and put into a blender.


Pour blended cacti into pressure cooker, add some vingegar.


Notice the light green color of the cactus? You want to stir the cacti until the foam disappears...


and the cactus takes on this color.


Once the foam dissipates, add the top on the pressure cooker and cook at 15 psi for 10-15 minutes.
MAKE SURE THAT ALL THE FOAM IS GONE OR IT WILL SPEW EVERYWHERE WHEN YOU START PRESSURE COOKING!


After the first pressure cook pull is done, let the pressure cooker cool off until it can be opened. The liquids will now be separated from the solids, so it's time to set up the straining vessel. SWIM just uses a pasta colander with some cheese cloth put over the big holes. This straining vessel is then put over a large collection type of collection jar.


Squeeze out the remaining water trapped in the cacti by pressing down with a bowl or something similar.


Collect first pull:


Now take the cacti pulp and suspend in water like so:


Perform another two pressure cook pulls, strain and suspend for a total of three pulls. Once you have all your pulls together, reduce down to a manageable amount, say around 1000-1500 milliliters, and discard the solids(Note: The solids can also be added, but this will cause a pretty nasty emulsion during the salting phase. so SWIM chooses not to add them).

Now prepare your extraction vessel for hot liquid by running hot water through it for about 2-3 minutes. Pour your reduced pulls into you extraction vessel and let cool for a little while.

Once cooled, it is now time to base. This is where SWIM feels many people go wrong in the extraction. A nearly excessive amount of sodium hydroxide should be used. SWIM used 225 grams of lye to base this particular extraction. One can slowly add the lye directly to the extraction vessel, or dilute the lye in water first and add to the extraction vessel. SWIM prefers adding directly to avoid adding more water than is necessary to the extraction vessel.

Once based, your solution will take on a dark color like this:


Now add your solvent, d-limo was used for this extraction and is HIGHLY recommended over the other solvents such as toluene and xylene. You want to use about a 2 inch layer of solvent, like so:


Cap your vessel and shake the hell out of the jar. Make sure to open the cap and vent out any pressure that builds up. If you based you solution enough, the two layers will separate very cleanly within minutes. Once separated, shake and let separate a couple more times. Wait a couple hours, then pull off your top layer of solvent with a glass turkey baster.


Now that you have the top layer pulled, it's now time for salting...


The top layer ended up being about 120 ml, so it was decided to salt with around 100 ml of a hydrochloride solution. This is made by adding 8-10 drops of Hydrochloric acid (35% dilution) to 120 ml of distilled water.

Once the solution is made, add about 20-25ml to your d-limo, shake vigorously, then let separate.


Pull the bottom acidic layer with the glass turkey baster and put into collection jar:


Perform three more saltings of 20-25ml to exhaust your Hcl solution:


You'll notice a thin layer of limo at the top, don't worry about this, it will be addressed soon...

Now, it's time to set up the evaporation station. SWIM has gas burners, so he bought a hot plate setup. He puts his glass pie plate on on a dutch oven filled with hot water. A fan is setup in the window, and another fan is set up in front of the hot plate to blow over the pie plate and direct the air to the exhaust fan.


Now take your Hcl pulls and decant into the pie plate. Make sure to pull from the bottom of the jar as to avoid the top layer of d-limo.


Once you get to the last of the Hcl solution, you are bound to hit the d-limo layer. No worries, just suck both layers up and your turkey baster will act as a mini-separatory funnel. Simply squeeze out the bottom layer of the Hcl solution, and leave the d-limo in the turkey baster.


Now set the pot to a low heat, and let the solution evaporate. Once this is done, scrape up the extract with a clean razor blade.



Okay, so now you've got your first pull done and have some mescaline along with the other alkaloids. Repeat the salting procedure another 3-4 times, or until the extraction vessel is exhausted of alkaloids. Once you have all your mescalito and other alk's together, it is now time to clean up the mescaline, then recrystallize.


Take your mescalito, dump it into a bowl, then cover with frozen, dry acetone. The acetone MUST be dry! Agitate and crush up the mescaline with a pestle.


The mescaline is not soluble in acetone, while the other alk's are. Let the mescaline settle, then pull off the acetone layer.


Repeat this step another 2-3 times, you'll watch the acetone get lighter and lighter until almost clear.




Now take your glass funnel and stuff a small piece of cotton ball tightly into hole of the funnel. Take the funnel and put into a mason jar (SWIM used an erlenmeyer flask instead). Add some more acetone to your mescaline, swirl around, then pour into the glass funnel. The mescaline will get stopped by the cotton plug, while the acetone and any remaining other alk's pass through into the jar or flask. Dump the acetone.


Take your funnel and filter, and dry it in front of a fan.


Almost done...

Once the mescaline and cotton ball are totally dry, set it back up in the erlenmeyer flask or mason jar. Make sure you have cleaned and dried the flask or jar if you're using the same one you used to collect the acetone.

Now, boil some distilled water. Take your boiled water and an eyedropper and add about 20-30 milliliters of hot water to the dry, mescaline containing cotton plug. The hot water will dissolve the mescaline and it will pass through the cotton plug, into the jar or flask.

Set up the evaporation station again, then pour your mescaline containing water back onto the pie plate, and evaporate on low heat again.

You will end up with this...


Closeup...


Finished product...


The picture above is of the first pull cleaned up, and weighed 496 milligrams. Another four saltings were performed, and the total yield was 1376 milligrams of extremely clean and pure mescaline.

So that's the tek. SWIM knows it seems like a lot of work, but it's really not. Many of the pics are just quick steps that SWIM wanted to have pictures of. This tek drastically cuts down the time it takes to get to the basing stage. No more 3-4 3 hour acidified water pulls. The pressure cooker reduces the time for this dramatically, and does an extremely efficient job at separating the solids from the liquids. One can choose to let the first limo pull sit in the extraction vessel for 24 hours, but can also pull the first layer in only a few hours. The yield dropoff is not that much, so the choice is up to you. The remaining three pulls can be done over the course of 1-3 days. It's all based on how often you want to pull.

Well, that's it. Thanks for reading through SWIM's tek, and he hopes that it can put a lot of people in touch with mescaline that could not extract it before. DMT is truly SWIM's favorite entheogen, but mescaline is an extremely close second. Happy travels fellow Nexians!

Thanks for taking the time to write this, heavenlypursuit!

You say to put 8-10 drops of HLC in 120ml of water, but what was the percentage of the hydrochloric acid used?

Great work thanks a lot for the work and sharing with us!!

Im also wondering about the HCl! And, isnt the filtering of the blended material problematic? I wonder differences in yield (and filtering/impurities) if instead of blending it was done with pieces of cactus.

Do you know the original weight of cactus?

Thanks alot.
Nicely laid out and easy to follow.
I just have 1 question. you might not be able answer. If I can't use a pressure cooker, what are the boiling times like for a conventional pot?

If you can't answer i'm sure I'll figure it out.

Looks flawless to me!

Excellent work!

edit - except the 225 grams of lye part. No need for that much lye!

hi very interesting...

I see you used a pressure cooker - is it stainless steel?

I have read many warnings not to use aluminium when cooking cactus and have not been able to find the exact reason for this other than aluminium ingestion is potentially a contributing factor in Altzheimers.

I would think using aluminium would be ok as long as acids are avoided during the cooking?
?

Kermit and endlessness,

The Hcl SWIM used was a 35% solution he picked up from Ace Hardware. That's the same place he ordered his glass turkey baster from, and also purchases his sodium hydroxide there. (Not at the same time of course!) Endlessness, SWIM doesn't filter once the entire time, it's not necessary. When that much base is used, it further breaks down whatever cactus may have made it into the extraction vessel. SWIM also doesn't know the weight, he has so much Achuma he just extracts 3 or 4 12-14 inch pieces whenever he wants some mescalito.

Well, the pressure cooker is the key to the swiftness of the tek. If you are gonna go traditional, I would say about 3 or 4, 3 hour acidified boils.

Mydriasis and curious1,

225 grams of lye makes a difference. SWIM's yields skyrocketed once excessive lye was added. SWIM feels that inadequate basing is what caused him to fail on many of his cactus extractions. It may have been coincidence, but as soon as sodium hydroxide levels went up, SWIM finally succeeded in his extraction. While 225 grams may be high, it really aids in the extraction by making the separation of layers occur very easily.

Pressure cooker is stainless steel, it's just that the inside looks dull on the pictures because of the steam rising up. I've read the same thing about aluminum, but not sure how valid it is. People cook and consume foods in these things, curious how cooking cactus would be any different.

Great tek and pix! Thanks so much.

Great job of reporting that tek! Very nice step by step instructions and pics.

Doesn't this belong in the wiki??

What do you think about straining the initial pulls through a coffee filter (after the cheesecloth)?

It still wouldn't pass through easy at all. SWIM initially focused on filtering the first few go-rounds, but came to realize it's just not necessary. The cheesecloth simply separates the flesh from water on the first pull, which allows one to accomplish the next pull by suspending the separated flesh in water again. Cheesecloth again to separate for the third pull. When SWIM did filter the pulls, the amount that was left to be added back to the main cactus flesh was rather insignificant. SWIM is not condoning laziness, but it is really not necessary to filter. The amount of base used will literally destroy any emulsion that dares to try and make its way into the extraction vessel. SWIM will shake the crap out of the vessel, and within 5-10 minutes the emulsion is completely gone and the layers are separated beautifully.

Very beautifully put together, and awesome pics!! Thanks a lot for your efforts and time for this write-up! its very helpful, and i will be sure to try out this tek as soon as i can afford some cacti.
..all this time i thought that mesc was very heat sensitive; and that one had to be very careful when preparing it even in a boiling pot. its good to know that it can tolerate much higher temp's...sure makes the task a lot more easier and efficient.
i noticed you wrote, "Dump the acetone" after salting; so just thought i'd point out that you should change that since its very toxic to all life, and should be properly disposed of via evaporation.
<3

So this pressure cooker seems like a good way to make a tea from cacti.
How about dried chips extraction ?
WOuld you make a tea ?

Phenethylamines are generally a bit stronger in structure, so some of them are not as sensitive to heat as one may think. Mescaline especially is a more complex molecule than dmt, so it can take some punishment without being destroyed.

SWIM'S done it with dried chips and powder but it doesn't work as well. One has to boil the foam out of the dried stuff for a bit longer. If this is not done, it will foam out of the top of the pressure cooker, or it will not separate at all from the water when you're trying to do pressure cookings two and three. The cheesecloth makes no difference. The chips or powder will just sit there mixed in with the water. SWIM has an even easier tek for powdered or dry chips but he wanted to put this one up first because he prefers working with fresh cactus over dried. A tea can most definitely be made faster with the pressure cooker method.

Oh, and phantastica...

Acetone is far from very toxic. Not saying it's good for you, but it does occur naturally in our bodies. Furthermore, the amount of acetone leftover after the wash is about 25ml. SWIM does see your point though, and that is definitely a good alternative to dumping.

Thanks for all the work you put into this. As chemistry layman I love these step by step pictorials.
Can you summarize the yields, please. You wrote you've got 1,3g of product. From those 4 cuttings in first photo? What was the weight?

Regards.

Sorry zubidlo, the cuttings were not weighed. He would estimate the fresh cuttings to dry down to anywhere between 50-100 grams of dried powder. The only reason why SWIM estimates that is because he dried a huge 4 foot, tall, 3.5 inche diameter piece of bridgesii and it only dried down to 95 grams. That piece was much larger than the ones SWIM used in the pictorial. If you went by that, the yield could be as high as 2%, but more likely around a 1.2 - 1.5%. Not the most staggering numbers, but definitely worth the time it takes for the extraction.

Heavenly this is a really awesome tutorial! Thanks!!
I am curious as to how you prepare with dry powder because this is what I have a lot of. When I run out I will be buying and growing fresh cacti for the future. Like you said cheesecloth doesn't help when using dried cactus. The goop just sits there on top of it, and it doesn't work if try to force the liquid out. What I did for my first, and only mesc extraction was just wait for the solids to separate on there own in the fridge. This takes too long especially when you are doing long boils as well. I'm definitely gonna have to get a pressure cooker for my next extraction!

You will need to take the dried powder and boil it down for a bit longer than the fresh cactus. Just stir and stir, and stir some more for about a 1/2 hour. You'll notice the cactus start to slightly separate from the water. At this point, stop stirring and see if there is any foam that builds up. If there is no more foam, it is then safe to put the top on the pressure cooker and get the pressure up to 15psi. When using powdered cactus, let the cactus stay at 15psi for 15-20 minutes. At that point, the cactus WILL separate from liquid and allow you to continue with your next two pulls. However, this tek is way more work than is necessary for dried powder. All one really needs to do with powder is base strongly with NaOH or KOH, put in solvent, shake up and let sit for about 12-24 hours. Then just pull the top solvent layer, salt, put the solvent layer back into the extraction vessel, then repeat 3-4 more times. SWIM performs this tek by adding about 500ml of a 30% KOH solution to 100 grams of cactus powder. He shakes the crap out of the jar, then adds about a 3-4 inch layer of d-limo. Shakes vigorously a few more times, then lets the jar sit for 24 hours. He then pulls the d-limo off the top, salts and repeats another 4 times. This tek takes a bit longer, but it is probably the easiest mescaline extraction tek there is. Once SWIM gets some more powder in, he can do a writeup for that tek if anybody is interested.

Nice write up!


Acetone is not "very toxic to all life", and evaporating it is potentially the worst disposal scenario because it is very flammable. See...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone#Safety

...for more info.

Spread small amounts on the topsoil (where some will evaporate and microorganisms will break it down) and spike larger amounts with paint then hand off to your local household chemical waste disposal stream.