Dyes and spice extraction question

[saxbari]

This is a rather strange question.. so - I've never tried to make spice myself. One day, I would like to try. I understand it is not that difficult if one can follow instructions. I have not read through them, at least not all the way yet. Perhaps by doing so, I could save myself the asking of this question. In the process of extracting spice, is the pigment component destroyed? I asked because I understand that mhrb can make a fine purple dye. I would like to use the same batch of bark for both purposes, should it be possible and if I ever find it. I like the hue that I see pictures of the roots, and I would like to make both spice and dye from it. My priority would be on spice production, however.

Thank you in advance for your reply, should you choose to leave one.

 

[Transform]

This is a rather strange question.. so - I've never tried to make spice myself. One day, I would like to try. I understand it is not that difficult if one can follow instructions. I have not read through them, at least not all the way yet. Perhaps by doing so, I could save myself the asking of this question. In the process of extracting spice, is the pigment component destroyed? I asked because I understand that mhrb can make a fine purple dye. I would like to use the same batch of bark for both purposes, should it be possible and if I ever find it. I like the hue that I see pictures of the roots, and I would like to make both spice and dye from it. My priority would be on spice production, however.

Thank you in advance for your reply, should you choose to leave one.

Dye your clothes in the acid brew first, then extract DMT from the dye bath. You might need a mordant to help fix the dye to the fabric, and you'd need to choose one that doesn't mess with the extraction.

After dyeing, the fabric will need to be rinsed, and there'll be small amounts of DMT in the rinsings. It's a question of how acceptable this would be to you as a source of diminished yield as to whether you then bother attempting to recover anything from that dilute and possibly contaminated solution.

Have you researched natural dyeing methods yet? The work you put into this, and you yourself actually reading the information on DMT extraction, will be rewarded.

You'll want to look at an A/B (acid/base) extraction.

 

[saxbari]

Hi - thank you for the very interesting reply! As I implied, I haven't done a lot of research into this.. like very little, and I thought perhaps someone (such as yourself) 's researched insightful opinion could answer this question. I was doing some reading on mhrb, and saw the color of the roots in the course of this. I had heard of its use in dye before. It occurred to me that perhaps it could be used for both purposes at once. Thanks again for your elucidation, and I shall do more reading!

 

[Sakkadelic]

Dye your clothes in the acid brew first, then extract DMT from the dye bath. You might need a mordant to help fix the dye to the fabric, and you'd need to choose one that doesn't mess with the extraction.

After dyeing, the fabric will need to be rinsed, and there'll be small amounts of DMT in the rinsings. It's a question of how acceptable this would be to you as a source of diminished yield as to whether you then bother attempting to recover anything from that dilute and possibly contaminated solution.

I have no knowledge on this but wouldn't it work if after soaking the cloth in the acid brew for long, the cloth is wrung, then wetted with water and wrung a couple times, all the water collected and returned to the brew to retrieve the lost dmt, and then the extraction continues normally from there. And the mordant is applied to the cloth to fix the color seperately from the brew.

 

[Transform]

I have no knowledge on this but wouldn't it work if after soaking the cloth in the acid brew for long, the cloth is wrung, then wetted with water and wrung a couple times, all the water collected and returned to the brew to retrieve the lost dmt, and then the extraction continues normally from there. And the mordant is applied to the cloth to fix the color seperately from the brew.

I would want to rinse the cloth too much prior to mordanting, unless a paler colour was aimed for, hence the idea that the post-mordant rinsings might also contain traces of DMT. It kind of illustrates how the introduction of extra steps into an extraction risks reducing yield.

 

[fractals4life]

Wikipedia's article on mordants implies to me that sodium chloride is a valid mordant, and that adding it to the fabric prior to the dye bath (pre-mordanting) would be most effective. There are plenty of teks that use salt as an additive to help increase ionic strength of the soup, so it looks very much like a brine soak of the cloth before adding to the dye bath will do no harm to the extraction apart from a little dilution of the soup and should enable better dyeing than without.

I am no professional chemist, but it looks fairly clear cut to me, online searches say salt isn't a great mordant, but maybe good enough for our purpose?

Mordant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Transform]

Wikipedia's article on mordants implies to me that sodium chloride is a valid mordant, and that adding it to the fabric prior to the dye bath (pre-mordanting) would be most effective. There are plenty of teks that use salt as an additive to help increase ionic strength of the soup, so it looks very much like a brine soak of the cloth before adding to the dye bath will do no harm to the extraction apart from a little dilution of the soup and should enable better dyeing than without.

I am no professional chemist, but it looks fairly clear cut to me, online searches say salt isn't a great mordant, but maybe good enough for our purpose?

Mordant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This could be the case, although I'd look at specific, analogous natural dyes and their respective mordants before coming to this conclusion.