Plastic wrap vs foil...No difference at all...just what I had to hand...if anything plastic tends to lift when moist in the freezer so foil was used around the small vessel to prevent it sagging. Elastic bands help too.
You can use a small jar with a lid if you like. (but I don't recommend as scraping is a nightmare)

Fridge for an hour was to start the crystallizing process slowly...the slower you can cool down the solvent...the larger the crystals will grow...
See the crystal growing threads for more amazement.

STBs will invariably pull yellow spice...A/Bs less so.
The heat of the mix + the length of time the solvent is onboard will pull the other alkaloids and colorants over and stain the crystals.

My tek is designed to pull ALL of the available alkaloids and colorants so that no spice can be left behind...
The cleaning process of re-xing should help to wash out some color. Although the off white color is usually what you will get.

If you want white spice...then don't heat the mix and pull quickly after a quick couple of shakes...the solvent will be clear and the spice white....BUT the overall yield will be down.

cyb.. gotcha. So if that's the case.. then would it be even better to let the solvent slowly cool (covered) at room temperature, and then freeze?

And yeah, been ogling the crystal porn and seems like slow is the way to go. I got some heptane so after I naptha Re-X this latest stuff from your Tek twice I'm going to try a room temp heptane evap for final xtalization. Will report.. hoping for some crystal porn of my own

You can exchange naphtha for heptane and do all your pulls and re-xs with heptane if you like...it is a little more selective.

Remember this tek is a little old now and other techniques have come to light.
See Max Ion for additions.

It would be very interesting to see an extremely slow cool down with saturated heptane. From Hot to Frozen over a 2 day period. (Wrap the hot heptane in a towel and put in a cool box to slowly cool to room temp...then the same in the fridge...then into the freezer)
I've a feeling the xtal growth would be very pretty.

Here is another method.

Ahh, your a genius. Great idea with the towel, I'm going to try it!

So by more selective, do you mean heptane would be just pulling NN-DMT and less of the other stuff? AFAIK, heptane doesn't separate the impurities as much as naptha does when you Re-X, so I wanted to try to get a more pure product before the final Re-X, but if that's the case then I could do the pulls with heptane, get a more pure yield initially, and not have to Re-X so much to get the purity I want?

Pure is what I'm after.. so I'm beginning to realize I probably don't want to max out ionic strength or shake too hard. (I've been salting and lysing in excess). A 2%+ yield is cool and all, but my yield shrunk from 1.2g to 600mg after the first Re-X and left a big blotch of brown (almost black) goop in the glass. I slow evapped the solvent at room temp after xtals formed in the freezer, so I know I didn't lose any to a coffee filter or anything like that. That's a 50% loss of yield! So yeah, I guess it's pretty dirty when you just grab everything the bark has to offer.

I'm gearing up for the Max Ion next. I think I'm wrapping my head around this stuff.

Thanks for everything you do, cyb

If you want purer, whiter spice...heat less and pull quicker.
The salt will just push it all into the nps quicker than no salt...saves doing multiple pulls...the 1st 2 pulls are usually the most saturated. Subsequent pulls will diminish in yield size.

Orion reports great success just using heptane to pull.

Keep Re-Xing the left over goop...it will still be quite active as the molecule will be trapped in the goop...I keep my goop for later and can be used to infuse leaf or vaped in small quantities.

Yes if you grab everything the bark has to offer...then cleanup is a must...Carb washes, Re-Xes...whatever works...OR...try it yellow and dirty...some prefer it.

Two quick questions about this tek please...

If one wanted to make changa could they simply skip the freeze precip and instead directly evaporate all of the naptha, then collect and dissolve the yellow goo into a bit more naptha, etc to infuse the herbs?

If one wanted crystals could they just skip the freeze precip and scrape the goo and do a re-X on that? Is there a substantial difference in going straight to the freezer while the goods are still in suspension vs collecting the goop and re-x ing that?

Spin
If you evap, rather than freeze, you will, generally, get a mix of gooey oil and yellow Xtals.
I imagine you would want to weigh this result first before infusing into leaf so you have a better idea of the ratio.

The difference between freeze vs evap is:
Freeze precipitation will drop out mostly crystals.(and some active oil)
Evap will leave a full spectrum of Xtals,oils,colorants,other alkaloids.

Freeze is a quicker way of getting Xtals and saving your solvent.(for the next pull)
Evap wastes the solvent and requires an extra step of Re-X to clean the result (if wanted).

Hey Cyb..

As the last time SWIM used your Salt Tek, whith a very good yield, but yellow from first pull on, he'd thought he'd try to spend some time in 4 Acid cooks on 100 gr MHRB, each on between pH3-4, combined them as a filtered Tea and collected both, Tea and the MHRB-cooked Powder…..

His thought was, maybe he would get slighly more lighter yellow to nearlywhite chrystas after freezing, as with every pull in his previous TEK the pulls were more and more yellow and became quite gooy in te naphtha, after just being shortly in the freezer… he combined the last pulls he did and let them evaporate a little more down for a better freeze precip as solution would be more saturated..
so the last 3 freshly puuls were just added to the first pull, which started to become gooey in the freezer…
now as evaporating a little the whole 4 combined last pulls are still quite gooye.. he wants to evaporate a little more and try to get a less goye, more Chrystal result after later freeze-precip…

Anyway. that was the moment when he has born the idea of doing your "Salt TEK" with 4 Acid-cooks on the Bark to result in the Tea and an extra Glass with the bark he filtered out.

he now ended up with a 1 liter of filtered Tea and the extra bark..
would it be a good idea to cook the filtered Tea down to about 500 ml and then start your "Salt Tek from Step Four on " (adding 60 gr Salt to 200 ml of nearly cooking water..add that to the Tea and just go on with your TEK as described… (he thinks of maybe getting less gooy naphtha in his Pulls..(more white after freeze)..

He also would start thhe whole TEK with the already been cooked MHRB using a little less heat than advised…
So it would be 1 bottle with filtered A/B-Tea and 1 with a STB of the cooked mhrb, using little less heat, to avoid the goo in his naphtha…

Is there anything he should be aware of, in amount of Salt either in Tea or ATB?? (less or more)
he wants to do the STB as well as he wants to go for 1 more naphta pull on that, and then some Jungle Fumarate later with pulling with limone-d doing a FASI on that???

Is there anythng SWIM overlooked, or what do you suggest he shouldbe aware of???

The idea grew when he was trying to Re-x the dark yellow spice from an older SALT-TEK, which took quite a while and was pretty annoyiing, after 2 re-xes still having some quite yellow spice, or a decent loss on his spice…when going for whiter chrystals in the end…??

hopefully he will supply photos later, as he first needds to pick his camera from his buddy….

any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated he said…;-)

Also, when mixing the collected already acid- cooked bark with water, does he need to acidify it again before salting, or should the acid cooks last for a decent STB???

Hey Hupecat


I think that would be a good idea...go for it...

The yellow staining is coming from the oils in MHRB...there is almost no fat in the bark.
The colour shouldn't really affect the overall experience imo...it's just a stain.

If you want to get nice white crystals...don't use any heat (or just use slightly warm heat baths).
Many people 'Overheat' the mix and this tends to pull all of the contents over to the naphtha.
Also the length of time that you have the naphtha mixing is a factor...too long and it pulls more yellow.
You also have room to do a Sodium Carbonate wash on the naphtha before it goes into the freezer.(This may remove more of the yellowing). Just add a Sodium Carbonate solution (same amount as the naphtha)...shake it up/let seperate...then siphon off the naphtha and freeze it. (and discard the carb solution)

I guess it also depends on the bark that you are using too...it may be that your bark is particularly rich in colorants and other alkaloids, which is why you are getting Goo.

I've never had MHRB give goo before...only a clear (very sticky) active oil.

I once did a 'Quick Tek'
No heat and very quick shake and pull.
The result was 'white as snow' crystals BUT the yield was a lot less. That is why I prefer to get everything the bark has to offer and then clean up later with carb wash or Re-X.


If you mean the bark sludge (after the tea has been taken out) then I would add water to the sludge and a small amount of vinegar/shake...then proceed on with adding saline and base etc...BUT remember that most of the spice will have been converted to 'salt form' and will be sitting in the tea (ready for salt and base, which will convert it to freebase).

Hope that helps
cyb

hey cyb,
thanks for the prompt reply on this…
youre right, i left some of the pulls a little too long in the Sludge and maybe a little too warm (not hot).....

But then i tried to freeze, it and no chrystals formed, just some floating in the naphta… so i read a bit and noticed a threat somebody had great success, in reducing (evapping more naphta) and freeze again.. so i combined my other pretty similar looking pull from freezer with 3rd one and added the 5th directly after pulling, before freezing…) so Pull 3 + 4 + 5) together now, evapping as to reduce down, and now my naphta is looking like this… i didn't use any heat for evapping.. just had it standing over night and now over the day in a dark place…

here is a photo on how my last 3 Pulls now look like after evapped about to not yet half… its like jelly globby swimming in my naphtha...

^^ That looks quite strange
Like a spice laden jellyfish invasion

Are you absolutely sure you have MHRB? Not some other similar looking bark...
What solvent are you using?

As for naphtha reductions:
Well when you Re-X you will find that a lot of spice will saturate in a small amount of naphtha (hot). (1g in 30ml naphtha)

Sooo you can combine all your pulls in one dish and (preferably) run a 'Cold' fan over the dish (ventilated area) and reduce the naphtha down quite a lot to heavily saturate it.

Very dilute naphtha seems to have a hard time dropping crystals in the freezer. (not sure why)
So the more densely saturated the better.

An interesting post from nen888 Here regarding fats in Acacia

I've observed something similar in the past. what you see is dmt and other alkaloids (such as NMT and dmt-N-oxide) that your solvent picks up and which will precipitate out in cold and/or reduced (concentrated) solvent.

There is no easy way around it I am afraid, but you also shouldn't feel like you have to do something to correct it. If you collect this yellow oil and let it dry it might eventually turn to a harder, scrapable or easy-to-work-with consistency.

But if you're convinced to get crystals out if it then you may try one of the following

1. Check your solvent and find out what it contains. Switching to a more dmt-selective solvent like hexane or heptane and recrystallize it you can get something clearer.

2. Recrystallise the yellow goo with your existing NP solvent. Take the goo and mix it with an amount (like 50ml) of your room temperature solvent; shake the hell out of it; let the yellow stuff precipitate and take them aside; your solvent should ideally be either of clear colour or slightly yellow; freeze-precipitate the latter to get crystals. repeat the process until the goo doesn't yield more crystals.



cyb,

oils and fats are pretty much the same thing, chemically speaking.

So no we have the proof.. They're here !!!!
Jellyfish from Outer'Spice'...




Absolutely sure on this, as it's bark from the same kg used before for several, nice Chrystals you seen before in previous posts here.., though quite dark yellow.. but as already stated by Cyb probably due to long Pull time..
SWIM already had some nice light yellow teinted off-white chrystals from this, using shorter Pulls, less heat...
Solvent as always, using fresh Zippo Lighter Fuel, which always was fine before..






First 2 Pulls yielded proper yellow crystals, but SWIM reduced Naphta amount for Pulls with every pull he did, due to saturation of it.. less DMT in sludge, so less Naphta needed..

has been taken out now of freezer to full evap..
then will be scraped up, 1 rex with zippo to get kind of chrystals, color wont mater for Changa..
and 6th pull done with d-limone and a FASI, already some fumarate chrashed out.. and 7th Pull will be done with d-limone and then FASI for some fumarate as well.. to get all rest available from sludge..
Think its the best soution to safe the most of extraction...

Hey Cyb…

It happened again after third pull… i get 2 great but colored pulls, and from pull 3 on it turns out into those Sludgy Jellyfish…
Now looked into your new MAXION TEK and noticed you have involved a defatting after the Acidifying step..
Would that maybe help me with that gooey problem???

And how important would be Step 1 Freeze/Thaw… could that be left out as it would be very timeconsuming and i only have time over the Weekend… so would like to start with Acid Soak directly…
Also, you wrote it it for 50-100 gr extractions, but would work for larger amounts as well.., but one should not just double the ratios per ratio of bark..???
As SWIM plans on doing a 500 gr extraction now.. what do you suggest on amount of ratios water, lye, naphtha pulls, etc…

any suggestions this would be very helpful..!

cheers

Hupe
The Jellyfish is a mystery to me. If your first two pulls are OK...then try the rest of the pulls with no heat at all and a shorter time with the naphtha in the mix.

re MAX ION:
The freeze thaw is there to further help the lysing of the cells and to ensure All the available alks are salted out.
You can try without the F/T but I would leave the bark powder in the acid for a good long soak.

If you are using MHRB...then no need to defat at all.
Since we do not really know what the Jellyfish is, I doubt it would help.

As for 500g extracts...why? That's a potential 10g spice. How much do you need?
If you are dead set on 1/2kg in one go then you can do 5 x 1litre bottle (100g each) and do them all at the same time using the amounts shown.
Without a pH meter I would not know how much acid/lye/salt/water to use with a bulk extract.

A guess would be:
3-4 litres water
150ml vinegar
250g salt
150g Lye (or enough till it goes black/dark)
stick with 50ml naphtha/heptane pulls

It's really all about the amount of water you want to use. The bark/water mix just wants to be 'watery', Not 'Sludgy'.
Once you have a rough idea of the overall water (say 3 litres) then you can just use the amounts shown in the tek-(amounts shown = appx 1 litre x 3)

A good gram of spice will saturate in around 30ml of solvent...so just use minimal solvent for pulls (40-50ml). To do this you will need a bottle with a thin neck. Otherwise 40-50ml of solvent will be a very thin layer if placed in a wide vessel and difficult to pull.

As SWIM is planning his 2-day-birthday-party, with about 200-250 people in a nice outland area, dj's, live acts, and camp side, etc. all for free, except the drinks, SWIM wants just to be well prepared, for everybody, who is already in or wants to try the journey.. and it should be all for free..
thats why SWIM thinks just do in a one rush, so less work, less cleanup,etc…

SWIM could calculate evrything by 5,, except the naphtha, rather do one or 2 more pulls but therefore saturated enough… and then use a large HDPE Canister for the mixture, and do as written in TEK.. just using 50 ml Naphtha per pull, and there fore more pulls,,.. would be the same as just 5 botles in a row,,,.

And when pulling, SWIM always does an inbezween Pull, which means pulling from the large bottle into a small 150 ml bottle, so he can be sure that he gets all naphtha out of the bottle..
He then puts it in a warmbath to let all Sludge. that came with Pull, will settle, and then he can perfectly get all Naphtha.. the Sludge gets back into the large bottle again… works perfectly, if you wanna get all naphtha out...

SWIM just compared youre old TEK with the MAX ION one and noticed that the only ssential xhange is the Freeze/Thaw and Defat stage. as well as the longer soaking acid time…

so all in all, if leaving the F/T out it will be nearly as the old one.. just the Defat stage added, and so SWIM thought it wouldn't be bad to try it, as Infundibulum answered on last post that fat and oils would turn the spice so yellow, and when defatting, there might be the chance of getting slightly whiter spice… and maybe it would reduce the danger of running into the jellyfish again..??
just a thought..!

cheers