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A/B opinions

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Shadowlord

Shadowlord

Rising Star
Hi all.
I have done STBs and an A/B.
I really liked the results of the A/B although it is a huge time commitment.
It's actually a PITA but I want to do a long thorough job on this bark and I think this bark has lots of jungle in it and preferred the experience of the A/B stuff.

Can anyone tell me if they have acidified using citrate b4?
I see that most teks call for vinegar or HCl.
I can do either but was considering citrate.

Not looking for suggestions of STBs thank you. Only A/B advice please.
 
citric acid is awesome for an A/B. It won't boil off like hcl and vinegar can.

I use it for my A/B's as it's food grade and doesn't stink like vinegar.
 
Thanks Soulfood.
Lots of extractors at the other site I frequent but no one really likes doing A/B's there. All STB or D-Limonene.

Do you have a rough estimate of how much you use or do you use pH strips or meter?
 
Well, too soon to tell how well I've done but there are some definite good signs.
Spent almost all week w/ the lightly acidified water on low temps and collected and reduced all the liquid. Basified and have take 2 of 3-4 pulls. The Naptha collected so far is nice and clear and stays so as it reduces but if I blow on it it clouds up w/ a light wisp of white, white goodies swirling around in there. Now in my previous A/B the quality of the yield was much better than my STB results but even that Naptha was discolored to some extent.
Soon I'll see just how well it all turns out.
 
An a/b really isn't much work and your spice will be much much cleaner. Sure you could use citric acid if you have pH papers but HCl and phosphoric acid (ph down, hydro shops) do a better job. Forget the low temps and such long times, just do 3 acid boils of 1hr each, almost boiling. Combine them and reduce. For 500g add 60g NaOH in 150ml water (always add base to water slowly, be safe wear goggles/gloves!) that will bring the pH to around 12 which is optimal. Extract with really good stirring at 50c, 3 extractions, evap thats down, then cover/rubberband and stick in the freezer for 2-3days and tada. The DMT handbook (found on this forum) is THE best guide for an a/b.
 
I prefere A\B a lot. Cleaner, not too much prolonged, better yelds...
Just, a question I was sonwering today: how much spice can water held?
Like, can I reduce the acid washes of 1 kg MHRB in 1 liter, just to make an exemple?

by the way, I've used citric acid and it works great, also for it's being not toxic =)
 
A/B has always served me well. The few STB's I did required A LOT of clean up before they were smokable (too harsh on the lungs).

Yes, an A/B is not a simple as add the 4 things together and shake, but my yeilds turn out better, I feel like I have more control over the extraction and most importantly I am not using insane amounts of lye (NaOH), which, when bought in large quantities raises eyebrows as it is used in meth production. I have a 1 out of 2 bottles of lye I bought 2 years ago...I won't need more for a while. Why not to use STB's that push the pH up to 13.5-14:

A) the solution is highly caustic and will cause damage to the skin quickly (chemical burns, similar to heat burns)
2) Can almost instantly blind you if it gets in your eye (lye eats through eyeballs like water on sugar),
3) can really mess up a rug or floor if not neutralized quickly.

If I spill my solution of 11.5pH I have a lot more time to neutralize it with vinegar before it starts really causing problems, at a ph of 14, you've basically got wet lye...that alone is enough for me to stay away from STB's.

A solid A/B takes little actual working time..most of it is waiting, and can be done in a day, unless you are like me and try and get every last drop out...I do an extra soak overnight at the lowest setting on my crockpot (warm), it never gets close to a boil, but I get an extra 400-500mgs from 1/2 kilo off this last cook. I need to write up a tek, share some of my techniques I have found to save time or increase yields...hmmmm...maybe at some point, with pictures...

Also the "Red Death" as I call it only happens with STB using powdered mimosa. It's a red contaminate that is soluble in naphtha and bestine and nothing but a small scale A/B will get rid of it, but I have never heard of it when using an A/B (possibly because the contam is destroyed/altered by heat, or acidic conditions making it non-polar soluble.)
 
I need to write up a tek, share some of my techniques I have found to save time or increase yields...hmmmm...maybe at some point, with pictures...
Click to expand...

I would surely appreciate if you found the time to do this...

The more teks, the better.
 
I need to write up a tek, share some of my techniques I have found to save time or increase yields...hmmmm...maybe at some point, with pictures...
Click to expand...

Yes YES YES !! Please do acolon_5! I was considering an STB before this thread, and now I am not so sure. If there were a less time consuming A/B out there I would do that. I'd rather put in the work before and end up with beautiful precipped crystals than end up with some sludge that i then have to clean clean and clean again for the same satisfaction.

My first and only extraction so far was QT's!! 3 x defat & all!! It took me a month to complete... hence my interest in STBs.

Type away acolon_5, I'd love to stick A/b, but it seems like all the best written teks are STB (no offence to any A/B writers...)

I await your tek with (im)patience!!:)

JBArk
 
mumbles said:
A MONTH? Jeez. Use the search to find the DMT Handbook, or check the nexus wiki. Within is ze answers.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, I have looked around extensively!:), and I fully understand the basic chemistry behind it all. It's just that most of the A/B teks are hard to decipher because of the writing/organization.

What took so long with QT (the ancient Erowid tek) was the defatting stage, that I now feel confident is unnecessary with MHRB. I may rewrite it and call it my own!!

It also took long because with a kid, and a "wife", I am not always at liberty to tackle each step in the timely fashion to which i was once accustomed...:shock:

JBArk
 
^ Oh wow. A month...no, you can complete an A/B within a day.

Quick overview:

1) 3:1 water:vinegar
2) crockpot
3) mimosa
4) lye
5) plain water


Put your mimosa in a crock pot on high, fill with 3:1 vinegar water (phosphoric, HCL are also good alternatives, but only small amounts are needed, ph of 3-4 is preferable)

Let it get to a boil and pull it, strain

The plant material should go back in the pot with 3:1 vinegar solution again, covering all plant material + 1"
Let simmer 30 minutes, strain repeat with WATER (no vinegar)
Let low simmer 1 hour.
Combine all water/vinegar pulls, leaving a majority of plant material behind, the more the better, but don't have to get it all out.
In a milk jug, pour this solution in.
In a pyrex measuring cup add 1/2 cup of water, SLOWLY add lye, if you add too much too quickly the water will flash boil and erupt like a volcano, so do it slowly..please. I add 1/8 of a cup of lye to the water, maybe a bit more....

pour lye water into milk jug with the mimosa "wine", it should turn BLACK and you will see white streaks, this is good.

Add 200mL naphtha per 500g mimosa, swirl, remove, place in a mason jar and put it right in the freezer.
Add another 200mL (per 500g mimosa) swirl, let sit for 30 minutes. Check your jar in the freezer, bet it's covered in xtals and is no longer cloudy. Switch solvents, meaning get your xtals (or leave them stuck to the sides of the glass) get the naphtha out of the jug and into the mason jar...recycle it, you only need 400mL of naphtha for and extaction, just use over and over until the jug is exhuasted.

You have smokeable spice as soon as the first jar has frozen.....
 
acolon_5 said:
^ Oh wow. A month...no, you can complete an A/B within a day.

Quick overview:

1) 3:1 water:vinegar
2) crockpot
3) mimosa
4) lye
5) plain water


Put your mimosa in a crock pot on high, fill with 3:1 vinegar water (phosphoric, HCL are also good alternatives, but only small amounts are needed, ph of 3-4 is preferable)

Let it get to a boil and pull it, strain

The plant material should go back in the pot with 3:1 vinegar solution again, covering all plant material + 1"
Let simmer 30 minutes, strain repeat with WATER (no vinegar)
Let low simmer 1 hour.
Combine all water/vinegar pulls, leaving a majority of plant material behind, the more the better, but don't have to get it all out.
In a milk jug, pour this solution in.
In a pyrex measuring cup add 1/2 cup of water, SLOWLY add lye, if you add too much too quickly the water will flash boil and erupt like a volcano, so do it slowly..please. I add 1/8 of a cup of lye to the water, maybe a bit more....

pour lye water into milk jug with the mimosa "wine", it should turn BLACK and you will see white streaks, this is good.

Add 200mL naphtha per 500g mimosa, swirl, remove, place in a mason jar and put it right in the freezer.
Add another 200mL (per 500g mimosa) swirl, let sit for 30 minutes. Check your jar in the freezer, bet it's covered in xtals and is no longer cloudy. Switch solvents, meaning get your xtals (or leave them stuck to the sides of the glass) get the naphtha out of the jug and into the mason jar...recycle it, you only need 400mL of naphtha for and extaction, just use over and over until the jug is exhuasted.

You have smokeable spice as soon as the first jar has frozen.....
Click to expand...

And there we have it - the acolon_5 tek!!

Thanks. What takes so long with QT is there is no acid boil, but rather you let it sit first 24 hrs, then filter/strain; then 48 hrs, filter strain, then 3 days, filter strain; then with the filtered liquid, you add lye then naptha to defat, which I believe is 3x minimum 24 hrs; then you pull the naptha (containing fats) and discard!!

Only then are you ready to start your pulls...

Acolon_5 - you say strain - is this referring to bark chunks or powder? presumably with powder filtration through cotton r coffee filters is necessary, no?

Thanks again. Very concise and understandable.

JBArk

PS - I assume muriatic acid would do the trick as well. i have almost a whole bottle left after QTs!!
 
Welll after reading acolon's tek yesterday swim decided to try his first A/B. Seems to have went well. he has 4 1/2 pint jars in the freezer and they are lookin good. Only problem was straining and recovering his bark but he got a crash course in how it loves to clog whatever you strain it with. Lol . Next time he will use a better system than a funnel and a t shirt only. Ill post swims result when I get home.
 
Swim just took his first pull out of the freezer, poored off naphtha, dried and weighed for a total of. . . .drum roll please. . . .
936 milligrams!!! Off first pull. . . Jebus christ. . . .thanks acolon_5
Second pull 164 milligrams
Total = 1100 milligrams with 1 more pull to go
 
Shadowlord said:
Hi all.


Can anyone tell me if they have acidified using citrate b4?
I see that most teks call for vinegar or HCl.
I can do either but was considering citrate.
Click to expand...

I use citric acid, I love it.

You're going to want to use about 25-30 grams per gallon of water. I use a bit more, and splash some vinegar on it for good measure...
 
Thanks for all the replies all.
I had forgotten to mark my thread a watched topic and missed out on many of the latter replies until now.
I will be trying again. This time, I do not know if I didn't get the first simmer acidic enough or not enough heat or if I just was not able to break up the bark sufficiently well.
I did my soaks and collected and reduced and basified/extracted from it and got nice white spice as is usual from an A/B tek but the yield was super low.
Since I had all the strained material still, I froze it, dried it back out and ground it up some more and just did an STB on the remainder and got the rest of what one would expect to get and still it was all very nice spice. I must have gotten a lot of oils and gunk out in the cook part of the A/B as I did have some sludgey stuff to wash out of the pot.
Well, made some mistakes but didn't lose any of the magic so it is all just more experience under my belt. Have more bark and indeed will be ordering even more as I have also started making progress on the journeying end of DMT as well so extraction experience is going to be a helpful.
 
I'm doing an A/B for the first time. Got the root bark already powdered which was awesome. I did a variation on MarsofOld's tek with advice from acolon.

I premixed the water, vinegar and root bark using a blender to get them really mixed well. It foamed up, and I put as is into the crock. After around 90 minutes, the foam had settled, and I was able to work with it.

I had a piece of clean t-shirt I had cut up, placed in a wire strainer, and was able to squeeze out virtually every last drop of liquid by twisting the shirt.

Did 2 vinegar water soaks in the 3:1 water:vinegar ratio mentioned by acolon, followed by just water soak, stirring occasionally.

Got some dark purple water from the 3 extractions.

Put the rest of the 3x used pulp back into the blender with some vinegar water, and mixed it very well again. Got some dull grey liquid out of it. Mixed the NaOH water and it turned black but no white stripes this time.

Anyway have a 1-gallon wine jug full of the liquid from the first 3 extractions, basified. It's going to take a lot of extractions with the Naptha at 200ml a pop to take care of that full gallon.

Also, just found about using sodium carbonate for cleaning the crystals rather than ammonia, which is a relief.

A/B certainly beats the STB hands down. I hated working with that basified pulp that smelled all up and such. Though even with STB I've gotten decent yields. Though I don't remember how much as it's been awhile. Have the A/B extraction in the freezer, to be turned into fumarate.
 
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