When I checked for the pH effect of combining lime and epson salt it was under excess water (and nothing else). It would be the worse case scenario. In a slightly wet paste the change in pH is less likely to ocurr since it would stop when water runs out.

So this is probably not an issue unless a lot of water and very little lime is used to begin with and the paste is still wet after adding 1.5x times the weight of lime in MgSO4.

And thank you for posting the TEK, the precipitation after adding the aquarium "pH down" brings smiles. Cheers.

Want to add that if the paste was still a little moist after adding 50g of Ca(OH)2 and 80g of MgSO4 the pH may have dropped making the acetone pulls less efficient.

You can dry the paste more before adding MgSO4. If still wet after adding a lot of MgSO4 add more Ca(OH)2 (ACY also mentioned NaOH) then continue adding MgSO4.

I can't help myself, but exposing mescaline freebase to the air, or even heat doesn't sound good to my ears. I never understood dry teks for this reason. I don't have problem baking salted mescaline, but I would never leave fb exposed to the air.
Moreover dry teks seem to be quite messy compared to STB.
Sorry friends, I am not saying that I am sure STB is better. I rather think I don't get something. What are the reasons for anyone selecting drytek? Avoiding lye? The danger of accident?

FB degradation is an interesting concern, let's see what we get. ACY was concerned about heat and mentioned that earlier.

The thing is, I have not been able to find clear specific repeated examples of degration of mescaline. This thread claimed degradation observed after a week at 150F, but that was questioned and it sounds like it was the salt form. Shulgin exposed mescaline to ~125C here during synthesis workup (under low pressure though).

Reasons for selecting drytek? Not sure I have a general comment, to each their own - STB looks great especially if using salt improves the partition coefficient as you mentioned in chat. In my case I wanted to only use acetone as a solvent and also didn't want to wrestle FB our of the water. Some day I'll also do a STB TEK.

One thing is keeping the freebase within the basic (watery) soup with minimal oxidation and the other is keeping it exposed to the air (even hot), with a lot of circulating oxygen and thus oxidation.

Even ron is stating that in that thread. Though I strongly don't agree with mescaline HCl oxidation. Even many hours at 176F is not causing even the smallest signs of oxidation.

Hey pete666,

I believe that Loveall covered most of the explanation about using heat as it is in freebase form. Originally, and still, I don't use heat once I have converted the salt into freebase. I believe Loveall was experimenting, and that is encouraged!

The point of this thread, from the beginning, was to build a collaboration of different approaches to see which ones will produce results that the community is looking for.

In this particular tek, the solvent that is pulling the mescaline from the mix is acetone. Others have used ethanol and isopropyl alcohol. I am not sure if their results have been posted, but all of the mentioned solvents are miscible with water. So the "dry" part of the drytek is to remove as much water as possible.

Why would someone want to use this approach over any others? There can be many answers, and some would say that they prefer other approaches over this one. Some people don't like lye, some folks don't like xylene or toluene - or other solvents that may be considered less safe.

Acetone, ethanol, and isopropyl are all relatively safe to work with. They don't smell like xylene or toluene. Some people use D-limonene instead of xylene or toluene. In some cases that is fine, but d-limonene has a very strong citrus scent, and it is often difficult to remove all traces of the aroma/flavor from the final product. If you like oranges, then this might be fine! I liked oranges..... a few liters of d-limonene later.... I almost preferred the smell of toluene.

Acetone could not be used to directly pull mescaline from an aqueous mix. The acetone is miscible with water, so there would be no layers of separation - thus the drytek allows for sufficient separation and filtration of the acetone from the "dry" cactus blend without worrying about excess water. Excess water would introduce ions into the acetone/water mix.

Once the acetone is separated from the cacti mix, water is fine - if you are following the mescaline sulfate preparation method. Many of the other mescaline salts will be soluble in even a small amount of water. So, with the titration of sulfuric acid into the acetone/mescaline the mescaline sulfate will crash, and continue to crash when placed in the freezer - even if there is water present.

Some people cannot find sodium hydroxide in their area, thus they are limited to calcium hydroxide. While calcium hydroxide is not very soluble in water, it's still capable of raising the pH of a cacti paste to a sufficient level for extraction. It will not fully dissociate in water, and is not considered a "strong" base.... though it's a pretty strong base. I suppose the inability to fully dissociate and lower pH values are appealing to some people? I wrote this for people to use as an experimental basis. If they find that the calcium hydroxide works fine, and is easily sourced from a grocery store, then that may be a consideration worth investigating.

I hope that I have helped clarify any questions regarding the nature of a drytek vs a wet tek. There are no "better" approaches, however people have their preferences.





edit: I forgot to address the air issue. Yes, there would possibly be some oxidation in the time between adding the calcium hydroxide and reaching full dryness, but I'd keep a lid on the extraction vessel to minimize gas exchange. If you have equipment to put the vessel under reduced pressure until "dry" then that is even better.

Hey AcaciaConfusedYah. Thank you for clarification, it makes sense.
I believe alternative base could be used with STB, but toluene or xylene is a necessity. If that's not an option for anyone, then I understand this TEK seems to be a way.

Any news on the yield Loveall?

I wouldnt expect too much mesc from a small young cutting like that.

Hey pete666,

I am glad that I could help.

This is one of the many approaches for mescaline extractions. I guess it was published to add to the collection of data that we have in regards to the different extraction methods. Due to the nexus being global, we don't really know if every user has access to NaOH or KOH - two of the commonly used "strong" bases. If they have access to NaOH and an organic solvent that is selective to mescaline, then the STB approach can work fine!

The different methods of salting mescaline from an organic solvent are proposed in various places (FASA, FASI or CASA; acidic aqueous HCl and evap, sulfuric aqueous + acetone and freeze precipitate; and more) but I had not really seen much information about using acetone as the solvent to pull the freebase mescaline.

After a collaborative effort, in chat, we decided that it "might work" based on theory. SO, we started with the FASA and CASA approaches. I was not impressed. But, once I tried the sulfuric acid titration - BINGO!

Sure, this tek won't be favored by everyone, and it's got its faults. I need to rewrite the whole thing, and remove the suggestive use of plastics aside from the acid cook in the microwave. I used plastic that is considered "safe" with acetone, but using glass would reduce the chance of contamination.

In a STB wet tek, yes - xylene and toluene seem to be the most selective nonpolar solvents that are generally available to the "kitchen chemists." The base used in a wet tek could be any base that will dissociate enough to produce a pH of ~12, minimum. It would be desirable to get closer to 13, just to be sure. Stong bases have no issue achieving the higher pH, but the weaker bases might be limited by their pKa.

Take Care,
ACY

AcaciaConfusedYah, yes this world is very variable and everybody needs something else. It's just sad that there are parts of the world, where people simply can't just buy lye and don't be afraid they run some kind of an alarm.

I don't have problem buying almost any chemical in the highest purity and the same is for glassware. And I am so thankful I am not forced to any compromise in that area. Sedondly I like to know my enemy so I read as much information about dangers as is possible. And sometimes I don't take into account it's not matter of course for everyone. It may be wise for some people to stick to safe chemicals, even when the procedure is not as optimal as it could be with more dangerous chemicals. The safety is the most important aspect here.

Regarding weaker bases for STB - this is questionable. It's not just about pH for converting mescaline freebase, but rather about ability to lyse cells. This would be the first challenge. Next one is emulsions. Nobody knows whether and what kind of emulsions might appear.
Anyway, hopefully nobody is going to have to make such compromise and can use NaOH or KOH if they decide for STB.

Ok, results are here with the very simple process described earlier:

-Dark incubated fresh cacti belnded with Ca(OH)2, rest overnight, dry in oven, pull with acetone 3x, crash with 10% sulfuric (10% phosphoric also worked).

Yield out of 279g of whole fresh cacti was 70mg of mescaline sulfate. This is a yield of ~.025% on the low side of typical results summarized here.

Pete and ACY have mentioned there could be several possible issues with this simplifed approach:

- Not enough cell lysing
- FB oxidation during the heated dry
- Also, mentioned by Mindlusion in chat and in the wiki, mescaline FB can convert to mescaline carbonate when exposed to air.
- EDIT: Starting cutting could have had a low mescaline content (thanks for the feedback below).

Any of these things could have affected yield. The 3rd issue should be easily reversible, but turns out I had already thrown the dry cacti paste away (yep, I should now better and follow the rule of keeping everything till the very end).

Conclusion is that one should likely stick to the MgSO4 quick dry and also stick to the cell lysing with the microwave. Also, as discussed earlier, while the catus material remains wet, the added MgSO4 should not exceed 1.5x the amount of excess Ca(OH)2 to avoid a pH drop.

Thanks again ACY for writing and supporting this TEK and to pete for the feedback.

Do you know the alkaloid concentration in mentioned material? If not then it is impossible to do any judgments about the TEK.

If I had to live without strong bases, I would rather use freeze/thaw for cell lysing. Microwave is a synonym for shortcut for me and entheogens don't like shortcutting in my reality.

But everyones intent is different. Mescaline can be used as a recreational drug and then the creational process is not as important.

Thanks for posting the results Loveall. Sorry that you did not get the yield you had hoped for.

Another possibility to consider is that the cutting itself had something to do with the low result. Do you know what species it was? Was the plant started as a seedling not that long ago?

Trichos seem to get more potent the larger and older the plant becomes. 300 grams of plant material taken from a large, fat, multi-branched, mature specimen of any particular tricho will always be much more potent than 300 grams of material taken from that same plant when it was an 12 inch tall seedling.

With small, young plants it is best to let them grow more before harvesting. I personally dont like to harvest a plant until it is at least 3 feet tall, and all my plants are started as cuttings, not seedlings.

Thanks guys. The plant was pretty young and only about a foot tall, grown from seed. It was a SS01xSS02 hybrid variety.

You are vey correct, the "conclusions" about what caused the lower yield are not strong since I did not use a standard proven TEK on the same plant as a reference. The conclusions should be though of as possible explanations (but unproven) for the low yield. The starting plant mescaline content should have been added to the list.

Since the yield was not great, and until we know more, it would be better to stick to the original process in this thread with the microwave and the quick MgSO4 dry (being careful to have enough Ca(OH)2 and low enough starting water to not to drop the pH while adding epson).

Happy cacti work everyone.

Loveall,

The data you've provided is fantastic! Even if it didn't "work as hoped," it still provides data. As you know, in the realm of science, sometimes the "failed results" are actually very useful. It helps us learn and strive to push further into the unknown.

I applaud you for your work!!!!

I've been speculating an alternative to this method, and I will be posting the pictures and procedure in the following post.

You mentioned the ratios between mag sulf and calc hydroxide. This was something that I had not considered until you mentioned it in chat. With that in mind, I tried a new approach.


Thanks!!!
ACY

"Testing the theory"

This past weekend, I began an experiment. I had about 7 feet of cacti cuts that had been in a room that was only lit by the ambient light as it passed through the curtains.

In the year and a half, the cuts remained alive but had lost about 80% of their water weight and they became very thin. Their appearance had turned from bright green to a yellow-with-a-hint-of-green.

So, I decided it was time. I cut all the cacti into stars and completely filled my crock-pot. (I did not use the microwave for the cactus, but I still used it to dry the magnesium sulfate.)

I did 2x 9 hour "cooks" on the cacti, strained the large pieces with a collender, and set aside to reduce. I kept each "tea" separate, so that I will be able to determine if the second cook was even worth the effort.

The teas were reduced down to about 300 mL each. I used roughly 50 mL from the first cook, and reduced down to about 15 mL.

I added an unknown amount of calcium hydroxide and made a paste. (Quantity of calcium hydroxide was not measured, as this was still a test of the theory.)

After the paste seemed evenly mixed, I added an unknown amount of magnesium sulfate. (Visually it appeared to be less than the calcium hydroxide.) The dried magnesium sulfate can be seen in the picture of the glass try and white powder/ granular mix. Prior to addition, the magnesium sulfate was pulverized to a fine powder. I cooked the magnesium sulfate in the microwave: 2x 10 minute cooks on high. If your microwave has one of the glass trays that rotate while the microwave is active, then you may want to reduce the cook time. I learned this the hard way. SEE LAST PIC. Apparently, the dish that held the magnesium sulfate became so hot during a cook that it caused the microwave dish to spontaneously rupture.
My wife is not impressed with my research.

I mixed until visually dry. It has been sitting over night.

Today, I'll use acetone and vacuum filtration to "wash" the powdery mix and ideally extract the mescaline, leaving behind the undesireables.

I'll collect the acetone, titrate sulfuric acid, and see what happens...

Happy wife happy life. Watch out lol.

What sort of cactus do you suppose that was? Do you think it was PC or something different?

No doubt! LMAO! I think that it could have been avoided if I had allowed plenty of time to cool before each cook and also reduced the time. I used excess cooking so that I would ensure that the magnesium sulfate was VERY dry. Honestly, one cook would have probably been sufficient; Especially if you're only using a thin layer of Epsom salt.

Unfortunately, I do not have any clue of the type or origin of the cacti. A friend bought them roughly 6 years ago, and then they sat in a tub for an unknown amount of time prior to my recieval. It's a long story, he'd bought them with intentions of extraction, but then he left the house that he'd been living at and the tenants stuck them on the porch in a tub for a while. Many had died, but there were still plenty of survivors.

I was originally given almost all of them. Then I asked what they were, he replied, "san pedro."

I assumed they were probably PC, but some of the survivors show non-PC traits.

We'll see.

I've got no expectations, really. If they are bunk- cool, I am no longer wasting space storing them. If they are loaded..... well hot damn! Maybe myself and some friends will have a nice journey.

Take Care,
ACY

Best luck with your extraction. I've aged cuttings before and it seemed to boost potency somewhat. But I've never aged anything more than 5 or 6 weeks. And I dont do extractions so it was just a feeling that "This seems stronger" without any real data or solid numbers. I am interested to see how things turn out for you. Thanks for doing this experiment.

No problem! The test extraction is just a small portion. If it does show favorable results, then the other teas will be reduced and extracted. If it shows poor results, then the cactus was bunk from the start, or the method is not ideal. Changing a few variables may be worth trying if it does not work. I could add a small amount of sodium hydroxide into the reduced resin/tea prior to adding the calcium hydroxide. The sodium hydroxide could boost the pH, while the calcium hydroxide maintains the pH and provides an ideal paste-like consistency.


I'll probably set up my equipment this evening and give it a shot.


Take Care,
ACY