I'm going to try this with 100g of ACRB. I think I'm going to use 25% more water/vinegar than called for at the start due to the likely hood of proportionally greater evaporational losses. Actually, now that I think about, what about just increasing everything except the ACRB and nahptha by 25%? Should help make sure the naphtha is as saturated as desired at the end, no?

I'm guessing we let the acid boil cool all the way to room temperature before adding the lye?

Thick-light,
Thank you for you knowledge and insight into this process. I have recently purchased 1/2 lb of shredded ACRB and have a question regarding the first step of your tek:

Now, perhaps I am not understanding you correctly, or perhaps my knowledge of chemistry is so rudimentary that this question is obvious. But, when you state that one should add 100ml of vinegar each time, should one also add 2L of water as well? I would assume so, adding water and then reducing it down again. That would ultimately leave one with 10L (2L x 5) reduced down to 1.5L? Please let me know if my understanding is correct. Thanks again for any assistance you can offer.
- Love & light

Correct!

i'm no chemist, my whole approach to this was to use a solvent that liked dmt over nmt and heat so the solvent ould get super saturated. I figured the more material; I used the more dmt in the soup. Making the first few pulls mostly all dmt. I also used WHOLE ROOT BARK. SWIM had trouble with dark naptha and we decided to split the 1500ml intwo add water and pull on those. Maybe do two boils combine base pull, then exhaust your bark and base then pull on that. SWIM had better luck that way. They also used the same bark.


I'm glad to see some people getting decent results. I would suggest getting whole root bark. From Hawaii.

So the first pull the heat is coming from the lye dissolving in the water, but what about subsequent pulls? Do you heat in a hot water bath?

ok i have some ACRB lying around that i want to play with and a few questions aswell, ive only ever extracted from powdered mimosa, last time i did an a/b boiling MHRB powder for 4 hours in vinegar water mix straining through a piece of muslin or fine cloth, synthetic works very well also beltstrapping to a large tub makes the process a lot quicker and easier.. once strained i would re-boil the powdered MHRB and strain again only ever needed 2 cooks to get everything, then instead of using one large vessel id use multiple vessels for example, 1kg of bark after 2 seperate cooks would be split between 4 2 litre vessels basified and 200mls naphtha added into each one. the next part i never shook the vessels, i divided them into 2 sets of 4, and rolled each set gently for 4 minutes whilst the other set rested. so all the vessels got eventually 4x 4 minute rolls. the whole time kept warm in buckets aswell. i also only ever needed to do 2 naphtha pulls to get almost everything out of the bark. i would only ever freeze precip 400ml of naphtha per jar using multiple jars as i found that anything over that amount and it wasnt all precipitating out of the naphtha in one go.
I also found with mimosa if i over rolled the naphtha for too long id lower the quality of the extraction getting more gooey darker less clean looking pulls, and if i under rolled id see a decrease in yield. whereas this 4x4 method ensured i got the full yield and it was always clean.

so my first question.. is the gooey stuff people are getting solely down to the type of acrb they are using or is it to do with overmixing there naphtha?

secondly can i pull twice with naphtha, then do a limonene pull to get some jungle spice out? or is this only something you cando with mimosa?

so the acrb i have is shredded, i have a kilo. so i will test 500grams as this tek suggests.

and the other 500grams i will powder and treat like i explained above

and ill post my results when im done

My first pull resulted in very little "goo" minuscule amount in fact. Although second and 3rd pulls (After adding salt, not sure if this had any thing to do with it, maybe to much salt?) Resulted in what at first look appeared to be a LOT of little snow globes, tiny patch's of crystals. I carefully let all Excess Naptha drain from the jar upside down first in the freezer, then for 5 days in a slightly below room tempature "storage room".

What happened was the "White Snow Globes" appeared to have melted into some sort of plant fat oil/goo.. Was almost extremely disjointed until I read posts on here saying "goo" is highly active. Haven't tested it yet, but I sure have an awful lot of it, was extremely difficult to salvage any xtals from my pyrex baking dishes..

I'll post photos in a few hours, but I'm thinking I may have let my ACRB solution mixed with naptha sit in a "hot water bath" for way to long. I thought it would help by extracting the xtrals better, but it appears not.

Any one have any idea what could be causing this??

Thanks

the goo from acrb is nmt. in most cases acrb has a pretty close or higher amount of nmt than dmt. both are good but the goo just makes it harder to handle still works good to make changa with though. im guessing it really highly depends on the age of the tree, where they are grown, where the bark is taken from, and the season when they harvest the bark. its more than likely a hit or miss thing from different vendors, once you find a good one stick with it, and until you have a good idea of the quality do smaller extractions if you are looking for xtals only.

ok so if i have a source of ACrb with high levels of nmt i should expect to see the goo in both of the extraction routes i plan to do.

what about pulling the full spectrum red jungle spice with limonene then? is this possible from ACrb? because even from mimosa that can be kinda gooey.. does that mean theat amt is present in junglespice from mimosa? or are there other alkaloids that cause the gooeyness also?!

how much did you reduce the boil ?

Welp, made it through my first attempt and have a small jar of cloudy white solvent. Hopefully room temperature crystal dropping to follow. I only did 100g of acrb and had to more than double the acid/water amount to keep it from boiling off. Maybe the ill-fitting lid is partly to blame. Only did 2 acid boils (3 if you count the first one that boiled off completely) and reduced it a little more than I wanted too, so maybe I added too much lye because there was no way the red sticking to sides of the jar was ever going to settle all the way down. Still got perfectly fine looking solvent after decanting, but will wash the spice just to be safe. Maybe would have been easier to just add some water to the base solution.

EDIT: Did successfully get crystals at room temp. Beautiful things before they collapse when the liquid is gone. Great tek. Even w/ silly mistakes worked just fine. Also, I went through about a dozen coffee filters getting what appeared and I believed was dirt out of the acid wash. Not sure if that was necessary, but maybe dirt in the roots could be the source of some peoples troubles?

I did this tek a 2nd time and used salt after I based the boils, and ended up getting the same results. I let the crystals that formed in the solvent dry out after the solvent was poured off, and although there is goo on the very bottom layer they are still beautiful. They look like snow flakes.

After the first two pulls I heated up the soup using a hot plate, strainer and pot. I placed the jar on the strainer in the pot and boiled the water around it until it was hot. Added naptha shook and pulled. Repeated til it was cool then heated it again.

The heat really seems to help, if you don't want to use the heat from the lye reaction you can always heat your solvent.

here are photos from the 1st ext.

1. is nmt/dmt chunky waxy with some powdery xtals
2. is the pull I did after I salted the soup, no waxiness at all

This is weird because I thought it would be mostly gooey nmt

Tested both blindly with the help of a friend and couldn't tell the difference.

I'll post photos of my 2nd ext. when I have the time to write it up, the only difference is I salted before I pulled on it.

Im guessing your bark came shredded. Did you do anything to make it a bit smaller before freezing and thawing? I know you said not to powder but what consistency did you go for?

I cut it up with pruning shears as small as I could then soaked it in water then froze it.
I also used the water I soaked it in for my 1st boil. The freezing breaks it apart more ie. like cracking pavement when temps goes from above freezing to freezing creating cracks and potholes.

Thick light...can you confirm that salt is beneficial to acrb extracts?
I am gathering info on Salt exposure from users.
It appears to be beneficial to most wet teks inc acrb.
Thanks
cyb

salt definetly helps push the alks out, IMO icecream salt or sea salt works best.

I thought I had pulled everything from my based acrb and then I added 100 g of salt and pulled 2.2 more grams.

however I wouldn't use it if your using sodium carbonate as a base it creates a thick mushy foam like substance that stays in the naptha upon separation, making it impossible to retrieve the solvent.

I had a kilo of acrb that I had already boiled 8-9 times and I boiled it three more than reduced and based with sodium carbonate added salt then naptha, rolled it all around to avoid emulsions and when it separated the naptha had a pink bubbly mush floating in it.

I don't know what went on chemically but it wasn't much of a waste since I already pretty much got most of the goodies out.

lye/salt okay

sodium carb/salt bad

vinegar was used as the acid in the above scenario, maybe that had something to do witbh it, i'm really not sure but maybe someone can explain why this happened.

It could have been a fluke, for all i know...

ye' for salt!!!!!!!!!!!!

My cat decided to try this with ACRB recently, and found this thread very useful! She started with Q21's tek and is now trying some of the tips from this thread. Thank you!

Here is her process:

-250mg of bark shredded in the blender, placed into freezer with no water for ~18hrs.
-Added ~250ml vinegar and stirred, then 250ml near boiling water and stirred.
-sit 40mins
-Added ~190g of lime and mixed.
-Consistency was like pea soup, pretty watery. After sitting for a few minutes it would form a crusty top layer which was quite red, with gray milky mix underneath.

First/second pull: ~250ml naphtha added over hot-water bath. Stirred up with wooden spoon. Combined with second pull done one hour later, same method and ~250ml more of naphtha. Placed into freezer and beautiful snowflakes began to form. The cat could not leave it alone and she kept pulling it out to look at it. Pyrex dish became very frosty after being taken out for a couple minutes and crystals reabsorbed. Some re-formed after another couple hours in the freezer but nowhere near as beautiful. After decanting back into bark, yield was ~325mg of crystals + sticky waxy NMT. When scraped together it became a ball of beige/pink/yellowish. Beautiful effects from this incense!

Third(second) pull done with re-used naphtha and warm-water bath. Mixed up with wooden spoon again. Looks fairly nice in freezer. Yielded ~400mg of waxy/sticky base layer and small fluffy white crystal. Base is very liquid, st,icky and clear. Scraped up it becomes like a thick syrup. Darker color - jungle spice? Works great regardless!

Basic bark mix seem to be too soupy and cat is wondering about clear goo, so bark is placed into the oven at 200F until crumbly. Mixed naphtha into crumbly wet bark with wooden spoon, and much of the naphtha was absorbed. Squeezing the naphtha against the sides of the dish separated it out, and it was cloudy at room temp. Placed into freezer it looked absolutely beautiful! Seemed like more than other pulls combined. Decided to evaporate naphtha entirely in freezer. Evaporated great, looked fluffy and wonderful. When taken out into room temp, the crystals melted and left nothing but goo. Hasn't been weighed yet. Looks like 300+ mg. Thinking of re-X or using IPA to place into shot glass for weighing and then absorbing into changa.

Fourth pull I tried this method loosely based on thick-light, since about a week has passed and the bark is pretty dry.
-Dryish basic bark mix placed into half gallon jar
-Water added
-100g lime added
-Mix is very soupy
-Naphtha added (Unknown quantity, thinking 250ml)
-Shaken as suggested. Emulsion forms. Try to roll. Nothing separates in an hour +.
-Added 150g more lime
-Added non-iodized salt
-Still emulsified
-Add more water and much more salt
-Still emulsion!
-Attach massager to jar, let it vibrate for 3-4 hours over warm water bath.
-Slight separation, 3 layers. Reddish top layer, dark middle layer, red barky soup bottom layer.
-Allow it to separate another 3 hours, only get about 5-6mm of dark middle layer.
-Decide to pour back into bowl and dry out again.
-Dry overnight at 200F.
-Morning reveals yellow crystalline structures all over the top of the now much drier bark "mud". Looks like much more than all pulls combined.
-Scraping of crystals reveals they are very dry, but unable to be vaporized. Don't melt under lighter flame, but blacken. Impure?
-Mixed crystals back into soup/mud. Stir in 250ml naphtha, separates instantly. Stir and stir for a few minutes, no emulsion , let separate in oven at 200F. Poured off into jar while clear and warm. After reaching room temp is very cloudy. Now allowing jar crystallization.
-Baked mud a bit longer at 200F to make crumbly again, then added another 250ml naphtha and stir/mix. Pour off into second jar clear and hot. Also cloudy once reaching room temp, very very slightly more yellow tint. Going to allow room-temp crystallization before decanting and freeze-precipitation.

The emulsion after shaking was unexpected and it seemed the only solution to continue pulling was to dry out the mixture again.

The muddy mix is retaining some solvent still and can be "milked". The cat wonders if cheese cloth squeezing would help.

Hoping thick-light's method of room-temp crystallization preceding freeze-precip will yield fluffy white and less goo.

My cat still feels like there is much to be taken out of the 250g of bark.

She and I would appreciate it if anyone can give us some feedback on this process. Were the crystals after drying impure spice? How can I get the remaining incense out of this bark? Should I absorb this goo into vinegar or IPA tincture or make changa? Any tips?

Much love and appreciation!

I really don't understand your process. Is the 40 min soak all you did then just added lime?
If so that's more STB with a gar soak.

I would try doing 4 boils, start with a lot of fresh water ( the more water the more room for alks to migrate into it) add some vinegar try for a ph of 4. No ph strips then add 100-150ml of gar to 2000ml of water boil until you can see the top of the bark protruding from the water, then pour off.

Combine boils reduce, base, add solvent and pull.

As I mentioned above I used salt successfully with lye as a base, but when sodium carb was used it created thick foamy emulsions that wouldn't go down, they became suspended in the layer of naptha. I would play it safe and do 5 pulls without salt, then do the last one with salt. I don't know how lime reacts with salt.

Also try the trunk bark it has less nmt.

As I've said before the reason I think this tek works is due to the large amount of bark I used. More dmt in the soup more in the naptha.

Good Luck!!!

wish I knew more about lime and your process???

She used this process, the second one: https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...ion_Tek#About_the_2_teks

Yes the 40 mins with vinegar and near-boiling water is all kitty did for the acid step. Perhaps that works OK for powdered MHRB but not for shredded ACRB?

So:
-Boil water/gar down to the bark protruding, pour it into another pot to start reducing, add another 150mL vinegar to 2000mL water in with the bark, total of 4x.
-Reduce 4x mixture, and just base the reduction, discarding the bark.

The cat will have to try this on the next batch as well as freezing it first as in your OP.

Neither I nor cat know about lime with salt though I believe the salt was supposed to just ionize into Na and Cl in the water which makes it more polar, so the alks run into the NP solvent more readily. I am thinking that the crystals on top of the cat's concoction were salt that had precipitated out as the water evaporated off.

Kitty cat only knows where to get this root bark and wishes the source to be sustainable, is trunk bark OK for the tree being harvested? I don't mind the incense having NMT in it though it would be nice to be able to try the straight xtal. The cat like anyone simply wants more efficient yields with less mess.

Thank you for the help, thick-light. Next try is going to be a more true A/B using your suggestions. I am sure the cat will want to dictate the results to me so we can keep this thread full of solid info.