Would anyone please chime in?

It is fine, in fact, mine had crystals in the layer. It was strange, I pulled them off, and then washed them with cold water, re-xed them and they were the whitest crystals off all the extractions.

So pitfalls for anyone that is interested... the first I ran into is that I had two separate jars of liquid. I added 75g of lye to each, one of them slowly and the other I just dumped it in. The one I dumped in the lye rather than adding slowly did not react as violently, and ended up getting an emulsion.

I decanted the emulsified layer, put it into a pan and let the solvent evaporate. After it evaporated, I could see needle-like crystals lacing the liquid. I poured the liquid back into the jar and the next morning, there was a crust of crystals on the top of the jar between the naptha and base.

Second, the goo.... First extractions were put into glass cups, which yielded white crystals on the sides and yellow stuff on the bottom. I switched to glass pans to make scraping easier. The goo can be mixed in hot heptane to separate the dmt. Once the liquid is removed for crystalization, the goo can be hardened by mixing with a knife. The more you mix, the more it hardens, to a point.

So far my yield from 500gr after 4 pulls is ~1.5 gr white fluffy crystals, 1.8 gr tan, and 1.5 gr hardened goo (nmt?). I haven't tested anything. Tomorrow will be my first time trying spice.

Be prepared to make a mess, and to spend a lot of time on the project. Also, cover any dishes that go into the freezer with plastic wrap. My left over pizza tasted like naptha this morning. I can post pics tomorrow.

I'm curious about the temporal aspect as well. If, hypothetically, I was forced to delay a step, like leaving the bark in the base solution, for perhaps a day or two, would that be detrimental? Stupid question maybe, but...

leaving the bark in base should be fine for days if not weeks... leaving naphtha in soup for a long time will maybe pick up more of the plant oils, but nothing detrimental.

And oily crystals can be cleaned up with a re x in naptha? Also, I was wondering why the solution needs to be based. What chemistry does it actually do? Is there any need to ever add more lye?

Has anyone tried this tek with citric acid instead of vinegar? I'm about to follow this tek to the letter; trouble is, I've been working on a rue extraction for a week now, and my wife is getting sick from the vinegar smell As long as the ph is 4 it should still work fine, right?

i believe so.

Hello everyone. Sorry for being overly pedantic, but...

1: When doing the cooking do you have a lid on the pan?

2: You said to use 600 ml of naptha in the instructions, but further through say 400 ml. I wanted to make sure which is correct.

3: You stated you used 150ml gar to 2000ml h2o, but in the instructions it calls for 100ml of gar, which is correct?

4: "Had trouble with dark naptha, divide 1500ml in two add water and pull on those." I understand the divide it in two part, but not the add water part. Since you are placing it in two separate jars, then you would place 75g lye in each jar and 300ml naptha per jar, is that correct?

5: Concerning the hot bath, how hot should the water be and how long should you heat the jar? I read somewhere the water should be between 120-140 degrees F. Is that correct? Do you leave the cap on the jar while heating?

6: Can you explain the procedure for the ice cream salt also? I know that you add 100g, but I am unsure if you add this to the soup or the naptha soup combo.

Any help will be much appeciated!

Everyone! This is a standard A/B tek.

Read all of the other A/B teks on the wiki and look at defatting and recrystalization (re-x) in the FAQ.

Also, for salt questions, check out cyb's trek in my signature below.

I think im definitely going to do a naphtha defat before basing. It just seems like a fundamental step to me.

Thanks, I know I can ask dumb ???s. I've wondered if all aspects%.klike salting, carry across teks into this.

nnob question, but I've never performed a A/B tek before. Was spoiled by MHRB :] but when you say reduce to 1500ml, you mean just evaporate the liquid over a heat source, correct?

Yes.

I am drying my first 3 pulls now, and the results are glorious. Did the writeup to the T.

I have jar of milky naphtha after the first pull....letting it sit out and evap a little now. Seems good so far!

SWIM has had a lot of success after performing his first few pulls using thick-light's tek (over 1g of white and highly potent crystals from 500g of acacia confusa)

SWIM left the basified liquid in his pantry for a few days waiting to do the next pull and noticed the tiny layer of residual naptha left over from the last pull had picked up lots of crystals. SWIM reheated the basified liquid and the crystals redissolved into the naptha. SWIM proceeded with the next pull, reusing the same naptha from the first 2 pulls.

From there on it has been a mess. The naptha solution does not seperate very well at all anymore. EMULSIONS EMULSIONS and more EMULSIONS! Not only that but after finally letting the layers separate a good amount, the naptha pulled off is yellow and clear instead of the white and cloudy appearance seen in the first couple pulls.

What could have changed after the first few pulls to cause such terrible yields in the following ones?

Appreciate any help!
-Kingx

Note: SWIM originally acid boiled twice, reduced to 1200ml, added 150g NaOH. I repeated this process for the next 2 boils ending up with two 1200ml jugs of basified liquid. Is there something wrong with the proportions?

My yields thus far are 4.5 grams, reduced to 2000 ml and poured into seperate jars, 85 grams of naoh each, with 150 ml of naphtha each.

used the tek, worked great

decided to skip the freeze precipitation step so I have a finished product which is a waxy nmt dmt combo. Definitely pleasing stuff.

Just finished this awesome tek and i have quick question. What would be the best way to collect spice from this jar, just decant naphtha and wait for it to dry? Seems like it will be a pain to scrape it all with a razor blade. Any advice is appreciated.

Swijin, a common thing to do is decant most of the Naphtha off.

Then quickly put the lid back on and stick it back in the freezer upside down.
(This helps prevent water condensation from saturating into your crystals.)

After fourty five minutes or so, carefully unscrew the lid and pour the rest of the naphtha off.

At that point, I usually put the jar under a fan. You could also repeat the process above to be extra careful. Getting most all of the naphtha out helps keep your crystals from melting to goo.

Also, getting all the dmt can be difficult. I find no matter how much i scrape, some of it will stick to the jar in a thin paste. An easy thing to do is heat up a small amount of naphtha, 50mL or so, in a hot water bath and dissolve the remaining dmt. From here you could do a complete evap to get all the left over goodies.

Best of luck!