Dopamine, VisualDistortion and olderROM, that all makes sense but I am not worried the spice will oxidize to any extreme extent; SWIM uses his speedy lab-technique, a very cold fridge and a desiccator for these final steps. It's the quality of the MHRB he's concerend about. Bark can lie drying in the sun for probably days to weeks, lay around for months with the vendor (even if they do claim it's fresh) and then some more moths in SWIM's place of safekeeping. In his view, the amount of spice that could oxidize during this time is much greater than the one or two days after commencing extraction. Also, since (for now) naphta is used none of this would be extracted. So, 69ron's recipe is sound. SWIM is just trying to figure out a path that would eliminate the need for an A/B and go STB *with* a reduction step tucked in there. AFAIK, Devarda's alloy creates an in statu nascendi hydrogen that is so reactive, it should reduce the oxide back to the base. It will even reduce all of the nitrate in the mix (and there's probably a lot of it in there, seeing how plants take it in in such abundance) and create ammonia from this. This ammonia will immediately leave the solution as it's so alkaline. If one was stupid enough to hold his nose over the mix (free radicals anyone?), it would be detectable by smell. Of course, this kind of reductive power could easily reduce other compounds in the mix as well, who knows what it will give rise to.
So, all knowledgeable folks here, any thoughts?
i