Hi, I have a friend who has acquired a 2KG supply of Mimosa Hostilis Inner Powdered Rootbark on behalf of a friend. In any case, he has been following the tek listed here: http://www.spiritelf.com/substances/index.php?doc=63 and I have to say I am highly impressed by it's simplicity. (I know there is some debate around straight to base teks like this, but they do seem to work well for mimosa, since this contains little fats, or chlorophyll etc (so no need for defatting, or the acidification stages). In any case my friend would like to use this tek - but as he has such a substantial supply of mimosa (roughly 4x the amount that is being worked in this tek) he is curious as to whether he should simply use 4x the amount of water and chemicals used in this tek too - or if maybe it doesn't work like that? He also notes that this tek doesn't give a specific value for the initial water/sodium hydroxide mix - and while he is aware that the author was probably keen to preserve the simplicity of the tek, he feels that this value should be able to be clearly established. He is highly uncertain if simply 4xing the amount of water used and the amount of Sodium Hydroxide (and the amount of Naphtha) will preserve the correct PH value - and the correct chemical balance also, or if doing this might have some kind of adverse effect? He notes from reading other teks that in several instances some amateur chemists have failed to successfully complete this experiment due to using too much Naphtha and other chemicals. Having spent a considerable sum of money in setting up this experiment, he is keen to do everything he can to ensure that he doesn't screw up. He would therefore welcome any advice anyone on this forum feels able to offer. He would be most grateful in particular if any such advice referred directly to the above tek alone and not to some deviation of this, or to any discussion about the relative merits of any other possible teks - as this is only likely to confuse him considerably. Thanks.
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2KG Mimosa Hostilis Straight to base?
- Thread starter raid517
- Start date
zero
Rising Star
I agree whole-heartedly with EL KA BONG... aside from the pH level during basification, which I've found is most effective at 13.4, I agree with your rant 100%. Noobs should always start out by understanding the actual chemical process of A/Bs. So raid... why dont you post some pics of the final product??? How did it turn out?
As far as I know, SWIM just got back from his break. He tells me he has just started growing some crystals again. I does look like a cleaner product, though perhaps not quite as white as he would like. He has also just started the second pull (due to constraints on time), so it is doubtful that he can measure his success (or lack thereof) for another few days.
Well so far Swim has a product that has only the very mildest hint of yellow in it (and that's before an ammonia wash). Also the results of the second pull are looking astonishingly good so far. He wonders if this is because he only had limited supplies of solvent to work with originally? In any case his solvent problem was largely resolved (although he doesn't have enough left he thinks for a third pull, unless he filters some and reuses it). But in any case, in total he has collected about 2 and 1/2 litres of solvent, all with the same very greeny/yellowish tint of his first batch. He tried freeze precipitation on approximately a half litre of this and got what looked like a fairly substantial supply of crystals. However he thought better of collecting them at this stage and decided to redissolve them and to allow a few more days for both the impurities to settle out and for the solvent to evap down to about 50% of it's current volume, to ensure a high concentration of salts, so that he can squeeze as much spice out of the mix as possible. He did have problems with two of the bottles - as they formed an emulsion that wouldn't separate. He tried all the tricks, heating, shaking, stirring, adding more solvent, adding more lye, but nothing worked - until finally he tried ordinary table salt - and this worked extremely effectively. He is uncertain however about the prospects for a third pull, as since the mixture now contains table salt, he is anxious that this might affect his ability to collect more spice from his samples? He wonders if table salt might also get caught up, or form crystals of it's own during freeze precipitation? He isn't so sure about the prospect of smoking common table salt. He does intend to do an ammonia wash once the entire net product is collected together, but he wonders also how much ammonia he should use per gram of DMT? Thanks!
Garulfo
Rising Star
I hope one day someone will explain me exactly what DOES the ammonia wash (chemically speaking) and why it is suggested. So far, what I know about ammonia is that it is used to bleach things... therefore obviously, it could 'bleach' a DMT extract which would looks thereafter more white but that does not mean that the extract is *washed*. I know some people says it is easier to smoke but from what said my friend, the evaluation of the 'easiness' of the smoke is more than subjective. My friend smoked first pull/second pull and pure crystalls from slow recrystallisation... and did not noticed a real difference.
[quote:d0969206bd="Garulfo"]I hope one day someone will explain me exactly what DOES the ammonia wash (chemically speaking) and why it is suggested. So far, what I know about ammonia is that it is used to bleach things... therefore obviously, it could 'bleach' a DMT extract which would looks thereafter more white but that does not mean that the extract is *washed*. I know some people says it is easier to smoke but from what said my friend, the evaluation of the 'easiness' of the smoke is more than subjective. My friend smoked first pull/second pull and pure crystalls from slow recrystallisation... and did not noticed a real difference.[/quote:d0969206bd] I"ve read people say the wash removes any lye that may remain, i'm not sure what it does though, i recrystallize and don't do the wash myself
Garulfo
Rising Star
[quote:e0084cc4f7]Ammonia washes effectively rid the DMT crystals of almost 100% or residual hydroxides[/quote:e0084cc4f7] I prefer this to be clear for future people wondering. When I first read the DMT teks, I thought that the ammonia wash was required to 'clean' the extract in the meaning of removing what makes the extract yellow (mainly oils I guess). But if the layers are correctly separated, adding ammonia is just a way to indeed *pollute* your extract !
[quote:a78d05d196="Garulfo"][quote:a78d05d196]Ammonia washes effectively rid the DMT crystals of almost 100% or residual hydroxides[/quote:a78d05d196] I prefer this to be clear for future people wondering. When I first read the DMT teks, I thought that the ammonia wash was required to 'clean' the extract in the meaning of removing what makes the extract yellow (mainly oils I guess). But if the layers are correctly separated, adding ammonia is just a way to indeed *pollute* your extract ![/quote:a78d05d196] when i did my first extract, i used marsfold tek, and my white freeze precip'd crystals turned into something resembling brown sugar after i washed with ammonia
OK now we seem to have two conflicting points of view. SWIM is at a stage where he is about to finish up. He has a product that is only very, very slightly yellow in tint (more white than yellow however). Nonetheless he is not keen on smoking hydroxides at all. He could go for another recrystallization stage, however TBH, he is reasonably happy with his product in it's current state and does not wish to add more time to what has already been a fairly lengthy process (2 weeks so far). He would though like his product to be as 'clean' as possible, predominantly for health reasons more than anything else. Until this dispute emerged he believed that an ammonia wash would be the best way to achieve this. However with one person here saying that an ammonia wash does remove hydroxides and with someone else saying that it pollutes the product, SWIM informs me that he is terribly confused. So which is it - does it clean the product or does it pollute it? There is also another issue that SWIM has identified, in that he doesn't like using filter papers to collect his product. He found by accident that he could resolve this issue by using a ceramic mixing bowl which caused all of the crystals to cling conveniently to the sides and bottom of it, thus making pouring off the excess solvent a very simple affair. I imaging a mixing bowl with very steep sides would not be as much use, but a wide bowl appears to help overcome the effects of gravity and allows the crystals to cling very firmly to it. (A glass bowl however does not work so well for this). In any case he isn't so keen on using filter papers during an ammonia wash, as his experience is that his product tends to cling to the filter paper and that some of it inevitably gets lost as the filter paper becomes saturated, not only with unwanted gunk (although there surely shouldn't be much of this left now) but also with useful/usable product. Does anyone have (a preferably inexpensive) solution for this? [quote:b0b7cb329f]When i did my first extract, i used marsfold tek, and my white freeze precip'd crystals turned into something resembling brown sugar after i washed with ammonia.[/quote:b0b7cb329f] Did you use very cold ammonia? It sounds like your ammonia was warm and melted your crystals.
Garulfo
Rising Star
[quote:e76806b5b5]with someone else saying that it pollutes the product[/quote:e76806b5b5] If your extract do not contain Naoh, adding something will obviously pollutes it ! Oh, how you can know that it does not include any ? If your naphta was 'clean' (no brown bubbles on the bottom of the jar), then there should be no problems from Naoh contamination. Also remember that Naoh like table salt vaporize at 1000+ degree centigrade, nothing you can easily do with a lightbulb and a torch lighter. And last.. well SWIM said me that his first and second pull of extract was slightly yellowish, more white than yellow in fact... and it was nice to smoke once he get the good smoking technique. About your filter issue, SWIM suggest to find coffe filters made in plastic (or nylon, he don't know). They are 'washable' and fit perfectly with what you want to do I guess.
OK, well to save the debate, SWIM may well simply opt to do a third and final recrystallization of his net product, as each time he has done this he has ended up with a progressively cleaner and cleaner product. He isn't really interested in growing large crystals, as he finds the small powdery crystals convenient to work with anyway. But since the smoke is reported as being more tolerable the whiter the crystals are, he may give this final stage some genuine consideration. He tried an ammonia wash on a small sample, and found that although it wasn't particularly harmful, it wasn't very efficient since the product blocked up the filter paper, thus causing it to take a long time for the ammonia to drain through - which in turn allowed it to warm up and for his small crystals to become slightly less well formed. He envisages working with the ammonia to be quite a messy process, so perhaps a final recrystallization would be a better option. Unfortunately he won't be able to weigh his net product until around Monday as he is evaping off his left over naphtha and will collect the residue from this and will recrystallize the results of this also. However hopefully he will email me an image of his total net gain at the end of this process - and if he does I will post the results of his works here.
[quote:8835091c9f="raid517"] Did you use very cold ammonia? It sounds like your ammonia was warm and melted your crystals.[/quote:8835091c9f]I used chilled janitor strength ammonia from ace hardware. It was fresh from the fridge. Recrystallizing it afterwards worked great. Perhaps the ammonia wash did clean something from it, i couldnt say either way. Here are some photos to show what happened with this specific experience. Freeze precipitated, and dry. "un-cleaned" [img:8835091c9f]http://images25.fotki.com/v900/photos/1/186035/686768/IMG_0756-vi.jpg[/img:8835091c9f] washed with ammonia, and let dry [img:8835091c9f]http://images26.fotki.com/v889/photos/1/186035/686768/IMG_0763-vi.jpg[/img:8835091c9f] recrystallized with hot naptha [img:8835091c9f]http://images26.fotki.com/v888/photos/1/186035/686768/IMG_0791-vi.jpg[/img:8835091c9f] [img:8835091c9f]http://images26.fotki.com/v892/photos/1/186035/686768/IMG_0778-vi.jpg[/img:8835091c9f]
I wish SWIM's crystals were as white as that! (and possibly as big too). However as I said, the crystals are mostly white with only a very mild tint of yellow. However SWIM may as he said go for a final (or 3rd) recrystallization stage. He will wait until tomorrow and see what he gets (if anything) from his evap of his residual Naphtha before forming a final decision. The estimate of his net product so far is about 10 grams. Not spectacular perhaps - but no so bad when you consider the several mistakes that were made and the fact that things could have gone very much more wrong. (And also because SWIM lost interest after the second pull and decided not to go with a 3rd pull, due mainly to the fact that it was all taking up too much time - and such a large scale operation had already pretty much taken up an almost solid two weeks of his life). [quote:cccc85f2bb]Also remember that Naoh like table salt vaporize at 1000+ degree centigrade.[/quote:cccc85f2bb] Not that I am doubting your word on this at all, but do you have an official source for this info? It would probably just help put SWIM's mind a little more at rest again if he could read this from an official source. Thanks.
Garulfo
Rising Star
Raid517, Considering the big amount of bark you got, I would suggest you to do more naphta pulls. At least do not trash you MHRB smudge if you don't have the courage to do more pulls now. SWIM let simmed some naphta with soup for months. That soup have had already 7 pulls !!! But when he evaporated that 8th pull, freeze precipitate still showed some good stuff 
! About salt and Naoh, I take my figures on Wikipedia. But any Google search will leads you to many sites giving that datas. Ok, I'll post a topic with links if nobody do it before (just lazy now)
! About salt and Naoh, I take my figures on Wikipedia. But any Google search will leads you to many sites giving that datas. Ok, I'll post a topic with links if nobody do it before (just lazy now)