After getting such high yield by adding the salt I encouraged a friend who was doing an extraction to try adding salt to the mix. He pulled without salt and yielded just under 1%, but using the same bark and adding salt he got over 3% yield using the exact same bark. I think adding salt to increase the ionic strength is especially important for those using distilled water. Distilled water is deionized and has a very low ionic strength to begin with, so increasing the salt content is essential to an efficient extraction. I already have way more spice than I need so I wouldn't feel right trying this again until I need to, but I would like to encourage others to try it out and see what they can get. I was only expecting about 40g from the bark I had and ended up with over 90g. I would love to hear more reports on results using this method. I may have yielded over 3% had I kept pulling, but ran out of time. Hope someone will do a side by side comparison. My friend did his without salt first and with salt later and has had amazing results. I hope others can get similar or better results.

man with those amounts you can easily start trying trying transdermal

Gona try salt myself

CTM- ok! Then make us a salt tek then! Let us give it a try!

A new tek isn't really necessary, salt can be added to all the other teks to improve there efficiency. Whether working with A/B or STB adding salt will make the spice molecules much less "comfortable" in the aqueous solution. I use a tek that is almost identical to Noman's tek, but do things slightly different, like adding just as much salt as there is lye to the mix. When working with a low ionic strength like that of distilled water, there will be plenty of spice left behind in the solution. Even if you add the salt after pulling a few times you will see a lot more spice come out into the naphtha. I would encourage anyone working an extraction to increase the ionic strength of there aqueous phase to force all of the spice out into the NPS. Please let me know what kind of results you get if you do try this.

Ok

15 parts water (1.5% more for Prepowdered mhrb)
1 part lye
1 part salt
1 part mhrb

Is this correct for STB?

The salt used was for salting snow off the roads, correct? Can any type of salt be used?

You got it, you could go even higher to 1.5 parts salt. The higher the salt content the more the spice is pushed out into into the NPS. I promise you will see your yields increase significantly. I used to teach organic chemistry to college sophmores and in lab we always had them increase the ionic strenth of the aqueous phase. This not only forces the spice into the NPS, it also keeps any charged molecules in the aqueous phase since higher ionic strength makes ionic or polar molecules more comfortable in the aqueous phase.

edit: you can use any salt, but the salt I used was called ice cream salt. It is essentially road salt but its much cleaner. You can use any salt you want but I would avoid iodized salts.

Great! Thanks!
And for the type of salt used? There won't be unwanted chemicals in the de-icing road salt?

Edit: thanks! Got it!

I wouldnt use actual road salt due to high content of metals like barium. Road salt is notoriously dirty. Ice cream salt is a cleaner version of those large salt crystals. You can buy it at any supermarket.

Ok. So this could be added to the wiki someone??

Awesome work tryptaman!

Fascinating discussion/idea.
Just a couple of questions for you:
Could you add a pile of salt to old/spent lye/mimosa mix (5-6 pulls done) to 'reinvigorate' it and go for more pulls?

Also what chem is produced when sodium chloride and sodium hydroxide is merged in equal parts?
Is this chem noxious/volatile?

Trying a salt pull now (after 4 pulls) to see if it increases....

cyb- yes adding salt to "spent" jars should force the remaining spice out of solution for a more complete retrieval. No side product are formed, the two contain the same catian(sodium) with two seperate anions(hydoxide and chloride). There should be no reaction at all since the plant material already contains both sodium and chloride. Good idea to double check though.

CTM- Are there any salts coming over to the NPS? And if so, how would you remove them.

This is a STB tek with a Manske twist.

I'm going to give it a whirl on a spent extraction. I'm already at 1.8% after 4 pulls. If this gets me a few more % then its worth a couple bucks for the salt. I'm excited to see what happens.

None of the salt will come over to the NPS. The salt actually becomes more soluble in the aqueous phase as the ionic strength increases. This means that the salt is less likely to cross over than if less were added. I had a friend try this with "spent" jars and got plenty more spice to come out. Best wishes.

Just wanted to post back and say that this really does work....
I was 4 pulls in on an STB and wasn't expecting much from the 5th (maybe 20mg).
I dissolved some salt (approx equal to the lye weight) in a little hot water and poured in to the mix straight over the NPS.
After usual agitation and wait time I pulled and froze for 18hrs.
Result: Double what I would have expected...Great stuff.
It did pull a little oil too but that seems to be the norm with my Tek

Definitely going to 'Salt up' old mixes and repull.

I reckon a Salt Tek should be 'stickied'. Lots of mix would not be wasted and yields will increase.

I applaud CTM...well done.

Thanks for the work and the explanations...I feel absolutely giddy about this and can't wait to see with my own eyes.

so when would it be best to add salt? i currently have a small batch soaking in acidic water now and will do a few acid boils in the next few days. i plan on basing a filtered/reduced acidic solution, does the salt help only in STB teks? if so, would i be wise to add salt into my acidic solutions while boiling to help bring the molecule out of the bark and into solution? or perhaps wait until later pulls and then add to free up some more goodies?

evil804
Salt dissolved in water should have a neutral ph so shouldnt affect your acidic solution.
The effect will be to ionize the water and help the goodies leap out into the nap.
It should be fine to put in at the same time that you basify.
I am using the same amount as the lye. ie 25g salt dissolved in boiling water > add
then the same of lye.
I'm guessing that you can add it any time to the water... maybe CTM can clarify...great to have good chemists onboard..
Definitaly worth it ... Good luck

is salt safe to use in conjunction with calcium hydroxide (pickling lime, as in Q21Q21's tek?)

I would assume so, will be interesting to see if some spent jars can push a little more.

Thought I would post up an update:

Re salted old mix produced only a layer of active oil.

Went for a brand new extraction, using salt, on 50g MHRB
The saline mix produces a lot of 'foamy bubbles' on top but does settle down after an hour.
The nap takes longer than usual to rise and separate and the foam dies down after a while with help from a few taps on the jar.
I was using used (slightly yellow) nap for the first pull. Seemed to pull a lot of 'something'. When transferred to dish, I could see it precipitating immediately (turning cloudy) at room temp.
18 hours in freezer
Result was a lot of yellow oily substance with small snow globes struggling to grow on top of the oil film.
Once scraped up it was a large amount (double the usual) but pretty gooey.
Smelled very active.
Set aside to dry out for a couple of days now.
A re-x would help...but would be interesting to try the goo as well.

Not sure if I would salt again as I like my globes white and dry.

Interested to see other peeps experiments though.

Peace out

Pic of 'Salt pull'