About 14 months ago I extracted spice from MHRB. I had some very good journeys with that spice for about two months. After those months I stopped using spice until a few weeks ago.

The last journey I had with this more as a year old spice wasn't that interesing, it wasn't quite was I was used to. Not that it was a bad trip but it was just "empty", like a fodder, you could hear a bang but there was no real launch. I remember El Ka Bong having about the same experience with old spice.

I had stored the spice in capsules at room temp for about 12 months, after that I had it stored in the refridgerator. Could it be the spice degenerates over time? Maybe the molecule breaks down into something useless when stored at room temperature?

Anyone else had the same experience?

El Ka Bong mentioned to me recently that the spice is really rather vulnerable...I've had the same experiences with spice stored in a similar manner for only a couple of weeks. If I had a batch large enough, I'd store it in a variety of ways and smoke a bit everyday and assess it's potency, perhaps we could start a group effort around such a project and determine the best methods of storage!

12 months at room temp ! I bet that made it fade in potency. I think the safest place to store dmt is in the root - just leave it in there, and maybe freeze the root. Extract only what you need fresh.

Gel caps may not be 'air-tight at all. Or my guess is that if the extract was 100% pure with not a molecule of lye in there (the :OH-), the damage would be done slower. But there is oxygen (:O=O: or O2 by billions of molecules, trapped in the gelcaps, and that alone will shred dmt appart. .. in 12 months !

I have found that if storing at room temp, dmt fades within 5 - 8 weeks. Notice that the colour of white (uber-pure) dmt goes off-white or yellow in minutes when you open it to air !? That's oxygen eating away at the crystals, oxidizing with it's spare electrons, just like :OH- does ! !

I'm sure we all have a molecule (or a few billion) of lye and other contaminants in our preciously extracted spice - and when these are mixed together even in trace amounts, the colder the temp, the least likely they are to react. So freeze it to -20C if you can !

The effects of expired dmt are as screwed up as the effects of lye-contaminated dmt - in either case the launch just doesn't happen right, or at all. Lye is something you can taste, but it also makes launches a 'choppy', stuttery confusing experience ... not like one would keep trying 'bad spice' to prove the batch is ok or not, but I got that far. Dmt vapours that have cooled in a (dry) bong should be totally smooth, UN-harsh, and no problem to hold.

Aged spice, which can be hard to judge by colour alone, is 'like-everyone-has-gone-home' ... or nobody got invitations to the party ... mellow and empty, missing more than half of the experience. I have thought that yellow, oily spice stores longer 'at room temp', as though the oils help keep the oxygen away from the dmt molecules and crystals. But moral of the story is DON'T store at room temp !

.. .oh also light, especially UV light also breaks appart the dmt molecule so keep any spice in opaque plastic or glass containers. Metal is a catalyst for oxidations so avoid metal stash boxes etc...

Good post El Ka Bong.

Maybe it's best to store spice in naphta in the freezer?
That way you can still have spice in extracted form with relatively fast access to it.

That sounds like it would probably work. It would suspend the spice in a protective coating while it is in a base form.

I believe I read a similar post on another forum. I don't recall where off hand though. But they suggested that if it is older long stored spice then you should re-basify it and re-crystallize it. As I recall, the post suggested that the person noticed that 2 year old spice was still orally active w/ an MAOI but it didn't produce any effect at all when smoked. He concluded this would suggest that it might have a tendency to revert to a salt form over an extended period of time, perhaps from environmental interaction. He indicated that when he took the rest and and re-basified it and re-crystallized it then it was as good as new.

I'm not one who can validate this, but I do recall reading it somewhere. I would post a link to it if I could remember precisely where I ran across it, but as I tend to read between 35 and 65 hours a week, my head gets filled with "worthless" knowledge and the sources tend to get jumbled.

If re-basefying and recystalization makes it as good as new then thats the way to do go.
I'll try this out and afterwards store the renewed spice in naphta in the freezer.

At the very least, I don't think it would hurt. So, please let us know how it turns out. I would like to know for myself if this can be confirmed. If more than one source confirms this, then I would say it is some good information that is worth knowing for people on this forum. But like I said, the only thing I can confirm is that I did read it somewhere. I just can't recall where.

What about storing it in DMT HCl form and then freebasing when needed?