Poisson, back in 1960 performed a high yielding extract on San Pedro. Total recovery was 2% mescaline by dry weight of San Pedro. He dried 180 grams of fresh San Pedro cactus (found to contain 93.5% water by weight). This was then pulverized. It was then Soxhlet extracted with ethanol. The ethanol was then concentrated down and evaporated off. The residue was dissolved in 10 ml of 10% HCl solution. This was defatted 1 time with 100 ml of ether. Ammonia was then added to freebase the mescaline (the pH was not given unfortunately, but most other pros used pH 9-11). The mescaline was then extracted several times with chloroform (amount of chloroform and number of extractions was unfortunately not given). This was dried and distilled at 80C at 0.01mm and 220 milligrams of freebase mescaline was recovered.

I’ve looked at many other high yielding professional extraction techs. They all start with either ethanol, water or methanol. They all used either hydrochloric acid or acetic acid as the initial acid. They almost all de-fat and extract with chloroform (but some de-fat with ether and extract with chloroform). The pH used to extract the freebase was almost always between 9 and 11. I found none of the pros used xylene.

SWIM uses xylene as recommended on the web. So is xylene the cause of the low yields SWIM has been having? The XlogP of mescaline is very low. According to it’s XlogP, it should not be soluble in xylene at all. But basing solubility solely on XlogP information is somewhat inaccurate.

None of the pros have mentioned the need to let the mescaline freebase for a long period of time.

Poisson’s technique mirrored SWIM’s last tech almost exactly. The only difference being that SWIM salted his final product instead of distilling it, and SWIM used xylene instead of chloroform, and methanol instead of ethanol. SWIM’s yield was 0.075% dry weight!

I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. Why are SWIM’s yields so dam low?

Next time SWIM will follow Poisson’s high yielding tech, substituting DCM for chloroform, and DCM for the ether defat. And instead of distilling the mescaline, he’ll just evaporate the DCM and salt the residue and see if that gives better yields.

why go through all that trouble? the torch growing on my windowsill produces powder of which 7-10grams is enough for fullblown effects.

i guess if one would extract this powder with ethanol and let it evaporate one would be left off with something that would fit in a capsule or two. extracting mescaline is more trouble than its worth in my opinion. just eating the powder by itself is totally ok for me.

Xylene is probably used because its relatively easy to get and it does work (although I agree not so well!). Chloronated solvents are also a bit toxic and proper ventilation is advised. However ron I also agree I see no real advantage in using xylene or toluene. I certainly think naptha is useless for this kind of extraction. SWIM would be interested to see how this kind of extraction works with chloroform or DCM. Also the initial ethanol extraction may not be entirely necessary but more a way to clean up the extract and reduce down the volume. Just straight to acid defat then base should also work but might be more difficult in practical terms (handling large volumes etc). I think the initial ethanol would be best way to go though. I think the way many web mescaline extractions were developed were made more with what was available rather then what works the best.

What's puzzling me mostly is that people on the web are reporting good yields with techs SWIM used that produced next to nothing. I don’t know. I’ve in general found that people do tend to exaggerate their yields on the net. The tech Poisson used is so radically different than what’s on the net, and I doubt he exaggerated any of the yields claimed. His reputation is a stake. People posting anonymously on the net have little to lose and so many tend post their “big fish” stories a lot.

SWIM will try a modified version of Poisson’s tech and hopefully that will produce some decent results. Getting 75 mg from 100 grams of dried cacti is just not worth extracting. But if SWIM can approach Poisson’s yield of 2000 mg from 100 grams of dried cacti, then SWIM will be VERY HAPPY

I do think chloroform or DCM should extract mescaline far more efficiently.

If it doesn’t work, SWIM will keep trying other techs. At least one is bound to give good results.

Because the cactus varies so much in potency you have no idea what dose to use unless you extract the mescaline. That’s the main reason SWIM extracts it. Besides 99% of the unprocessed cactus SWIM tried produced little to no effects at all. Only once did he get good effects from whole cactus (and it was San Pedro). None of the other so called potent strains did anything at all at the recommended raw dosage of plant matter. This is probably the problem. SWIM keeps getting low quality cactus.

SWIM's FOAF is totally feeling you 69ron. It is amazing how troublesome mesc extraction can be, expecially after reading all those "reassuring" and "promising" teks in the web.

How possible is it that cactuses on the market are bunk? Pretty much very possible as both SWIY and SWIM's FOAF have witnessed. Eating a whole foot of cactus and getting not effects sucks. Just as extracting cactus and getting minuscule yields.

SWIM's FOAF thinks that people cannot do much to "correct" bad cactus, (other than cultivating putatively strong clones yourself). That is why he thinks that different ways of ingestion may be worthwhile, such as smoking mesc. Getting a yield of 100mg /100g should not therefore be a problem if, say smoking 30mg does the trick or if taking the x, y, z potentiator increases the potential of the dose.

How confident is SWIY that the cactus powder has "goodies" that somehow need to be unlocked using different techniques like chlorophorm instead of xylene as the NP?

Not very confident at all. I think the cactus is the problem. If SWIM ever gets good results from any tech for a particular cactus, he'll try some of the poor resulting techs on the same cactus and see if they too get good results. If so, it's definitely the cactus, if not, it's the tech.

why dont you try carving some up..and drying them...do an extraction along with eating 5-10 grams of dried GREEN powder..if you get effects from eating it..and not much from extraction..then you will know if its the extraction that is the problem or the cacti

In the UK even the crap in the headshops works, and all the UK stuff foaf's bought online has been good enough. Are you growing your own? If so, might be worth buying some chips from a reputable vendor for extracting. If not... maybe you have a high tolerance to it?

But yes he now wants to extract to reduce the nausea to the minimum, and so he can safely push it to the limit, so he shall be watching this thread carefully. Thank you in advance!

Yeah, that'll work. But SWIM probably won’t eat cactus again. The cactus tastes horrible. For SWIM the cactus tastes worse then mescaline itself. The texture of the cactus is revolting. Yuck.

SWIM grows them and also buys them from many different vendors. Could just be bad luck. When SWIM buys Yopo he often gets really good quality Yopo, while many others usually get bunk Yopo. So maybe with cactus, the shoe is on the other foot.

True... but until you get a good extraction try this: when you are ready to consume it, pour the powder into a cup of water, stir and drink immediately. Don't give it time to rehydrate. This way the bitterness doesn't seem to have time to come out before it's in your tummy. Quickly add more water to the cup to get any remainder before the flavour escapes. Rinse your mouth and swallow with some fresh water to ensure none is stuck in your teeth.

Still, technique improvement can do miracles. Just taking dmt as an example, compare naphtha yields vs dcm or xylene/toluene yields.

In this respect, another np solvent may be able to pull all those mescs that xylene cannot. SWIM's FOAF will try pulling with chlorophorm from wasted cactus solution out of which xylene pulls nothing any more.

i think this is the way ill have to go,cacti is about the only entheogen ive tried that i just cant handle the taste.