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Anyone tried STB or BLAB for cacti?

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soulfood

soulfood

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I was just pondering this concept as most extractors seem to use an aqueous A/B and more recently Rons food grade tek, but I have noticed on a few forums that in the past many folk have used STB extractions a la Noman style with a different solvent/salting process with some pretty nice results.

I'm just wondering what experience folk have with different extractions and especially the benefits of BLABing cacti as it has great results with DMT, but appeals to me on the cacti front due to the lack of heat needed in the process.

It would be nice to hear from folk with more cactus/mescaline "know how" for reasons why this would be a good idea or a bad idea. Also the concept of being able to bulk BLAB some cactus sounds delicous :)
 
In my head i class rons as STB, and i think it is a STB, because you basify then pull, thats it, u dont A/B the stuff then pull nor B/A then pull.
Its STB then salt.

Hope that helps

Kind Regards

L
 
L_Star said:
In my head i class rons as STB, and i think it is a STB, because you basify then pull, thats it, u dont A/B the stuff then pull nor B/A then pull.
Its STB then salt.

L
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Well yeah this is all true, but the thing with Rons is there is the absence of a large amount of water which to me was always the advantage, as mesc is quite water soluble.

I guess what I'm really pondering is how the BLAB differs with cactus as I've always figured the acid boils take longer with cactus than with MHRB, with the major variable being the slime from the cactus interfering with the solvent. This is something I have read very little about.
 
Well, I've had a little look around here and there and I have found several accounts of folk finding a liquid STB on cactus to be an efficent way to get the goods out. So I guess the same principal with the BLAB method should work with the vinegar phase to speed up the soaking to get the mescaline into an aqueous phase.

Anyway I'm going to try out a small scale extraction of around 50g's torch in the next few days. Unless someone stumbles on this and notices something very wrong with these quantity's I shall carry out the intial phase of the extraction with:

50g's of powdered torch in 500ml white vinegar, which I will let to soak for 3-5 days, which I will then add a concerntrated solution of NaOH so that the total liquids add up to around 750ml which will be pulled from with 200ml of d-limonene several times then 25ml Dilute 5% Hcl solution, repeated until exausted. I will take notes of how many pulls are needed to exaust the soup, then try pulling again 1 week later.

My only concern is an excess of liquid which will probably increase the number of pulls needed compared to Rons drytek, but I guess with this BLAB method you probably use less limonene in total so.... swings and roundabouts.

Anyway, I'll update this thread when I get things underway.
 
soulfood said:
Well, I've had a little look around here and there and I have found several accounts of folk finding a liquid STB on cactus to be an efficent way to get the goods out. So I guess the same principal with the BLAB method should work with the vinegar phase to speed up the soaking to get the mescaline into an aqueous phase.

Anyway I'm going to try out a small scale extraction of around 50g's torch in the next few days. Unless someone stumbles on this and notices something very wrong with these quantity's I shall carry out the intial phase of the extraction with:

50g's of powdered torch in 500ml white vinegar, which I will let to soak for 3-5 days, which I will then add a concerntrated solution of NaOH so that the total liquids add up to around 750ml which will be pulled from with 200ml of d-limonene several times then 25ml Dilute 5% Hcl solution, repeated until exausted. I will take notes of how many pulls are needed to exaust the soup, then try pulling again 1 week later.

My only concern is an excess of liquid which will probably increase the number of pulls needed compared to Rons drytek, but I guess with this BLAB method you probably use less limonene in total so.... swings and roundabouts.

Anyway, I'll update this thread when I get things underway.
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Sounds like a plan and a good one!

Would be great to see if the long 3-5 day soak of the cactus in the vinegar would break apart the gooeyness and slimeness. Long boils during A/Bs certainly break down the gooeyness but there is always the danger of thermal damage of mescaline during this approach. Long soaks of the cactus in STB NaOH solution also takes away most of teh gooeyness.

In any case, one can also take the BLAB vinegar-cactus mixture and evaporate off most of the water in slow heat, then proceed as in the ron's tek.
 
Infundibulum said:
Would be great to see if the long 3-5 day soak of the cactus in the vinegar would break apart the gooeyness and slimeness. Long boils during A/Bs certainly break down the gooeyness but there is always the danger of thermal damage of mescaline during this approach. Long soaks of the cactus in STB NaOH solution also takes away most of teh gooeyness.
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That would certainly be a bonus! I know NaOH can break down the goo, but I've also heard that base mescaline in strongly basic solutions isn't all that stable and can degrade if left too long, so it would be nice if the vinegar killed both birds :)

I guess I have to be more careful overshooting the pH also, as I imagine mescaline isn't as stable as say... DMT, at a high pH.
 
If you go to the nexus wiki you can find the BLAB (Big leisurely a/b) for DMT extraction.

When adding the NaOH I'm going to shoot for about pH 11 as that's when most of the mescaline will become soluble in the limonene. But usual practice, I may add more if an emulsion becomes a bother.

Mescaline is more soluble in limonene than water. I'm really just comparing to Rons tek which has next to no water at all, but that's the only mescaline extraction I know of like that so the use of water will be just fine.

I'm adding more acid at the end to make the goods become insoluble in limonene but soluble in the small amount of water added with the acid so the fats and goo stay in the limonene, but the mescaline migrates to the water which is then evaporated.
 
Fiashly said:
So is limonene not acidic? I was thinking it was. Maybe just because of where it comes from. So the limonene is like naptha to an STB DMT extraction I gather.
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Bingo.

Fiashly said:
Then when you say you are adding the acid at the end you mean to the pulled material (the limonene) and not the original solution.
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yup.


Fiashly said:
Quick question, how do you seperate the limonene from the water at the very end? Also, can you reuse the limonene for additional pulls after you seperate it from the water?
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I use a pipette to suck the water out from under the limonene. You probably can reuse the limonene, but it's better to use fresh stuff for more efficent pulls and a cleaner product.
 
Ok, the BLAB thing.

To give you my not so professional, but very passionate diagnosis. This is really shit for cactus. You may aswell just jump straight to an STB as the vinegar step does nothing but offset the pH too much. I'm also going to say as my extraction has now pretty much gone that way anyway, that a Noman style STB, is shit for cactus. From this day forth I'm not going to grind cactus and would recommend everyone to do the same unless using Rons tek or stuffing into gel caps.

I'm going to be sticking to Phlux's tek, as it's my personal favourite :) Ron's is all good, but a little messy for my liking.
 
soulfood said:
Ok, the BLAB thing.

To give you my not so professional, but very passionate diagnosis. This is really shit for cactus. You may aswell just jump straight to an STB as the vinegar step does nothing but offset the pH too much. I'm also going to say as my extraction has now pretty much gone that way anyway, that a Noman style STB, is shit for cactus. From this day forth I'm not going to grind cactus and would recommend everyone to do the same unless using Rons tek or stuffing into gel caps.
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Hahahaha, this cactus slime is just so bad!
 
Infundibulum said:
Hahahaha, this cactus slime is just so bad!
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I thought so too... but limonene seems to love the stuff. I said to that limonene.. I says "be back in ten minutes"... that was about 2 days ago.
 
Fiashly said:
So I put a small quantity of powder in some water with lemon juice and let it sit overnight. Came back and I had jello. I take it this is normal? I can't see how I am going to get much in the way of moisture out of this blob. I added some more water and lemon juice and I'll see what develops.
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Bigger jello will develop. The cactus has these jellying agents to trap water. That's part of the cactusness; trap water, store it. Long boiling times and prolonged exposure to high pH (e.g. NaOH) help get rid of the jellyness. Also, the presence of calcium ions as in ron's tek prevents a good deal of jelly formation but in your case the latter preventive measure is too late (maybe?).
 
So ILPT done some of the ron`s limo tek on some peruvianus. After 2 limo extractions he went away for a good month and came back only to found that the mixture of cacti powder, calcium hydroxide and the little water under the limonene is somewhat hygroscopic. It absobrbed water what led to increasing thickenes and difficulty to mixed in order to extract alkaloids with limo.

He might salvage it by adding water solution of NaOH , let it break down the slime and then try to pull with limo. He`ll see if he can get anymore goodies by this approach and how clean they would be .
 
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