Reference: House's cacti preparation tek - DMT-Nexus Wiki
I've done a few basic tea extractions that have been mostly successful. The dud one's I am putting down to inactive material as I've repeated the process on the same material multiple times and had 100% success. I am trying House's Tek on unknown material all be it that it is bridgesii. I'd like to document it here and will update/edit the original post as I go.
Preparing the cactus
To skin or not to skin? Some don't but I do. With the teas I've made in the past I experience less nausea when I remove the skin and this is how I do it.
I use a sharp knife for slicing and a 'steak knife' for getting the skin removal started.
After slicing off a section, I use the sharp knife to cut down to the core starting at the 'valley' of the rib working my way around all of them.
I then separate each chunk and work on removing the skin, firstly by getting the steak knife in between the skin and the flesh. Then I slowly pull the skin away. If you are not gentle you will get dark flesh coming away with the skin. You don't want this.
Cut out areoles to avoid them making holes in your freezer bags or make sure there is no spine left sticking out.
Once you have it chunked up and in a freezer bag, place it in the freezer.
Freeze and thaw
I was able to get 4 freeze/thaws in by the time I was ready to simmer. I pour off most of the fluid that was in the freezer bag after the 1st thaw to make the next ones less messy. The fluid in the jar was also freeze thawed along with the chunks.
Simmering
I have read elsewhere that it is advisable to use stainless steel not Aluminum cookware. The Aluminum is supposed to have an adverse reaction to the alkaloids rendering them useless, or something to that effect. I have not proven this as I have just gone with this information as truth and used stainless steel whenever making tea in the past.
There was 3 simmers until the cactus chunks passed the non bitter chew test. If your cactus chunks are still bitter, then they still contain Alkaloids, so simmer again.
The 3 simmers used the following amounts of distilled water.
Simmer 1: 6 litres + juice of 1 lemon (85ml) over 6 hours
Simmer 2: 4 litres + juice of 1 lemon (85ml) over 3 hours
Simmer 3: 2 litres + juice of 1 lemon (85ml) over 2 hours
Each was strained. I also pressed out most of the liquid contained in the chunks.
During the 2nd boil, I got to the chunks while they were floating in the boiling water with some scissors and made the chunks about 1/2 there original size. The theory being that the Alkaloids would be closer to the water, thus releasing more easily. They are still large enough not to get too much plant matter through the strainer and into the liquid.
This was decanted over night and the sediment discarded for each simmer.
The liquid from each simmer was placed into its own jar and then refrigerated for 3 days.
I then did another decant combining the contents into a glass baking tray.
Discarded sediment after second decant from one of the jars.
I then combined the last few millilitres from the 3 jars into one jar to do a final decant before adding this to the tray.
Evaporation
It took two overnight evaps @ 50-60DegsC in the oven to get it down to a couple of millimetres of liquid covering the bottom. This then sat on the window sill to evap further. It's looking like it will turn to tar not crystals. Not sure what went wrong. It's still sticky to touch and no more than 1mm thick over the bottom of the tray.
I will wait for it to harden, place into a electric coffee grinder and then place the powdered material into caps to bioessay.
Update
After 4 days out in the open air and on a window sill, it is still sticky. The daily temps have been mid 20s (DegC).
Has anyone tried this? Will it dissolve the caps? I've loaded a few to see what will happen anyway.
Update
I've since done the above tek with white vinegar (1 Tsp per 3 x boils) and had basically the same results, tar. This time I made 2 x tar and honey sandwich. :want: >
> :thumb_up:
Next stop with be a boil with just water.
I've done a few basic tea extractions that have been mostly successful. The dud one's I am putting down to inactive material as I've repeated the process on the same material multiple times and had 100% success. I am trying House's Tek on unknown material all be it that it is bridgesii. I'd like to document it here and will update/edit the original post as I go.
Preparing the cactus
To skin or not to skin? Some don't but I do. With the teas I've made in the past I experience less nausea when I remove the skin and this is how I do it.
I use a sharp knife for slicing and a 'steak knife' for getting the skin removal started.
After slicing off a section, I use the sharp knife to cut down to the core starting at the 'valley' of the rib working my way around all of them.
I then separate each chunk and work on removing the skin, firstly by getting the steak knife in between the skin and the flesh. Then I slowly pull the skin away. If you are not gentle you will get dark flesh coming away with the skin. You don't want this.
Cut out areoles to avoid them making holes in your freezer bags or make sure there is no spine left sticking out.
Once you have it chunked up and in a freezer bag, place it in the freezer.
Freeze and thaw
I was able to get 4 freeze/thaws in by the time I was ready to simmer. I pour off most of the fluid that was in the freezer bag after the 1st thaw to make the next ones less messy. The fluid in the jar was also freeze thawed along with the chunks.
Simmering
I have read elsewhere that it is advisable to use stainless steel not Aluminum cookware. The Aluminum is supposed to have an adverse reaction to the alkaloids rendering them useless, or something to that effect. I have not proven this as I have just gone with this information as truth and used stainless steel whenever making tea in the past.
There was 3 simmers until the cactus chunks passed the non bitter chew test. If your cactus chunks are still bitter, then they still contain Alkaloids, so simmer again.
The 3 simmers used the following amounts of distilled water.
Simmer 1: 6 litres + juice of 1 lemon (85ml) over 6 hours
Simmer 2: 4 litres + juice of 1 lemon (85ml) over 3 hours
Simmer 3: 2 litres + juice of 1 lemon (85ml) over 2 hours
Each was strained. I also pressed out most of the liquid contained in the chunks.
During the 2nd boil, I got to the chunks while they were floating in the boiling water with some scissors and made the chunks about 1/2 there original size. The theory being that the Alkaloids would be closer to the water, thus releasing more easily. They are still large enough not to get too much plant matter through the strainer and into the liquid.
This was decanted over night and the sediment discarded for each simmer.
The liquid from each simmer was placed into its own jar and then refrigerated for 3 days.
I then did another decant combining the contents into a glass baking tray.
Discarded sediment after second decant from one of the jars.
I then combined the last few millilitres from the 3 jars into one jar to do a final decant before adding this to the tray.
Evaporation
It took two overnight evaps @ 50-60DegsC in the oven to get it down to a couple of millimetres of liquid covering the bottom. This then sat on the window sill to evap further. It's looking like it will turn to tar not crystals. Not sure what went wrong. It's still sticky to touch and no more than 1mm thick over the bottom of the tray.
I will wait for it to harden, place into a electric coffee grinder and then place the powdered material into caps to bioessay.
Update
After 4 days out in the open air and on a window sill, it is still sticky. The daily temps have been mid 20s (DegC).
Has anyone tried this? Will it dissolve the caps? I've loaded a few to see what will happen anyway.
Update
I've since done the above tek with white vinegar (1 Tsp per 3 x boils) and had basically the same results, tar. This time I made 2 x tar and honey sandwich. :want: >
> :thumb_up: Next stop with be a boil with just water.
