Add the lye directly, but do it SLOWLY. Adding a solution will dilute it somewhat and you don't want that. You want it as concentrated as possible. Don't worry about adding too much lye Better a little extra than not enough. I haven't seen a solution so saturated that it wouldn't dissolve more lye...

Soo... I ended up with pink naphtha.

Anyone ever had this happen before? I'm using VM+P and it evaporates clean. I didn't suck up any of the basic layer either, the naphtha just took on the color. I am letting it sit out to see what happens. There is definitely DMT in there because I saw all the alks precipitate when the base was added...

Alright, I ended up doing multiple pulls with the extraction vessel kept heated in a crockpot between pulls. Only the first pull was pink, the rest were clear/cloudy. I don't know if the first one has oils/fats or what. Did a sodium carbonate wash on all the pulls and left them out at night hoping some crystals would crash out.

No such luck. The solvent went from cloudy to clear but nothing precipitated out. I'm going to probably end up combining pulls 2 and 3 and keep the first separate, evaporate them both a bit, and throw them in the freezer for precipitation.

It looks like I might not end up with any crystals out of this endeavor but I think my naphtha never got saturated enough because I scaled the tek down for a 100g test run.

The solvent all smells of indole but I have a strong feeling I am gonna end up with a bunch of goo but we shall see.

Ended up with a bunch of goo and no crystals. Goo is crystal clear with no color to it whatsoever, smells exactly like our beloved molecule.

I did a bio-assay and the material is active at smaller doses than I would have expected.

My only complaint is the goo is a complete hassle to work with, *especially* if you are using mason jars (which I'm sure has probably been mentioned). I don't even mind the goo, I just wish I could weigh it so I could make a proper changa rather than guessing at the ratios.

Since my goo is all stuck at the bottom of mason jars I guess the next step is to dissolve it in some IPA and evaporate onto a pyrex dish for easier collection. I can't find my IPA at the moment but when it turns up I'll make sure to report back. I read one report of someone dissolving goo in IPA and having a solid material when the IPA evaporated but I'm not really expecting those results.

Yield wasn't so great but I haven't done a whole bunch of pulls yet. I figure I might get half a percent total (dmt/nmt combo).

If anyone is considering doing this I would recommend starting with at least 250g or so of material. I used root bark.

Miss you mimosa <3

Hmmm... I've been thinking about this for awhile, and from my last few experiences, I'm sure it's true:

While with mimosa, freeze precipitations worked very nicely in retrieving all the spice, large snow-globes would coat the sides of containers, and they were very easy to retrieve.

With acacia, though crystals would be forced out as the temperature went down, the crystals would come out as fine as flour, and impossible to retrieve. Either due to the rate of cooling, or otherwise, he would try evaporation, and inevitably end up with goo.
found, however, just leaving glasses of thoroughly saturated (I made the pulls on hot basified acacia) naptha out over night, 12-18 hours, would result in spectacular jars of crystals!
I got no goo on my previous extraction, except when I evaporated out. Room temp precipitations only yielded crystals.

The largest would be a 100 milligrams or more, massive beautiful white crystals. Lower towards the bottom of the jars, the crystals would be pinker/dirtier colored, as a small amount of basified material inevitably seems to get swept up in the naptha pulls. I found leaving the jars to sit, and decanting while still warm aided with this, though.
BUT, it was the leaving the jars to cool from 80-90 F to room temperature or a little cooler (perhaps 50? it was a cold room, not heated) that allowed the crystals to fall out. I didn't attempt to freeze the solvent after decanting from the crystals. I wonder if another portion of crystals still remained, but I did reuse the now-yellow naptha with great success, mind you.

I achieved a yield of .75 to 1% in this manner, and if I ever need to dabble with Acacia again, I feel relatively confident. I actually wonder if slower crystallization, in this manner, would have yielded purer results with mimosa as well.

Nice post nyru.

After freeze precipitating I just threw my solvent back into the basic soup for a few days because I had some other things to take care of. When I looked at it today I do indeed have a layer of crystals floating on the top of the basic soup/bottom of the solvent.

I'm probably going to end up throwing the extraction vessel in a hot water bath to let the crystals go back into the solvent and then decant the solvent into a separate container. I think the solvent got saturated more easily this time since it was already freeze precipitated once but I bet a good bit of goodies hadn't fallen out yet.

I have some family staying over this week so I have to put my project on hold just a little bit.

Does anyone know if the clear goo will ever crystalize if I let it sit out an extended period of time? The only way I could even weigh it was by making some enhanced leaf. Oddly enough, I had to guesstimate how much goo there was so I just grabbed a pinch of cannabis and it happened to weigh 133mg. After I smeared it all throughout the goo and weighed it I had 275mg. Almost a perfect 1:1 ratio, not bad.

The acacia extract definitely feels different than mimosa extract to me. I haven't had a chance to go very deep with it but even with the little experience I have had with it I can tell it has a whole different character. I wish I knew the DMT/NMT ratio.

Didn't Shulgin say in TiHKaL that NMT wasn't active? I seem to recall that, even though I know from all the anecdotal reports here it has some activity. I need to pull out my copy and check it out.

Anyway, once I get around to playing with my extraction I'll post an update, hopefully with some crystals.

thank you, thick-light

i have a few questions though..

-when you say to use >150g NaOH per 500g acrb, is that to ensure that all of the plant materials are dissolved(?), or is that what it's going to take to get me to the right pH? i ask because it seems like a lot when it only took a few spoonfuls of the NaOH to basify 100g mh projects in the past.
-sometimes it's hard to tell a pH of 12 from 14 with litmus, is it possible that i could over-basify and ruin my project?


all advice is greatly appreciated.
can't wait to give this tek a go! my first try got me the goo that led me to find this thread.
i'm hoping to do better than i have in the past. here's a photo of some crystals from a past mh extraction.. and a dead bug , probably should have picked him out before i took the picture.
i hope to share more soon

That is probably more NaOH than you are going to need. You don't really need to worry about overbasifying, the alkaloids won't be damaged. Just base it until you see the color change to an almost black. You can't really use litmus paper because the color of the solution will stain the paper making it unreadable, a pH meter will do the job much better.

You don't even need a pH meter though. Slowly add base until the color changes then you are good to go.

great idea, i'll let you know if it works

thank you alert for the info

i have a question about isolating freeze precipitated crystals..

after freeze precipitating the spice from appx. 300ml of saturated naphtha, (it was very yellow), i shook the well-formed crystal clumps free from the walls of the jar and very quickly poured the jar's contents through a coffee filter suspended above another jar to catch the liquid. it looked like there were at least a good 10 doses that had precipitated, (10 x ~40mg = ~400mg.), but in the end all i was left with was a yellow and quite pleasant smelling coffee filter.
any idea what went wrong?
thank you all.

-mantis12

The Xtals probably dissolved as the filter reached room temp and were still soaked in solvent.
It's still in there...
Cut up your filter into tiny pieces...soak the bits in a small amount of warm naphtha... Then freeze the solvent.
Best not to use a filter...just pour out the solvent and fan dry the Xtals.

thank you cyb, i'll give it a try

i tried it organofractal, the xtals didn't form on the string for me, (or a paperclip hanging from the inside of the lid), but they did on the glass.

only the crystals on the sides of the jar will dry out enough for me to collect them without getting goop. the stuff at the bottom stays gooey.

..and now xtals aren't even forming in the jar, it's just dropping the alkaloids straight to the bottom, where it won't stick.

i'm not sure what's going on.

try turning the jars upside down with a gap for air to flow in and out. all of the crystals should stick to the jar, but just in case you can put a collection tray underneath in order to safeguard against crystals that decide not to stick.

Second success with this tek. Just wanted to report some findings that might help some people.

This tek was followed to the T, with acacia confusa "rootbark" (not sure if it is root or trunk) and ended up with a 2.9% yield. And still pulling more.

With the rootbark that was being used, a SERIOUS defat was required. A whole lot of oils came out.

Here's a tip - If you find yourself with yellow or pink naptha after pulling, try putting it in a sealed jar Moderator edit: This is very dangerous advice, never apply heat to solvents in a sealed container. and into a hot water bath for a few hours, or even better overnight. **Make sure the hot water bath is hot enough to keep all the dmt disolved (naptha not cloudy)** You will see that some stuff has settled to the bottom. Pour the naptha off into a fresh jar and freeze precip, it should look much cleaner now.

A sealed jar of naphtha being heated? This sounds dangerous as eff...

Its not dangerous at all if you simply heat some water first ..[SHUT OFF STOVE!] make shure no flame is near the napatha jar including ..[the stoves pilot light].. if it has one.
If its an electric range your safer yet!..[because no flame]
Then place the sealed jar of napatha in the warm water..
The warm water will heat up the jar of napatha safely ..
Just be shure the jar isnt to cold or the hot water might crack the glass!
Hope this helps...

I should have clarified. By hot water bath I meant just running hot water from the tap over the jar. It stays hot enough to keep the DMT from falling out of solution.

I don't believe this is dangerous at all.