Hey everybody!

serial lurker here, looking for a little advice on a q21q21's tek.... first time extraction...

Stuck to the tek (#2) almost perfectly (the exception being i let the acid [white vinegar] sit about 6 hours before adding the lime) My lime is the correct stuff, ive used it as a casing additive before, and checked back with that vendor to make sure its the right stuff.

tried several pulls using vm&p (some have sat 10+ hours), but have yet to see a single crystal... could it be i got some bad mhrb?

just curious if people have had good luck with this tek, and what my next step should be to try and save my globs....

Thanks in advance!
-anti

edit:
sorry if i posted this in the wrong section...

I started with 100g MHRB, added 100 ml white vinegar, mixed. very clumpy, as noted. Added 100ml near boiling h20. once again, flowable as noted. I let sit, and later added 75g lime. (stuff ive used as casing additive, calcium hydroxide)... added 100ml vm&p... warmed via extra bowl with hot water. stirred for approx 10 minutes. poured off vm&p into large pyrex dish, and put in freezer. then added 100ml vm&p to original dish, and covered, and let sit overnite.

In the morning, there was nothing in the "freezered" pyrex.... so i thought maybe i didnt let the vm&p sit long enough, so i removed the pyrex, added my second pull (which had sat for 10 hours) and put the pyrex back in the freezer.

12 hours later, still nothing. so i evapped the dish, and nothing there?!

Any idea where i slipped up? The vinegar is 5%, my lime is the correct stuff, i double checked (maybe 5th or 6th checked is more appropriate)

you used 100ml per 100gram of mhrb. the tek calls fro 2ml/per gram mhrb. i would start there.

the mhrb is from fleabay... ran a search here at the nex and found a few posts giving the seller good feedback, so unless i'm the rarity, im not sure....

i have some naptha that has been sitting on the mix almost a week now... lol, i'll toss that in the freezer here in a few and see what happens...

thanks for the reply OM

i did 100ml vinegar first, then 100ml water... to 100g mhrb

Where's your mimosa from? Maybe bad mimosa..?

Maybe you didnt mix well enough the naphtha and the mimosa mix?

When you say you evapped the naphtha and there was nothing, was there literally nothing, not even an oil?

an extremely thin layer (VERY VERY VERY THIN) of what appeared to be dust.... slightly grainy... when i evapped, it was in my shop, under a fan, so im sure a little dust got in there... but it was not an oily residue

like i said, a few posts here vouch for the ebay seller... maybe a bad batch.... hmmm... dont want to offend anyone (like blasting a seller)

heres from the tek about 2ml per gram...

- Yo can either heat some vinegar in kettle before adding it to the bark, or let the vinegar/bark mix heat up slowly via the water bath underneath. In either case it is 2ml for each gram of bark used. (IE: 200ml vinegar for 100g MHRB) A 50/50 mix of water and vinegar could probably work just as well, but vinegar is cheap so SWIM usua...

i have heard of people getting bunk mhrb from random vendors or ebay but to have absolutly nothing in the evaped is strange. have you seen or worked with mhrb prior to this? any chance you got some other powder by mistake?

hmm missed the memo on the 2ml of vinegar, i just did the 50/50... i can try the straight vinegar tonite tho...


first time with mhrb.... but as far as i can tell, it looks/feels the part. the vendor has near perfect feedback, and a few positive reviews on this site

btw, thanks for all the help everyone!!

so went and got... brand for brand copies from some of the write ups posted around and i think my problem was my lime.... even tho it is labeled as the right stuff needed here, i dont think its correct...

so did my vinegar, this time about 150ml, to 50 ml water... let sit.

stirred in pickling lime (ms. something-er-athers)
and it behaved completely different: clumped up more & turned gray

Added vm&p, and set in a bowl of hot water. then the top turned reddish/brown. but when i stirred, that cement gray was underneath... ive read this a bunch of other places...

its gonna sit like that for the next hour or so, then into the freezer...

i have a much better feeling about this batch!! Thanks to everyone for the help!!

What can i do with my other batch, just add the new lime and take pulls of warm naptha?

thanks again!

absolutely!!! its all still in there. i would proceed as if no lime was added, it will get thick so keep adjusting the consistency with boiling water and more vinegar since you didn't use enough on that batch.

it should be fine. might be a bit messier and not have the ideal yield but i doubt you wouldn't be able to get the spice out.

let us know how it goes please.

ive got a freezer-dish full of snow flakes this morning!!

Thanks for the help!

I'll keep ya posted how my "salvage operation" of the rest goes!