I recently made my first attempt at Vaping DMT. I used 2L coke bottle with the bottom cut off and triple folded aluminum foil fitted to the cut end with an elastic band. I heated the freebase slowly taking great care not to burn the freebase. The material melted like wax, spread across the foil and then slowly started to give off white vapor. I pulled the heat source back until the waxy looking liquid just barely gave off vapor and kept it that way until the bottle was opaque with milky looking vapor.

My first hit tasted bad but didn't hurt my lungs. Held breath until I couldn't any longer and then hit the remaining vapor. This instantly made gag from the horribly bitter floral taste it left in my throat and mouth. A actually ended up vomiting, thank God I had a bucket handy. Throwing up seemed to temper my trip some as the gagging kept me completely aware of my body.

My issue now is that in the 24 hours since taking the trip my chest is tight and I keep hacking up very milky looking dense phlegm. I've read some people complain about harshness. But the usual reply is that they probably burnt their product. I took my homemade vaporizer apart and looked at the foil and it honestly just looked like melted wax. There were a couple small discolored spots where some of the product may have burnt. But I'd say it was less than 5% of the total amount. My concern is that possibly I am somehow getting some caustic soda in my finished product. As the discomfort in my chest feels similar to the chemical irritation I experienced when I went through CS gas training.

Ahoi texadtraveler,

from the symptoms you describe, I guess you burnt your spice. N,N-DMT vaporates already at about 55C°. Maybe there is some caustic soda left in your spice, but, as far as I know, does it need much higher temp. to vaporate.

In general, the use of plastics and aluminum foil holds safety risks, better build yourself a machine or get a gvg. You will find all the information in the depth of the nexus (f.e. wiki).

Happy and safe travles, tseuq

Ill be picking up a bit for my Rotozip and some coarse copper wool tomorrow.

Not correct. I know that there is a lot of confusion around the boiling point of dmt, so let us look at the best information that we do have:

From the nexus wiki:
Melting point: 45-46 and 57-58°C , Polymorphic (Gaujac et al 2013)
Boiling point: No mention in literature, predicted by chemspider: 332.1±25.0 °C

From wikipedia:
Boiling point: 160 °C (320 °F) @ 0.6 Torr (80 Pa)
also reported as: 80–135 °C (176–275 °F) @ 0.03 Torr (4.0 Pa)

Wikipedia lists two references for boiling points at reduced pressure. In order to vape dmt with a smoalking device at these pressures, one would have to be almost in outer space already before the dmt takes effect. So these numbers for lower boiling points do not apply to real world dmt vaping conditions. I'm not sure if the chemspider calculation mentioned on the nexus wiki is correct, but I'm pretty sure that at 760 Torr (mmHg) the boiling point is well over 200 °C. Actually this nomograph suggests a value over 360 °C even.

Now, back to the problem that OP reported:

One does not need to boil a substance to vaporize it. Every material has a certain vapor pressure at a given temperature. Making air flow over the surface will abduct the vapor formed even at temperatures below the nominal boiling point. Newly formed vapor will immediately replace the abducted vapors. This is how clothes hanging outside will dry even when the ambient temperature is less than 100 °C and they will dry faster if there is more wind.

A good vaping device will give the dmt a lot of vapor forming surface and a lot of hot air flowing by it to heat the dmt and thereby increasing the vapor pressure and pick up the vapors formed efficiently. This is what the vapor genie and the machine type vaporizers do. These are called convection vaporizers.

The other type of vaporizer is called conduction vaporizer. Examples are a bulb pipe or crack pipe or plain aluminium foil. These melt the dmt into a puddle with a low surface area and the air rushing by this surface is relatively cool. The air has to be heated by the dmt which has to be heated in turn by the glass of the pipe. This method results in a much hotter temperature of the dmt before and as it is vaporized, making the dmt much more likely to undergo thermal breakdown and oxidation. This results in lower delivery efficiency and a harsh or even burning taste.

Some people are apparently (or report that they are) able to operate conduction vaporizers effectively, but your are much better off investing in getting a proper convection device.

Just make enhanced leafs, best way to smoke spice imo. Especially for beginners

Shake a small amount of your spice in water and then test the pH to see if you've got caustic soda present. If the pH is high then maybe recrystalization is called for.

The commonly stated "tastes like burnt plastic" is simply not true. Properly vaped spice has minimal taste! I guess if you burn it then, errr, well, it's going to taste burnt - same applies to my toast in the morning

I don't think heat and plastic is a good thing
Glass would be a better option to start with rather than
A plastic bottle

I picked up a carbide bit today. Will be trying my hand at making a glass machine.