About a year ago I picked up a little MHRB and attempted to do a STB extraction, but it was a massive failure. I didn’t have the right materials, and I didn’t really put any effort into getting it right. Well I’m back as a born again extraction virgin, and this time I decided to do things right.
For this extraction, like my first attempt, I used Noman’s TEK. I ordered a few supplies off of Amazon (nothing sketchy, just some household stuff. The only potentially sketchy purchase was a mg scale). I found it funny that a few days after purchasing I got an email from Amazon with “suggestions” on things I might want to purchase, and based off of me buying a glass turkey baster and a mg scale it suggested both Lye and Naphtha (which makes me wonder how many idiots are buying everything they need on Amazon). I got my Lye and VM&P Naphtha locally with cash. I also found a gallon glass pickle jar at my local grocery store (I felt bad wasting all those pickles but there was no way I was gonna eat them all).
I bought 1lb of MHRB, so given that and the size of my jar, I decided to split the bark up into three 150g extractions (this thread only covers the first one). Using the ratios given in the TEK, I used 2.25L water, 150g MHRB, and 150g Lye. I added my water then my lye, but I measured out my lye with a measuring spoon instead of weighing it. I definitely overdid it with the lye, since by the time I was done adding it the 1lb container was about half empty. No worries though, I don’t think this was a problem.
I then added my 150g of powdered bark (from Gaia’s Naval, US reseller of Adenium), shook it up and let the pitch black mixture sit for about 2 hours. I then added 150mL of Naphtha, but in order to get enough depth for the pull I added 50mL more (this extra 50mL acted as a buffer, and whenever I did pulls there was about 50mL left when I added the next pull). I rolled it around (made the mistake of tipping it upside down... even though this jar was as tight as possible some still oozed through. This was only a problem when held completely upside down, probably from the weight of the mixture). I rolled it and let it settle about 4 times, and then immediately pulled.
This turned out to be a mistake, since my first pull yielded nothing. The second pull was also pulled immediately and ended up yielding a little, but the pulls that I left for a couple hours or overnight yielded the most.
I had a system of about 2 pulls precipitating in glass mason jars in the freezer while the next pull was sitting in the MHRB jar. I reused the naphtha from previous pulls, and have saved all my naphtha (I plan to evaporate this to get some of the DMT that I just couldn’t get out of the jar and that couldn’t precipitate.) This worked out nicely.
After freeze precipitating, I knocked crystals off of the side of the jar and poured it through a coffee filter (inside a funnel), into another jar. I didn’t run into any problems with DMT getting stuck inside the filters, and after letting the filters air dry a gift card was able to scrape up pretty much all of the crystals. I also used a spoon to scoop out the DMT that didn’t come through in the naphtha.
Pull 1, pulled immediately: 0.000g
Pull 2, pulled immediately: 130mg
Pull 3, sat a few hours: 320mg
Pull 4, sat overnight: 375mg
Pull 5, sat a few hours: 300mg
Pull 6, sat overnight: 90mg
Pull 7, sat overnight: 20mg
An 8th pull was left for multiple nights, and instead of precipitating at all I added this to my leftover naphtha for evaporation.
All of the pulls yielded almost perfectly white crystals, with the very rare exception when a small portion would be yellowed. When cut up and mixed together it still looks almost perfectly white, so I decided against recrystalization.
This left me with a yield of 1.235g, 0.82% of the 150g MHRB. This does not include the couple hundred mg I expect to get from evaporation of the leftover naphtha, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I reach around 1% when all is said and done. I will post the results of this afterward.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions feel free to ask
For this extraction, like my first attempt, I used Noman’s TEK. I ordered a few supplies off of Amazon (nothing sketchy, just some household stuff. The only potentially sketchy purchase was a mg scale). I found it funny that a few days after purchasing I got an email from Amazon with “suggestions” on things I might want to purchase, and based off of me buying a glass turkey baster and a mg scale it suggested both Lye and Naphtha (which makes me wonder how many idiots are buying everything they need on Amazon). I got my Lye and VM&P Naphtha locally with cash. I also found a gallon glass pickle jar at my local grocery store (I felt bad wasting all those pickles but there was no way I was gonna eat them all).
I bought 1lb of MHRB, so given that and the size of my jar, I decided to split the bark up into three 150g extractions (this thread only covers the first one). Using the ratios given in the TEK, I used 2.25L water, 150g MHRB, and 150g Lye. I added my water then my lye, but I measured out my lye with a measuring spoon instead of weighing it. I definitely overdid it with the lye, since by the time I was done adding it the 1lb container was about half empty. No worries though, I don’t think this was a problem.
I then added my 150g of powdered bark (from Gaia’s Naval, US reseller of Adenium), shook it up and let the pitch black mixture sit for about 2 hours. I then added 150mL of Naphtha, but in order to get enough depth for the pull I added 50mL more (this extra 50mL acted as a buffer, and whenever I did pulls there was about 50mL left when I added the next pull). I rolled it around (made the mistake of tipping it upside down... even though this jar was as tight as possible some still oozed through. This was only a problem when held completely upside down, probably from the weight of the mixture). I rolled it and let it settle about 4 times, and then immediately pulled.
This turned out to be a mistake, since my first pull yielded nothing. The second pull was also pulled immediately and ended up yielding a little, but the pulls that I left for a couple hours or overnight yielded the most.
I had a system of about 2 pulls precipitating in glass mason jars in the freezer while the next pull was sitting in the MHRB jar. I reused the naphtha from previous pulls, and have saved all my naphtha (I plan to evaporate this to get some of the DMT that I just couldn’t get out of the jar and that couldn’t precipitate.) This worked out nicely.
After freeze precipitating, I knocked crystals off of the side of the jar and poured it through a coffee filter (inside a funnel), into another jar. I didn’t run into any problems with DMT getting stuck inside the filters, and after letting the filters air dry a gift card was able to scrape up pretty much all of the crystals. I also used a spoon to scoop out the DMT that didn’t come through in the naphtha.
Pull 1, pulled immediately: 0.000g
Pull 2, pulled immediately: 130mg
Pull 3, sat a few hours: 320mg
Pull 4, sat overnight: 375mg
Pull 5, sat a few hours: 300mg
Pull 6, sat overnight: 90mg
Pull 7, sat overnight: 20mg
An 8th pull was left for multiple nights, and instead of precipitating at all I added this to my leftover naphtha for evaporation.
All of the pulls yielded almost perfectly white crystals, with the very rare exception when a small portion would be yellowed. When cut up and mixed together it still looks almost perfectly white, so I decided against recrystalization.
This left me with a yield of 1.235g, 0.82% of the 150g MHRB. This does not include the couple hundred mg I expect to get from evaporation of the leftover naphtha, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I reach around 1% when all is said and done. I will post the results of this afterward.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions feel free to ask
