Hello,
I've been getting lower yields than desired, maybe done about 4 now and most of which come in at around 500mg so I'm here to ask what I could improve on before diving back in.
Are you comparing against a previously established benchmark with the same material or are you judging your results against some hypothetical golden standard?
If the former, what was the yield and what has changed in your approach?
If the latter, know that bark is highly variable. You might just have lower performing bark than the max potential. And that's okay.
- For step 6: when it says "REPEAT THIS four times (shake/separate) to thoroughly mix them together. This should take around 45 mins." does that mean each separation should take 45min or the total 4 separations should take 45min?
it's talking about all 4 separations in a single pull.
More important than time is process. Mix (don't shake) throughly and let layers separate 3 or 4 times, then pull the naptha off. This is what it's saying should take 45 mins. If one separation is taking 45 mins you're shaking too hard
- In the last 2 cases I've been using a magnetic stir plate, seems like it should be the ideal method but perhaps not?
I saw no difference between using a stirrer and not.
- The lye, bark, and naphtha are quite old, would that matter?
Only the bark age would really factor in but I've seen people report using decade old bark with minimal impact. No real experience here myself.
- For temperature when "warm" in mentioned, exactly what temps are we talking about?
It's not really specific. 130 to 150 should be fine. But the idea is not to hold it at that temp but let the water cool before reheating. I think it's debatable how helpful it really is.
The most effective thing I've seen is leave everything room temp except warm the naptha in a 170degF water bath for two minutes before pulling.
- For recovering crystals, what is the best method here? I find that it's difficult to drain the naphtha without throwing away what looks to be crystals and a coffee filter seems too fine for the naphtha. When I drain off the naphtha into glass dishes for crystallization my fluid looks fairly clear and yellow rather than cloudy in the pics of the tek if that helps.
One important piece of info here is how much naptha are you using? 50ml x 5 is a bit much imo. If using that much, before you freeze precip, evap away 30% - 50% of the volume. For 50g bark, 25 to 30ml per pull is better and you shouldnt need to evap.
When you freeze it, prop the dish so it pools and xtalizes in one corner. Then, after waiting patiently and not touching the dish for a minimum(!) of 12 hrs, gently shift the dish to move the liquid to another corner, leaving the solids behind. Let it sit like that for a few minutes to clear off before actually pouring away that naptha. Then proceed with the dry and scrape.
- For anyone that's gotten higher than the 2% yield, what did you change?
This is mostly going to be about bark quality and secondly about refining your implementation of the technique.
Changing the tek prior to having a solid understanding of the process and general chemistry principles is more likely to have negative outcomes.
For now, focus on quality output and seemless execution.
Worry about % maxing later.
Or maybe never.
Yea, worry about % maxing never.
