i find cyb's tek to be clearest, but i liked some of the elements in light's tek here. So i blended them. If you look at all of the successful results i think that speaks for itself. i'm already over 6 grams and i have only boiled my bark 3 times. i'm now boiling four more times till it's clear.

Attempt #3 and my layers don't want to separate

I've been following light's tek more closely this time, with the exception of adding salt before basifying (cyb's tek). I also didn't filter as fine as before since I had very low yields previously. This time I used a mesh screen and then an old shirt...no coffee filter or cotton balls.

I added 200 ml of heated Naphtha since 600 ml would have been overkill with the 200g bark I'm using. I let that sit on a magnetic stirrer with a nice vortex for ~4 hours. I transferred that to the separation funnel. ~6 hours later, it only had a small layer of Naphtha on top...maybe twice the thickness of a credit card. If I had to guess, I'd say around 50ml of Nap.

After searching, I found that adding more water to the mix could help them separate. I added 200ml water and let it on the magnetic stirrer/hotplate overnight. I transferred that to the separation funnel ~6 hours ago and once again it's just a thin layer. Usually it's completely separated in about 1 hour.

Any ideas on why it's not separating? The only changes from last time are more salt, more lye, and less filtering.

mail order how much bark did you start with

i started with 500 grams and did 3 boils. I pulled a total of 6.34 grams from that. 5.7 crystal .6 sticky ball.

Now i just boiled down the rest of the bark 3 more times and i'll see what i get out of it.

Have you tried running hot water over the jar/vessel to help separation?

Not sure that this helps you with the naphtha that is in there now.. but from what I have come to know, you don't want to let naphtha sit in your solution.. You want the pulls to be done quickly and efficiently. Add heated Naphtha to room temp base solution, immediately roll/agitate, let sit only long enough to separate (minutes is usually all it takes), repeat 3 or 4 times and on the last agitation let sit a bit longer for better separation. You can even do the pull quicker and separate out any remaining base in a separatory funnel or even a tall slender glass/jar.

All you pulls can be done in 45 minutes. The acid/basification stages are where the breakdown of the cells happens and where the alks are released. The transfer of alks into the naphtha is very quick... no reason to let it sit.

Well said oneeye. I do the naphtha very fast. I also love my sep funnel. i can get all the naphtha out that way. I'm also going to use new naphtha each time as using my old nahptha seemed to give me more goo this last time.

I think you are in a bit of trouble here, I did a small test with a magnetic stirrer and it formed an emulsion that never separated, I had to let it sit for 10 days for all the liquids to evaporate.

I haven't tried to heat the layers while they're separating since I've been using a separation funnel. One thing I noticed with previous extractions and even more-so this one is the basified solution layer sticks to the sides of the glass, so while I'm dripping that out the bottom, the Naptha layers is picking it up on the way down and still leaves some behind. I'll usually have to do two separations: one to drain the bottom layer, then I cover it and swirl around and wait for that to separate. Maybe that's indicating a bad ratio of water/lye/bark?

Also I had a big misunderstanding about the pull time so thanks for clearing that up! I've even let it on the stirrer for 24+ hours thinking "this will be *loaded* with alks"




Hm, I've used the stirrer with the previous batch and it worked fine. I don't see an emulsion layer either, the layers look well separated except for the fact that there's only ~10-20% of the Naphtha on top from what I added.

I have run into the base sticking to the glass, i find that it helps to make sure your sep funnel is VERY clean each time you do an extraction. HOWEVER, i have pretty much eliminated the sep funnel by using a metal baster with an injector attached (see pic).

I don't try and get all the naphtha on the first 3 pulls, I mainly try to make sure I don't touch the base layer on those so leaving some nap for the next pull makes it easy. On the last pull I get as much as i can and then towards the end I suck up the remaining nap and inevitably some soup as well, then i just hold the baster vertically for a while and let the bit of base solvent settle and then slowly squeeze out the base until it goes clear, the rest i put in a separate jar and let that settle, if there is anything in there, i just decant the nap. I may end up leaving behind a couple ml of nap, but that's nothing.

After that I do a sodium carbonate wash and again, that is a fast process.. this is where i use my sep funnel the most. I just add a bit of distilled water with a pinch of sodium carbonate in with the naphtha, shake the hell out of it and it will separate almost instantly, there may be bubbles that take a little swirling and tapping on the glass to resolve, after draining out the naphtha again it's ok to get some of the water in that separation because I then do another 2 quick washes with just distilled water and on the last one, i leave a little layer of naphtha in the sep funnel so that no water gets in with the final naphtha. Very little naphtha is lost in the whole process and it ends up very clean.

Thanks for going over your process, I'll go back to using a glass pipette. I definitely got cleaner results, I think the sep funnel is good in theory but doesn't actually work that well for that step. I'll try using it for washing though, as long as the layers don't stick it would certainly help. I've noticed how the layers will separate in the pipette/baster if you let it sit, almost like a mini separation funnel.

I also got a kilogram of ACRB from a new vendor today, I'll post some updates in a few days. The ~200g batch of the last bark stopped pulling with a yield of <100mg, I think even being new to this that's quite low. I'm pulling from the final ~200g of the old bark but I'm not expecting much. At least I got some good practice in and learned a lot, I'm sure the new batches will be more promising

This tek is no different from any other a/b teks it belongs to the community! Who without their extensive knowledge I would've never been able to do my extractions.



so thanks to everyone!!!!

New or not, it certainly has been a thread of great discussion and catalyst for many first time acbr extractions. So certainly that deserves some accolades in and of itself Thick-Light!

Could some one point me in the direction of cyb's tek?

google it.

Its in the wiki https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...ybrid_ATB_%27Salt%27_Tek

Also here;

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...;t=36239&find=unread

I'be been trying to come up with a good ratio of Bark|H20|Lye|Salt by comparing Thick Lights and cybs tek, but they're fairly different from eachother. I was wondering if anyone had input on a good ratio

TL = 500g|1500ml|150g+|N/A = 1:3:0.3:N/A

Cyb = 50g|~700ml|50g|30g = 1:14:1:0.6

Note - I'm not trying to determine which one is better, they both work very well and give great results. I'm just trying to figure out how to scale it properly depending on the amount of bark used.

Thanks


EDIT - Just an update on the batches from the new bark...much better yield
I guess some of it can be attributed to learning on the extractions with the old bark, but I think it was of much higher quality. I probably pulled more from <200g than the whole lb of old bark. I got a nice layer of crystals around the edges, and the bottom of the dish was waxy goo but a different texture than the last goo. This is more solid, instead of oily. It's also very white compared to the yellow/red I was getting before.

Anyway I'll weigh it tomorrow and take a pic. I'm going to scale it up to 500g for the next batch

What solvent would you use if you can't get naptha?

Coleman Lantern Fuel
http://www.nafaa.org/Coleman_MSDS.pdf

Zippo Fluid
http://www.nafaa.org/ZIPPO_MSDS.pdf

Ronsonol Lighter Fluid
http://www.local510.org/...sheets/Ronsonol_MSDS.pdf

Those are some alternative sources of Naphtha, be sure to check the MSDS if you want to try another option.

UPDATE - I finally got pure white crystals, it turns out freeze precipitation was counter productive in my case at least. I followed the tek and let them sit in a jar overnight, the next day there was a nice surprise waiting. Is there any advantage to freeze precip? The crystals without it were nice and fluffy, it almost looked like cotton after I scraped it.

I had the same results, just let the jar sit at room temperature over night and was pleasantly surprised in the morning I freeze precipitated to get the remaining goodies out, although I got a lot of goo from the freeze precipitates.

And yes, I thought they looked almost like cotton as well. Very pretty, and potent