SWIM just had another idea...since the heptane will make any water sink to the bottom..perhaps there isnt a need to dry the seeds first...SWIM is working on a strange Tek...he freebased the seeds..and without drying..put acetone in it and shook it really good for a few minutes..the acetone got a nice amber color...he is going to evaporate the acetone...and then make a mix of 4 parts MEK and 6 parts Hexane..and stir it around...and then boil off the MEK and then put the jar in cupboard over night and see what happens..

Acetone can hold a lot of bufotenine. SWIM never tested how much exactly, but it’s a lot.


As for how to tell if the MEK is gone from the 40:60 MEK:heptane mix, that’s simple, just boil until 50% is gone, and then evaporate the rest of the heptane.

MEK boils at 79.64 C and heptane boils at 98.43 C.

You can tell if the MEK is gone because the temperature of the boiling solvent rises to 98.43 C. Also MEK smells totally different from heptane, so you can tell by smelling it.

What SWIM does is he sets his hotplate just hot enough to boil the MEK but not the heptane. That way as soon as all the MEK boils away, it stops boiling. In order to do that you need to know how hot to set your particular hotplate in combination with your flask size and solvent amount. To find that hotplate setting, put the beaker you’ll be using on the hotplate and pour in heptane to equal the amount of solvent you’ll be using in your mix, then find the setting that causes it to boil very lightly. Then do the same thing again using the amount of pure MEK you’ll be using later, and find the hotplate setting that causes your MEK to boil lightly. Keep note of the settings used on the hotplate, the solvent tested, the amount of solvent, and the beaker size. Remember that the hotplate setting varies by quantity of solvent and size of beaker used.

SWIM tested the amount of pure bufotenine that the 40:60 MEK:heptane mix could hold at room temperature and found it to be: 530 mg/100 ml.

Remember that SWIM tested and found that 530 mg of pure freebase bufotenine dissolves in 100 ml of the 40:60 mix of MEK:heptane at room temperature, so if someone was extracting 100 grams of seeds, they normally would have about 2 grams of bufotenine, so you’d need 377 ml of 40:60 mix to dissolve all of the bufotenine. It’s probably a good idea to increase that to 400 ml. One could always boil it down to 50 ml and then leave it to sit overnight. Large crystals will form if the extract is clean enough to start with. If the extract is overly dirty crystals might not form.

The crystals look beautiful. They are white, actually colorless. The bufotenine crystals look like shards of glass and have a form that is nearly identical to DMT. They are harder and more brittle than DMT and don’t smell like DMT. The smell is very light. It’s hard to describe, maybe very slightly similar to the smell of DMT.

Note that SWIM tested a 50:50 mix of MEK to heptane and this produced amber colored crystals. The purity suffered but the bufotenine still crystallized as long as the MEK was boiled off and the heptane was left to sit overnight. SWIM sees no benefit to this mix. It’s better to use 40:60, or even less MEK. However 20:80 wasn’t enough MEK. At that ratio no bufotenine was extracted and no amber material was extracted. SWIM hasn’t tested a 30:70 ratio yet.


I believe we are on the verge of creating a very simple tech that anyone can do that ends up with clear bufotenine crystals from Yopo or Vilca. As of yet, the only clear cut tech out there that ends up with nearly pure bufotenine crystals is the one by Jonathan Ott which requires solvents that are nearly impossible for most people to get, lab equipment, etc., and it's a lot of work.

SWIM wants to try de-fatting 100 grams of crushed seeds with 500 ml of pure MEK a few times until the MEK comes out clear, then freebasing the seeds in saturated sodium carbonate, and then extracting 3 times with 200 ml of a 40:60 mix of MEK to heptane (that’s a total of 600 ml, we only need 400 ml, so it’s a little excess just to be sure we get everything). Then boiling down to 50 ml and leaving to sit overnight. I think this could produce nearly pure crystals. SWIM will try it with his next batch of seeds.

As an alternative to MEK, acetone could probably be use. And as an alternative to heptane, naphtha could probably be used. But the 40:60 mix (40% MEK in heptane) might need to be altered a little. I think if only naphtha was substituted for haptane, you might be able to use the same ratio. But if acetone was substituted for MEK, you’d probably have to use less acetone.

so SWIM has about 200mg of bufotinine fumarate..this has taken two hours..no drying was necessary..but it took a little bit of time to separate the oils and fats from SWIMs first acetone extraction...he did the MEK:hexane step..just to get some nasty goop after evaporation...of course..so then he reabsorbed the stuff back into the acetone..and then dropped it out with some FASA..which left a dry yellowish powder..which is the bufo fumarate..so now he will freebase the fumaric bufo..and try the MEK:hexane pull again

btw this is with some crappy seeds he had..so he isnt too worried about yield..he just wants enough good clean bufo to smoke!

SWIM has never had so much trouble just getting an extraction to do what its supposed to. He tried the MEK & heptane after an acetone ext with no sucess (goo.) Then tried a FASA step on that goo to clean it up some and nothing will precipitate. cursed! This sucks. SWIM knows his seeds are active. When simply snorting the yopo it blew him away. I dont know what he could be doing wrong. hes used the FASA method before and it went great. I have one more to try. an acetnoe ext that was defatted twice. the acetone in the bottle looks a light milky color as opposed to yellow. SWIM really hopes this does the trick.

one question. Is fumaric acid soluble in the MEK/heptane solution? I cant find info on either. I was just gonna try evaporating my FASA and try to recover something

fumaric acid is probably slightly soluble in MEK..MEK and acetone are fairly similar.

after SWIM's attempts at a WET(freebased with a bit of water) acetone MEK:hexane FASA MEK:hexane(in that order) extraction..he finally got something resembling bufotenine from previously BUNK seeds..that only ever resulted in a gooey mess..and barely any goo...its a very amber looking HARD glass like substance..it is active at 5mg..with tingly head and euphoria afterwards..the tingly sensation is mostly in the head..it lasted about 10 minutes..and some visual disturbances..that are still going he says..

the first MEK:hexane then FASA was all for defatting..he was trying to go directly from acetone(with water in it) to a MEK:hexane...hoping that the hexane would make the mixture separate and then pull the bufo out with the MEK..this resulted in a very sticky..and gloppy yellowish mess after it was evaporated..so then all this was mixed into some acetone..which then had FASA poured in..and then stirred until there was no more precipitation. this resulting amount was basified..and then extracted again with the MEK:hexane. after stirring this mess around for a little bit..he poured off the good stuff, leaving behind the yellow goop. this was put on a hotplate(a mini one with no temp gauge, its for coffee cups).

this was evaporated down to the hard amber glass substance. which when smoked caused immediate tingling in the head...reminiscent to smoked bufo alvarius venom. The smoke was hard to hold in the lungs even though it was only 5mg maybe 6. light visual disturbances and euphoria. not much else. but thats not too surprising considering the dose.

he wants to try it with more but the tingling was quite intense at that dose anyway. he will try it again. but will give it a little bit.


next time he tries he is going to first defat with acetone and then freebase and THEN extract the goodies..this should result in much less messy goo..then to the FASA and then the MEK:hexane

A 40:60 mix of MEK to heptane is less polar than a 40:60 mix of MEK to hexane. You’ll need to use less MEK, but how much? I’m not sure.

Hexane is more polar than heptane and will mess up the properties of the mix.

The XLogP of heptane is 4.3.

The XLogP of hexane is 3.8. That’s actually a huge difference in polarity. By using 40:60 of MEK to hexane, you'll get far more contamination.

ok..that makes some sense...but its still full of bufo right?

the seeds SWIM is using are crappy anyway so he was just excited to get something that wasnt a sticky mess..and was active on top of that...

what does XLogP stand for?

and where would one find the XLogP of something? such as MEK?

Jorkest, the first effect felt from 100% pure bufotenine is a tingling sensation in the back of the head right after the first inhalation. As the dose increases to 20 mg, the tingling is a little stronger, but not much. The visuals increase dramatically as the dose increases. If it’s clean clear bufotenine crystals, there should be no nausea, no tension, just some tingling in the head for the first few minutes. The tingling will spread throughout the body and become very pleasant after about 10 minutes.

5 mg is enough to feel it, but not enough for visions. 15-20 mg is enough for full blown visual effects. Try 15-20 mg and close your eyes after 5 minutes. You should experience a fantastic electric light show and then shortly have some visions of people, places, etc. SWIM often has visions of flying really fast through all sorts of places. Usually lots of strange Aztec like objects and signs are seen. The whole experience is very Aztec-like. Makes you realize that it was Yopo and not the other psychedelics that actually influenced Aztec artwork.

The tingling sensation is minimized if you stretch out the dose and inhale in several smaller inhalations. The tingling is totally absent if you snort it. 50 mg snorted is pretty damn strong. 100 mg snorted is enough for visions. SWIM doesn’t like snorting things though. Snorting is unpleasant.

Yes it should be mostly bufotenine, but the color indicates it’s impure. It should be clear like glass. The amber color is another alkaloid that’s not so pleasant.

I use pubchem for all my XLogP info. Here it is for MEK:
http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm....?cid=6569&loc=ec_rcs

XLogP is the mathematical predicted logP of a compound. It tells you how water soluble something is. The higher the number, the less water soluble something is.

ah HA so you want to create a mix that would 'average' out to the XLogP of the substance you wanted to extract? so MEK is 0.4 and heptane is 4.3

so MEK will get just about everything..but as you add the heptane it raises the XLogP which then blocks a substance of a lower XLogP from entering the solution.

im thinking i could figure out some formula that we could use to find out the exact amounts of two substances that you would need for a selected XLogP..most likely there is one..but it may be fun to figure it out..personally i think its just gonna take some thinking...maybe use your MEK:heptane to bufotenine as an example


so 4 parts MEK to 6 parts heptane has an XLogP of roughly 1.6(bufotenine)

(4 ~ 0.4) *function* (6 ~ 4.3) = 1.6

so far im stumped

ah ha..it has to do with the atoms! this is interesting

Well It seems it would depend more on the ratio of moles(or less likely mass) rather than volume.
To start, I found the percentage of both MEK and heptane by weight using the density of each at 20C(assuming that was the temp used, though it would be helpful if we could get the ratio by weight, which would work all of the time).

Density of heptane: .702 g/ml
Density of MEK: .805 g/ml

Can estimate the ratio of the weight of each solvent per ml of solution
Heptane: .702 g/ml * .6ml = .4212 g (of heptane per ml of solution)
MEK: .805 g/ml * .4ml = .322 g (of heptane per ml of solution)

So the estimated ratio of MEK:Heptane by weight is
0.433:0.567

The molecular weight of
heptane: 100.2019 g/mol
MEK: 72.1057 g/mol

To find the ratio MEK:Heptane in moles
(1/72.1057)mol/g * .322g : (1/100.2019)mol/g * .4212g
.5151 mol:.4849 mol per mole of solution

those numbers might help find an equation to estimate the XLogP of a solution of 2 substances given their XLogP and ratio. Will edit if I come across anything

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but solvent solubility is more complicated than mankind’s current understanding of it.

There is actually no such formula that works 100%. All of the formulas are known to have problems. All of the known formulas for predicting the XLogP of a given binary solvent mix are only approximations. It's too complicated for humans to predict accurately using our current knowledge of how solvents interact with each other. That is an unfortunate reality. Even XLogP is not 100% accurate and always needs to be tested.

To give you an idea of the flaw of these formulas, the calculated XLogP of isopropanol is 0.4 and the XLogP of MEK is also 0.4. This is obviously an error in the equation. MEK is only partially soluble in water while isopropanol is completely soluble in water. Many things that are soluble in MEK are not soluble in isopropanol and visa versa.

This type of science can only help to a certain degree because its inaccurate. The best thing is just to try it out and see.

all is well, trial and error seems to work really well. When I get some Cebil I'll try with other solvents and ratios, though it might not be for a while but I will definitely report my results.

SWIM just noted something interesting.

This talk of XLogP gave him an idea.

He took his bufotenine extract (made by defatting seeds with naptha, then extracting with acetone) and redissolved it in as little acetone as he could (it's roughly 700mg of extract, unknown acetone amount, less than 100 mL for sure). He then added water to the acetone, and sure enough the solution became cloudy and a whitish (it's hard to tell, the liquid itself is yellow-y orange) precipitate crashed out. He

He's letting it settle, will perhaps attempt to strain it out tomorrow (It's been a very long day already for him, hence the lack of taking accurate measurements, he just wanted to see how viable the idea was before going to sleep).

69Ron, does that sound like it could be bufo?

I'm guessing not. Bufotenine is somewhat soluble in water. Even DMT is somewhat soluble in water. He's never had any luck getting bufotenine to crash out of water, but maybe with the acetone present in the water it will behave in an unexpected way. You never know until you try it. It’s possible that adding salt to the water will push the bufotenine out even more. But with acetone present, adding salt wouldn't be a good idea.