Backsalting questions

[rewindtothestart]

I'm familiar with the backsalting procedure, but I'd like to get a better understanding of how it works. I searched for the answers, but I couldn't find the right key words to ask.

1) When I pull NPS from the bark/lye solution, it is a clear yellow. As soon as it hits the acidic water to backsalt, it turns a milky yellow. (See the picture at the bottom of this post) Likewise, when added to the lye solution, it will turn a clear yellow color again. I was under the impression that most of the DMT turns into DMT acetate and transfers over almost instantly (with vinegar). I'm kind of curious why this reaction occurs though. What makes it milky? Does the DMT slowly "crash out"? Is this perhaps DMT that is still stuck to fat molecules that doesn't transfer over?

2) When backsalting, it appears that an emulsion of some sort appears. 1 is xylene, 4 is vinegar/water/DMT acetate, and two distinct colored emulsions appear between. 2 appears to be almost milky pink cream colored, and has millions of very fine bubbles. 3 looks more like xylene to me, and it has larger bubbles, but it is the darkest red/brown color. What are these layers? Fat, DMT, or just xylene? If it's DMT trapped in plant fats, how do you free the DMT? Will adding salt break these up?



3) The last question to cross my mind is related, but not exclusively tied to backsalting. My understanding is that DMT will not crash out of xylene unless turned into a salt, or super saturated via evaporation. When you heat the xylene, it can absorb more DMT than when at room temperature. What happens when it cools again? Does it stay supersaturated for a period of time, or does it crash back out? I'm asking because I sometimes heat jars overnight, and let them cool before pulling. If this is pointless, I'll just do pulls while it's warm.

 

[pete666]

Just to make clear your query, you say : "it is a clear yellow". But the picture doesn't look like something that was pulled clear yellow. Why is it so colored? How did you do your pulls (solvent, temperature, technique)?

 

[rewindtothestart]

It was clear/yellow when warm, and when it was in the lye jar. The picture is of it clouding when added to vinegar/water (PH~4) mixture to backsalt.

I did my pulls on MHRB extract (PH~14) heated to about 60 degrees, with about 1h in the ultrasonic. The MHRB extract was created with vinegar/water, and was filtered pretty good to remove most of the bark. The bark was a powdered consistency. This was a very concentrated solution.

The xylene seemed to continue to lose the "milky" fat overnight. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's definitely a little bit more translucent. I treated it like an emulsion last night, and added some salt, heated, froze, then thawed to a chilled temperature. When the backsalting was heated, the xylene remained milky colored, so this observation seems to be linked to PH instead of temperature. It looks like this took care of layer # 3, and the milky pink white layer really does look like a layer of very fine plant oil particles. Here's a pic of it this morning.



So, I guess I kind of answered part of the question on layer # 3, but I'm still curious about the other questions. Is layer 2 just plant oil, or does this also contain DMT? If so, how do you release it? Note that after doing all of the steps to break the emulsion, the xylene still has a slight opaque color. Does this still have DMT in it, or is it safe to say that most of the DMT is instantly (Or slowly?) converted/transferred over?

I was researching emulsions last night, and I ran across the Ouzo effect. This is the visible reaction that occurs when water is added to absinthe. Could this be the root cause of this milky layer? Perhaps a portion of the xylene that wasn't pure xylene, and that actually mixes with water/vinegar.

 

[sbc1]

I think Pete is on about your bottom layer, when back salting that should be clear until you add your naphtha etc then the dmt crashes out into the vinegar/water. But yours is red please tell me you didn't add malt vinegar instead of distilled, and why you using xylene unless you want jungle spice

 

[rewindtothestart]

lol I wouldn't do that. It was regular clear distilled vinegar. It's probably red because it's so concentrated. DMT acetate has a natural redish brown color. That has several grams of DMT in it. I won't say specifically how much because I don't want to lead into a different conversation about asking for bulk advice. It's all for personal use, but it's a large extraction. (Not commercial sized though)

 

[rewindtothestart]

Okay, maybe it had a little bit of bark due to the US that needed to be filtered out. Does this look better?

 

[sbc1]

It should look like milk should be no red at all

 

[pete666]

I usually do two pulls with quite a bit of toluene for dmt. First pull is clear, it is done at room temp. About 3 shake/settle cycles. Second pull has about 10 shake/settle cycles, last few heated to about 60-70C.
First pull is not changing the color of the toluene much, but the second one is. It brings much more impurities into the non-polar. And for some bark it's milky too. I was curious too, what this might be, I would say some fats likely, but because I always continue with mini-A/B (titration and pulling with heptane then re-x), I don't care.
I understand you had it milky while back-salting and not before, which is not my case, but I do STB, so it is not the same process.
While titrating (back-salting), it is similar to mescaline. Bellow pH 7 quite a lot of impurities move to the water, so the non-polar clears up.
I was nervous as well, when I saw the milky color, as it was very strong. But if the process ensures proper purification, it is left behind and the result is pure dmt.
There were never more than two layers when titrating - water and non-polar. I doubt you should have 3 layers, but again, I use toluene and not xylene and every bark is different.

But for your case - The most important point is to get rid of the emulsion while back-salting. I would ensure it is really clear, without any particles after pulling. Small particles are usually causing emulsions. Pull carefully, then filter and leave for a day in a fridge to let the remaining particles to settle before back-salting.
Another important point is doing the back-salting while the water and non-polar is heated to at least 60-70C.

 

[rewindtothestart]

SBC - I've never had a milky dmt solution when salting until it is made caustic again. This is a full spectrum MHRB extract, but I still don't recall that even with highly purified DMT, or when extracting with ACRB. Perhaps it's different bark, you're using a different chems, or you're doing STB as Pete666 proposed? What's your method when backsalting?

Pete666 - Thanks again for the input! You had some good points, and maybe it's variations in the process that are creating these differences.

I'm moving on to the final mini-a/b, and should pull away for a while once this wraps up. I ended up adding the xylene, and that milky fat layer back to the lye solution to simmer some more. That layer doesn't seem to be changing observable characteristics after the PH change, so I'm assuming it's just an oil layer.

 

[sbc1]

No I know it dosent go milky until you add your lye but why is your's red or is that the base. The picture is confusing me because your talking about back salting but that picture dosent look like it.

Save all your pulls, get a 1 litre bottle and fill it with 500ml of distilled water and add 50 - 80ml of distilled vinegar, add all your pulls to the bottle, pull the naphtha and discard, then add 60g of lye to 200-300ml of cold distilled water then add to your bottle, dmt will crash out then pull with naphtha till clear