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2KG Mimosa Hostilis Straight to base?

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raid517

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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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[quote="Garulfo adding ammonia is just a way to indeed *pollute* your extract ![/quote] This is simply NOT true. If the proper ammonia is used in the proper washing procedure and the product is dried properly, it is simply not possible for the ammonia to "pollute" the product. 100% of the ammonia will evaporate when left to dry thoroughly so what is it that would pollute your crystals??? Also... just because you think that you've separated solvent layer from your basified solution layer perfectly and you dont see and brown flecks in your solvent pull, DOES NOT mean that you have no residual hydroxides that have migrated and could end up in your crystals. I have never, in ALL of my years, seen an ammonia wash turn crystals yellow like that and I have to wonder what the helll that was all about.
 
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[quote:6e369c1ef8="zero"] I have never, in ALL of my years, seen an ammonia wash turn crystals yellow like that and I have to wonder what the helll that was all about.[/quote:6e369c1ef8]I'm not sure why they turned ugly, I followed the marsfold tek for that one. Was my first (and probably last) time washing with ammonia.
 
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Well there does seem to be a debate about ammonia washes. However there is also a consensus that 2 or 3 recrystallizations will probably clean up the product sufficiently to negate the need for such washes. SWIM thinks he will probably just use a gram for himself anyway and share the residual good fortune among his friends. SWIM is just a very generous guy in this respect I guess. SWIM has decided however to cut his losses, as he does have a real life to live too. So the gunk he was left with is sadly no more. SWIM is though happy enough with this, as this was only ever intended as a one off experiment - and he feels that 1g is more than sufficient to satisfy his curiosity. (For the moment at least, as SWIM also thinks he has a good understanding now of both the pitfalls and the process in general - and if he decides to repeat it at some point in the future, he will probably do it on a significantly smaller scale - for purely/exclusively personal experimentation). He also thinks he will use his 1g and try to follow a good recrystallization tek with it as closely as possible, as he would like some very pure (and possibly larger) crystals to play with (even though his existing product is probably of a high purity and quality anyway). He may also opt (if he has the time) to email me his notes and thoughts on the entire process when finally everything is complete. This just seems like good practice, since it might prove helpful for others who may be reading this and who may be considering following a similar path.
 
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The debate about ammonia wash is interresting because it may help people to understand the utility of that step. [quote:5de1fae73f]100% of the ammonia will evaporate when left to dry thoroughly so what is it that would pollute your crystals???[/quote:5de1fae73f] I did'nt know that ammonia would left no residue. I naivly thought it was similar to lye, salt,... a solid dissolved in water. But I guess I'm wrong. For what I understand, ammonia is a gas dissolved in water. Great ! I learned something today (no irony there). At least we know that if that wash does not help, it should not hurt. SWIM will give it a try one day or another ;)
 
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One could use cold water to wash, the ammonia is just there as extra assurance that the alks will remain alks and thus insoluable in water. Any base would work, ammonia is used because as pointed out, it leaves absolutely no residue. Another alternative would be to wash the solvent before precipitating or evaping. Just add some basified water to the NP and shake it up, then separate. Water soluable impurities go back in and the DMT is left behind. Remember that a wash is not necessary at all if one intends to recrystalize, which is really the way to go. I mean, after going to all that work, why be left with that cakey stinky yellow shit instead of nice water clear crystals? Besides, recrystalization is fun.
 
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Thank fuck for that, I finally understood how SWIM should clean his product through recrystallization! Reading the various teks didn't help much, as SWIM found this hard to visualise having had no previous mental or visual reference for this in the past. However today something just clicked. He put approx 1 gram of his slightly impure/yellowish tinted DMT crystals in a flat bottomed coffee jar and added about 30ml (an American shot glass measurement) of [b:06e77e5a15][u:06e77e5a15]room temperature[/u:06e77e5a15][/b:06e77e5a15] naphtha to the jar. Meanwhile he had boiled some water and placed this water in a large mixing bowl. He gently swirled his impure crystals around in the room temperature naphtha until the majority of the crystals had dissolved and just for good measure he dipped the bottom of the coffee jar in his heat bath/hot water bowl for 2 or 3 seconds and repeated this about 4 or 5 times, until he was convinced that the crystals had been absorbed. (He only dipped the bottom of his coffee jar in the heat bath until he was sure that the last of his crystals had just been aborbed, no more and no less than this - as it is easy to overdo adding too much heat and thereby causing the impurities to become reabsorbed too). He continued doing this for another few minutes - and when he stopped only a few minutes later - a yellowish gummy horrible residue began to form on the bottom. He let this settle out for another hour and then used a long pipette to draw off the resulting very clear layer of solvent. He now feels sure that any resulting crystals will be of the purest quality possible. (Also because he did an ammonia wash before this too, which as it turned out wasn't very efficient anyway). He doesn't even think that the heat bath is entirely necessary, as he feels that with some small patience and just continued swirling for a few more minutes all of the crystals would have dissolved anyway (SWIM's average room temperature is always quite high, so this may be less true of colder environments - although at a guess I would say that the maximum amount of heat required is no more than an average warm to the touch (not hot) room radiator). SWIM now understands the logic of this - as it is now clear to him that DMT has quite a low melting point and is very soluble in naphtha - where as the tannins, oils and other impurities that result from initial pulls have a somewhat higher melting temperature and do not mix well with this solvent at the temperature of an average room. The only regret that SWIM has - and it's a significant one I guess - is that he didn't figure this out earlier - as he now has over 9 grams of impure (again very slightly yellowish) crystals stored in gel caps. (This was purely for ease of use and transportation when SWIM is visiting friends). This was a nightmare and very time consuming to do - though if he gets very good results from this particular test, he might be sufficiently encouraged to go that extra mile and do it all again anyway. Anyway, it's a valuable lesson learned I guess.
 
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OK, the 1g worked great and produced some dazzlingly white/pure crystals. (Still very small though I guess, although the size of the crystals doesn't really worry SWIM so much as the purity). Based on this success, SWIM decided to use the same methodology on the remaining 9 grams adding 30 ml of Naphtha per gram - or 270 ml in total. This time a really quite horrid scummy dark layer did form on the bottom of the coffee jar - and it goes without saying that SWIM was more than relieved to quickly separate his precious spice mix from this. Nonetheless the remaining naphtha mix still retains a very yellowish tint - even after all of this time and effort. SWIM thinks that it is possible that perhaps the mathematics of cleaning up 9G might be somewhat different from cleaning up 1G, and that perhaps one final recrystallization cycle might help. However the copious quantities of solvent that SWIM has ordered in the past is making even the UPS guy suspicious. ( He gives him very funny looks and has asked him more than once what he is up to). Not to mention the large expense these solvents have cost SWIM (So far probably about 8 litres, at £7 or so a litre each). So the question is is there a better way to get this oily green tint out of SWIM'S spice - and if he just stops at this point will this colouring seriously affect the quality of his smoke? Up until this point SWIM has been very reticent about trying his product, the mildly yellow colour of the crystals was off putting - considering the nice white crystals he has seen other people produce. Besides which SWIM (as noted above) is really a kind and generous guy - and he wished to share his discovery with some of his friends - and he as sure as hell doesn't want to get a bad rep for giving them an unsmokable product. Nonetheless with his own 1g and given his conviction of it's absolute purity, SWIM may soon be tempted to give his product a go for the first time. (Well apart from his provisional experiment with his very early and very impure product). A word of note here is that perhaps if SWIM did this again, he would probably use a defat stage rather than just use straight to base - as a lot of this colouring seems to be an oily residue from the plant material and it might be useful if SWIM could somehow dispense with this at a much earlier stage.
 
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The yellowish spice is good to smoke.If you already re-x'ed then don't worry about it and give it a go_Of course you could always re-x it again ,bur each time you lose a bit.even cold naptha will retain a bit of DMT that will never precipitate out and evapping just defeats the pupose of re-xing as all the crud that was there to begin with will still be there after evapping.Edgar's,my pet Aardvark, spice is always a little yellowish and he's been smoking it for about three years with nothing but good results.Just look at the pic on Erowid of those yellow crystals.Edgar's is nowhere near that yellow.it is more like parmesan cheese.On his last batch he did a deffat fist and guess what?he still got slightly yellowish crystals
 
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[quote:5b39f0fd34]However the copious quantities of solvent that SWIM has ordered in the past is making even the UPS guy suspicious. [/quote:5b39f0fd34] Are'nt there any hardware store near SWIY's home ?
 
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Mmm.... Well as noted SWIM already re-x his other 9g - and it seems from initial impressions that he should be able to pour off quite a lot of this remaining yellow crud during this cycle. SWIM is prepared to put up with perhaps loosing a gram, as from his perspective it seems clear that the majority of this gram will consist of crap that most people wouldn't want to smoke anyway. He bases this view on the black/dark brown layer of gunk that did form after his last re-xing cycle from his 9g - and he thinks that anyone who saw this dark gunk might think twice before saying that it was OK to smoke. (It looked like some of the basified material from the photos of the bottles posted above). SWIM was glad to be rid of this - and since he has seen his very pretty white crystals from his 1g experiment he is encouraged to go on and to try to get as pure a product as possible. So after this, there will probably be 1 more re-xing cycle for his 9g to really and truly make sure he has a genuinely clean product - and at this point SWIM will finally call it quits.
 
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[quote:e739f110fc="Garulfo"][quote:e739f110fc]However the copious quantities of solvent that SWIM has ordered in the past is making even the UPS guy suspicious. [/quote:e739f110fc] Are'nt there any hardware store near SWIY's home ?[/quote:e739f110fc] Naphtha isn't on general sale in the UK and it is notoriously hard to find. However SWIM has a secret online source he can buy from - hence the UPS guy's seemingly unwelcomed interest.
 
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Mmm, well I guess that's another valuable lesson learned. Know when to quit. After re-xing his 1g Swim ended up with a total of about 230mg of pure white crystals - which is a posted loss of nearly 80%. So not worth it. He will evap his remaining Naphtha to see if he can recover any of this - but he isn't too hopeful of the results. (He however blames the amonia wash and the filter papers for the majority of this. Also of note (again a lesson learned) is that DMT despises any kind of heat, either direct or indirect. SWIM accidentally placed some of his crystals about 3 feet away from a moderately warm radiator in a ceramic bowl. But even in this very mild indirect heat source some of his crystals began to loose definition and to turn into paste. Even body heat appears to have the capacity to melt DMT crystals - so the lesson in this case is always store in a cool dry place and allow your crystals to dry in a cool well ventilated (although not breezy) location. The best place to keep them one they are dried would be for example in a plastic vitimin container/tub in your fridge.
 
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[quote:68208185d4="raid517"][quote:68208185d4="Garulfo"][quote:68208185d4]However the copious quantities of solvent that SWIM has ordered in the past is making even the UPS guy suspicious. [/quote:68208185d4] Are'nt there any hardware store near SWIY's home ?[/quote:68208185d4] Naphtha isn't on general sale in the UK and it is notoriously hard to find. However SWIM has a secret online source he can buy from - hence the UPS guy's seemingly unwelcomed interest.[/quote:68208185d4] try a place that sells camping stuff naptha is used in all those coleman lanterns and stoves.Or try in an arts supplies store and look for Bestine,it is pure heptane and that's exactly what you want unless you can get hexane.
 
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Again I'm not sure there are any suppliers of Bestine in the UK. I could be wrong - but a quick Google search throws up virtually nothing. The same applies to Coleman fuel. However if you could suggest some specific brand names, perhaps SWIM would have better results?
 
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Instead of looking for brand names, check for the composition of any paint thinner,stain remover. Most of them are naphtas at different distillation levels. You can use them for primary extractions and then use the more expensive one for recrystallisation. Check for xylene also. Noman use toluene but it seems more toxic than xylene (wikipedia info)
 
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[quote:6ad42c1f06="raid517"][quote:6ad42c1f06="Garulfo"][quote:6ad42c1f06]However the copious quantities of solvent that SWIM has ordered in the past is making even the UPS guy suspicious. [/quote:6ad42c1f06] Are'nt there any hardware store near SWIY's home ?[/quote:6ad42c1f06] Naphtha isn't on general sale in the UK and it is notoriously hard to find. However SWIM has a secret online source he can buy from - hence the UPS guy's seemingly unwelcomed interest.[/quote:6ad42c1f06] Wow, SWIM didn't realize naptha was hard to come by - over here in the states it's easy to find at any hardware store as VM+P for woodworking and as a general solvent ($10 for a gallon jug of pure naptha). SWIM is also doubting this ammonia wash technique and thinks that a slight yellow comes naturally from the root and is perfectly smokable. On the other hand, an elf I know thinks that the full evap of the likes of lazyman's tek is a horrible idea - because the partial evap and freeze precip works wonders at acquiring a mostly white and clean product w/ the naptha retaining most of the yellowness that stays in solvent. The NaOH contamination myth is bogus, because it's confirmed that pure naptha is completely and utterly insoluble to a water based solution, as long as it's separated correctly. There might be some impurities with straight to base methods, but contamination is simply not an issue. This El ka bong character is full of it, with nothing more than a google acquired chemist wannabe fetish. It's been repeatedly shown here that straight to base is the way to go and give clean high yields of spice - the skeptics have shown no proof or examples to the contrary -- nothing more than rants.
 
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"He however blames the amonia wash and the filter papers for the majority of this..." It is almost 100% certain that your all of your losses occurred during recrystallization and during the time that you had them out in a slightly warm climate. Also, if it was warm when you dried them after the ammonia wash then, yes, some melted into the filter.... but losses of that magnitude are NOT from a simple ammonia wash itself. You might experience a loss of 2-5% at most from a wash. My final 2 cents on your first go at this Raid, was that you went for overkill with your first extraction, especially with the cleaning... but this is how we learn. Hopefully you'll make that 230mg of pristine spice count!
 
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Well to be fair, I think SWIM got the majority of that missing spice back in a subsquent evap cycle of his collected residual naphtha. But yes, you are right, there are things I would recommend that SWIM do differently if he did this again. I have learned a lot from speaking to SWIM, but as I have said previously, my main regret was/is that it was so expensive to learn it. The bottom line however is that it really doesn't need to be that expensive at all - and can be really very low tek if you want it to be. I thought for example that a whole bunch of really expensive glassware and lab equipment was a prerequisite for this and this is what I told SWIM to buy, but really you can get by with any glass jars bought from a food store, or even those big 6 litre plastic drinks bottles for mineral water that can be bought from most supermarkets for larger extractions. Before SWIM started this, he took on board every piece of equippment that everyone he read said you might need to do this. So that part of the whole deal was pretty bruising really, especially on SWIM's megre income. Nonetheless, SWIM will savour his small supply of perfectly snow white spice and will save this for a particularly special occasion. He is to say the least relieved that this fairly large experiment is now over and he can get on with the rest of his life. Perhaps in a few months he will revisit his notes here and might be tempted then to give it another go (but again on a much smaller scale).
 
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Well, just a small but significant update. SWIM sent me some of the DMT to try out. So I insufucated 50mg. I'm afraid my experience report might not be what you guys would hope for. Yes I did experience what you guys probably call 'hyperspace' rampant rolling Space Odyssey 2001 visuals - but far weirder and far stranger by several orders of magnitude than even this, The predominant visual was probably only what I could describe as a huge 2 dimensional pyramid made of intensely golden light, which although flat seemed to intersect different dimensional realities, behind which I followed (or was being led) through a chaotic kaleidoscope of colours at extreme velocity. However I am sorry to say that even though I was more 'out of it' in a psychedelic sense than I had ever been in my entire life, my inner impression was that the entire experience itself was pretty much a bunch of crap. Yes it did seem utterly alien, yes it was an intense and overpowering sensation, but at no time did feel that this 'alternate reality' was in any way preferable to this one. I didn't freak out, or have a 'bad trip' in any traditional sense - I was just thoroughly unimpressed with the feeling and with the experience in general. You see, I first started down this path when I was engaged in a period of self exploration and revaluation of many things in my life. My interest in this subject was spurned pretty much by a single line in a forum post by someone commenting on the experience of some Astronauts who reported a feeling of 'universality' and 'oneness with the universe'. This person compared a DMT experience to this which is pretty much what made me sit up and take notice. I thought that DMT might be able to teach me something useful that I could use in my life to help me grow. Well it did teach me something useful in the end I guess - and that is that I would rather search in this reality for true meaning and fulfilment than in some alternate (and probably completely illusionary) reality, where nothing useful and meaningful can be brought back to this world and put to good use. Of all of the experience reports I have read, people have certainly described some very weird and strange experiences - but if you read them carefully none of them actually make any sense, at least not in any direct or literal way. No one has ever gone on a DMT trip (or any drug) and brought back from it solutions for the many ills and shortcomings of this world. They may speak of 'aliens' and 'pixies'' but what specifically useful things do these pixies have to say regarding these subjects ? Besides which I cannot play down the pain barrier that one must go through when insufucating DMT. It is right up there with what feels like a very dangerous and potentially damaging things to do - and the pain is both severe and long lasting (even after finely chopping it And the taste?!?! The taste is completely vile! I think if you could imagine swallowing a fibrous solvent based wood filler (which I haven't done - so this is just an approximation of what perhaps doing this would taste like) then this is the closest comparison I can come up with. I was sick/did vomit at one point, not so much from the effects of the drug, as from the vile taste. So part of my current reticence is inspired by sitting in close proximity to a not insignificant supply of my own personal bile and vomit. But that isn't all of it - I was still aware of the experience enough despite this to know that none of it was anything I wanted. And no smoking it isn't much better (less painful, but not better) as it still tastes vile). That leaves the option of shoving it up my butt - which is exactly the point at where I draw the line. I'm just not that desperate to get high dude! Besides which as I said, I truly believe that it just isn't worth it anyway. Again I don't want to put anyone down - but the closest comparison I can give to this is that it is a bit like the feeling you would get if you were working in close proximity to some strong solvents and had accidentally become high from this. It has that same overwhelming sensation - but 10's of times stronger than this again. The comparison with sniffing glue is I think valid - as all in all, it just seems like a very low class thing to do. This isn't one of those 'road to Damascus' type experience reports, where I suddenly swear that I will 'never touch another drug again.' I am a life-long dabbler and will probably be so until the day I die. Weed, coke, MDMA, Speed etc are my recreational drugs of choice. But they by no means dominate (nor are they a particularly important part of) my day to day life. But in all of the period of whatever time I have left in my life, I doubt I will ever dabble in DMT again. Sorry I couldn't be more positive guys. But it seems that my own personal search must go on elsewhere. Perhaps this thread should be added to the archive as an example of the fact that DMT is almost certainly 'not for everyone' after all? I mean I've done acid trips (but not for many years) and I can safely say I enjoyed that feeling far more than the DMT trip. Again, don't get me wrong. I didn't have a 'bad' DMT experience. I was just utterly indifferent to it, did not find it fulfilling, or inspiring, nor did I at any time feel it had anything to offer me that the real world couldn't offer me in much more substantial and meaningful ways. Anyway thanks for taking me and my friend SWIM this far guys. But unfortunately this is where this particular journey must now end.
 
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