Best way to extract mescaline?

SWIM will have some alone time available for a mescaline trip soon.

He has lots of San Pedro cactus. What is the best way to extract mescaline?

The last time SWIM did it, he pressure cooked the crushed dry cactus in acetic water 3 times. He then filtered the material. Filtering was a real super pain in the ass. It took the entire day. SWIM doesn’t want a repeat of that experience.

Water causes the dried cactus to swell up and become gooey.

Is there a better solvent to use that doesn’t cause the cactus extract to swell and become gooey, so that filtering won’t be such a pain in the ass?

SWIM is planning to Soxhlet it. SWIM has the following solvents available for this job:

Acetone
DCM
Distilled water
DMSO
D-limonene
Ethyl acetate
Heptane
99% Isopropanol
91% Isopropanol
MEK
Methanol
Xylene

Of these, SWIM likes acetone, MEK and IPA the best because they are the cheap and work well in a Soxhlet. Methanol works well too but it’s pricey.

Is it possible to use acetone, MEK, or 99% IPA? Will these produce a cleaner non gooey extract?

Boiling the cactus power does become gooey. But with persistent boiling the gooness goes away (denaturation of gooey proteins? breaking down of gooey polysaccharides?)

A random guy I was once chatting while waiting for the bus said that soaking the cactus powder in some alcohol does not cause swelling. At least not with 100% methanol or 100% ethanol. Quite a few people go this route, then evap the alcohol and scrape the gummy residue from the evaporation and eat it.

This guy was saying me that he went a sightly different route; he evaporated his ethanol extract to get some sticky residue, he then washed this sticky residue with acetone. He theorised that mescaline salts are not soluble in acetone. What was left with when the residue was washed with acetone was some sticky/hygroscopic substance, water soluble that could be dried to rock-hard and cut to powder.

Too bad he had no effects from it yet. 400mg from it was totally inactive.

I was thinking about using a juicer for extracting green Tricho Pieces.
I wonder if it will work .... mescaline cactus juice , jummy

Swim just finished a 100g extraction of preuvian torch powder, a bloody 3-day mess, xylene and citric acid, washed with acetone... ended with about 2 capsules worth off crunch little nuggets of what i hope is pure mescaline, it's off-white. Lots of effort for just 1 dose!

Does that gooey mess make it into the final product? I wanted pure white or glass-like crystals but didn't even come close.

Well, SWIM already finished the first part of the extraction. He used 70 dried grams and 700 ml of 99% IPA in a Soxhlet for 14 hours.

The IPA is now dark green, almost black, water thin, not gooey at all. The cactus did not expand or become gooey either. It’s looking great so far!

He's going to filter it in a minute.

Ok, SWIM filtered the extract. It filters REALLY EASILY in just a few minutes! This is many times better than using water that’s for sure!

SWIM has a question. SWIM sees some crystals in the boiling flask used for Soxhlet extraction. There are also some crystals on the filter. SWIM doesn’t know if he should throw them or keep them. What are these? It is possible these crystals are actually mescaline?

After filtering. SWIM added 5 grams of citric acid. After about 10 minutes, a bunch of tiny white precipitates started forming. Any idea what these are? Could THIS be mescaline citrate?

SWIM put the 99% IPA in the freezer. He wants to collect these precipitates and see just what they are.

Hard to say, but the crystals may as well be mesc-citrate, that would be awesome. I'm sure your friend has a foolproof method to find out!

This is pretty sad that compared to dmt teks; the mescaline ones have been lagging behind and only archaic teks area available out there. Mescaline properties and solubilities of its salts have not been investigated properly. SWIM's FOAF has spend a big amount of time and money on totally bunk cactus that yield minuscule results, not even good for bioassaying!

But keep us informed, and should there be success, share the vendor's name

YUCK is all SWIM has to say

Although SWIM is usually quite good at plant extraction, he knows almost nothing about extracting mescaline.

Here’s what SWIM did so far:

* Soxhlet extract 70 grams cactus with 700 ml 99% isopropyl alcohol for 14 hours
* Filtered the alcohol (he saved the “crystals” that filtered out and were left in the flask just in case it has mescaline in it, he has NO idea if it does or not).
* He added 5 grams of citric acid. This caused SOMETHING to precipitate out. SWIM put the alcohol in the freezer, which didn’t get any more to precipitate. So SWIM filtered out the precipitates this and saved them (he has no idea what it is).
* He boiled down the alcohol to 100 ml and added 200 ml of water. This caused lots of green chlorophyll to precipitate out. This was filtered out (and saved for testing). After filtering the liquid was brown.
* He defatted with 100 ml DCM 3 times.
* He added sodium carbonate, bringing the pH up to 9.5 (he was shooting for 10 but ran out of sodium carbonate).
* He extracted with 100 ml DCM 3 times.
* He tried to precipitate the alkaloids from the DCM by adding 4 grams of citric acid dissolved in 40 ml of acetone. That cause a tiny amount of crystals to form, maybe 20 mg. It wasn’t enough.
* He then tried to extract with 50 ml of water 3 times.
* He boiled the water down to 20 ml and put it in the freezer for 30 minutes in hopes of precipitating mescaline citrate. That did not work. He then left it in the refrigerator overnight. Still nothing precipitated.

So that’s where SWIM is now. He’s got 20 ml of very thin extract that should contain maybe 700 mg of mescaline citrate if everything went well.

The problem is, SWIM doesn’t know much about the solubility profile of mescaline and its various salts, so he’s shooting in the dark here based on other reports on the net.



What solvents can extract the natural salt form of mescaline present in the cactus? Is it soluble in methanol? Is it solution in 99% IPA (isopropyl alcohol)? One source says that mescaline hydrochloride is insoluble in IPA but soluble in alcohol (ethanol). If the natural salt is also insoluble in IPA then SWIM’s initial Soxhlet extraction would not have worked at all. So the rest of this would have been a complete waste of time.

SWIM doesn’t see any signs of much mescaline being present in his current extract. According to other reports, mescaline citrate should precipitate out of ice cold water, and in SWIM's case that did NOT happen.

SWIM is thinking that 99% IPA does not work. He has read that mescaline hydrochloride is insoluble in IPA, but can’t find a reliable source that states it. Tihkal mentions the following which seems to support this


Sigma-Aldrich used to sell mescaline hydrochloride dissolved in methanol (1.0 mg/mL), so that answers my question somewhat about methanol solubility. 100 ml of methanol should be able to at least hold 100 mg. SWIM will re-Soxhlet his cactus using methanol.

SWIM has heard that you dont want to use pure alcohol..you want something that is say..5% water..and 95% alcohol

This is the problem Jorkest. I've read lots of stuff about possible solubility, but very little definitive answers exist. The Merck Index, Tihkal and Pharmacotheon are the only real reliable sources I’ve seen so far. None of them are 100% reliable though as I have learned and none list actually solubility numbers.

SWIM found that when doing a Soxhlet extraction on Yopo that 99% IPA is horrible and 91% IPA is fantastic.

SWIM is currently drying his first extract in the oven at 175 F. It’s thick and syrupy from the citric acid. I doubt there’s mescaline in it.

SWIM is also currently extracting the same cactus again using methanol. When SWIM ran his Soxhlet using IPA for 14 hours, the last cycle was clear. But the first re-extraction Soxhlet cycle using methanol came out light green. So the methanol is clearly extracting more from the cactus that the IPA could not extract.

i see..thats interesting..i would be interested in finding out how this all turns out..SWIM was going to try extracting mescaline..but after reading about the extraction teKs..he decided it would be much easier to just eat the damn things

Yeah...considering the low yield from all the trouble, I agree.

The only time SWIM ever got good effects was from drinking San Pedro juice. Horrible tasting stuff...the effects were really nice though.

SWIM is mostly interested in extracting mescaline because it’s something he’s never been very successful at and would like to have the skills to do it properly and in the process expand his understanding of plant extraction in general.

yes i agree with that..SWIM would also like to figure out how to extract it...SWIM liked eating the dried cactus chips..he carved them very thoroughly and only had the nice green parts..he only had to eat 3.5 grams to get strong effects for the whole day..and into the night...and then at night..he smoked a low dose of bufotenine(impure) and still got amazing visuals from it...so SWIM is interested in doing mescaline again and smoking bufo...the experience was VERY nice

this was T. bridgesii he ate BTW..he may try carving up a few more and trying an extraction from that...

have you been using the whole cactus?

Yes, SWIM used the whole cactus, not just the most potent parts.

He's got tons of San Pedro in his back yard. Next time maybe he'll try just using the green flesh under the skin. That way he can extract much more at once.

SWIM would like to try bufotenine with mescaline. That sounds like a nice combo.

so do we have a list(it may be small) of things that mescaline is soluble in? and this is freebase AND salted forms..

so the salt in the cactus is mescaline hydrochloride? and that is soluble in water..and possibly methanol? or are you freebasing your cacti first?

I don’t what form is in the cactus. The cactus SWIM used was untreated. No acid or alkali added to the initial extraction.


Here's all the data I have on mescaline solubility.

Mescaline Solvent Solubility

Freebase Mescaline
Composition: C11H17NO3
Melting point: 35-36°C (Kindler and Peschke, 103)
Boiling point: 180°C (12 mmHg)
Appearance: long needle shaped white crystals
Molecular weight: 211.26
Notes: forms mescaline carbonate on prolonged exposure to air
Average dose is: 300 to 600 milligrams with a duration of 5 to 12 hours.
Soluble in: alcohol, chloroform, benzene, xylene, toluene, acetone, dichloromethane, highly soluble in isopropyl alcohol
Moderately soluble in: water
Insoluble in: practically insoluble in ether or petroleum ether
LD50: i.p. rats 370 mg/kg

Mescaline sulfate
Composition: (C11H17NO3)2 – H2SO4 – 2H2O
Appearance: prisms
Melting point: 183–186 °C (361–367 °F) (mescaline Sulfate dihydrate)
Soluble in: hot water, methanol
Almost insoluble in: near freezing water, alcohol

Mescaline hydrochloride
Composition: C11H17NO3 - HCl
Appearance: colorless crystals, needles
Melting point: 184°C
Moderately soluble in: water, alcohol (Merck Index)
Insoluble in: practically insoluble in toluene and acetone, insoluble in isopropyl alcohol, diethyl ether.
LD50: i.p. rats 132 mg/kg

Mescaline picrate
Melting point: mp 222°C.

Mescaline Citrate
Soluble in: water
Insoluble in: xylene

could you possibly...blend up all the cactus and then add some sodium hydroxide to that(should be enough water right?) and then pull with warm xylene..add citric acid saturated acetone and precipitate the mescaline citrate out?

so the melting point of mescaline freebase is around 100F..so if you warm the xylene up to 100F wouldnt the mescaline prefer to be in that..just like bufotenine becomes soluble in boiling xylene?