Does the concentration of the phosphoric acid matter?

[babagmn]

Just doing a mhrb extraction using phosphoric acid. I'm using distilled water and was wondering if the amount of acid that I add to the water matters. The more acid I add the more concentrated it is but the ph should not decrease any further. As long as the pH is 3-4 I assume that's good to go.


Also , the same goes for the base part. Once I have an alkaline solution of about 13 I don't need to add any more lye.

Am I correct in my assumptions?

 

[Transform]

The more acid you've added, the more lye you'll need - this equation should highlight that anything more than a minimal amount of acid is wasteful. That minimal amount could be as low as zero, especially if using soft water, distilled water or rainwater.

Similarly, pH13 could be a bit excessive. You may get equally effective results at pH 11 or 12 - have a look at the pKₐ of DMT; you only need to deprotonate a sufficient proportion of it for the extraction to be effective.

 

[babagmn]

Thanks for that. I did test extract using 250g of mhrb. The solvent is currently in the freezer.

I'll do another extraction and this time use a more dilute acid and base.

 

[Transform]

One possible issue with phosphoric acid is that it's non-volatile to all intents and purposes. This becomes more relevant when it's used in brews and a large brew gets concentrated down to a small volume.

 

[babagmn]

What do you mean by that please?
The Tek that I have used suggests reducing the brew after filtering out the bark down to about 1/3 of the original. It's from the DMT handbook pdf that I got from this forum.
What would the issue be?
Thanks again.

 

[Transform]

Brews specifically intended for drinking would require pH adjustment before consumption - not so relevant to extraction situations, admittedly, but included as an illustration. Adding lye to concentrated acid could get rather hot, of course.

Some of the information here is old (the DMT handbook predates the Nexus, for one thing), so it's good that things get discussed before people blindly follow instructions.