We were able to make sodium carbonate work as the base for the CIELO procedure. Nearly the same procedure as the published tek so I won`t describe in too much details.
1 - get sod carb at around 1/5 w/w to cactus powder. So 100 g of cactus and 20 g of sod. Mix them well.
2 - spray filtered water, mix the powder so it makes small clumps, spray more and mix, rinse and repeat until it starts to turn dark (be it by the base working or just moist powder). Don`t spoon mix, don`t push the powder against each other, always spray and shake-mix, be patient (this diverges from the tek).
3 - if too big clumps form, grab a scissor and cut them as much possible before wetting more, see pics.
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4 - the right amount of water is unknown, as it gets darker and before it starts glistening, just stop. best to not overshoot. Let it react for minimum of 10 min. Add in etac to cover moist powder (room temp or cold, couldn`t notice any difference on extraction but it smells less while cold). Mix and etac will start to turn yellow.
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5 - if clumpy or not satisfied with chunk sizes, cut more with scissors while in etac. Time is not an issue (divergence from tek), you can leave it in for >30 mins, I got no congealing.
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6 - filter and collect etac.
7 - add more etac and repeat. On the 3rd extraction, the mass may be squeezed through a strainer, fork, spoon or whatever means to pull out as much etac as possible. Pic below is after 4th pull, after heavy squeezing, and it continues to break apart (diverges from tek, seems like if clumps form on the first etac pull they will get stuck forever, but if you get it to etac while properly wet and not chunky, it won`t congeal... you can always scissor cut or perhaps even put it on a blender). Also added a bit more water with sod carb straight to the etac+powder after 3rd pull, mixed well and left for more 15 mins. etac collected continues to be yellow or it might start to come out a bit darker green.
8 - not sure how many times to make the pulls, but my rule of thumb is 10x more etac than g of powder, so 10 g = 100 mL. I would say a minimum. Did not test pH as did not have proper pH paper tests. Last pull (usually 5th) was left in for 30 mins or so (at this point more than an hour has been through, no congealing observed). Hardest squeeze ever on the last pull.
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9 - add sod carb to filtered loaded etac for the chem drying step, follow tek, this may be fundamental due to the squeezes. Filter out sod carb and you got perfect loaded etac.
10 - drop mesc with fumaric acid or malic acid. fumaric makes white powder (left), malic makes nice chunky yellowish crystals (right and below).
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11 - recover solids and solvent (reclaim solvent per tek). wash solids with cold clean et ac until it comes out transparent. We do it by decantation, so fumaric requires centrifugation to speed this up, malic drops like a rock and is real easy to wash-decant, though it grabs yellow from the solvent and likely requires re-crys to turn full white (had no luck with this using etac or isopropyl). Below is malate solid light magic.
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We got yield of ~2.6% from a peruvianus (very glaucus, but it might be a terschekii, have not been able to properly id, got it from seeds claiming to be san pedro 20 years ago) cut from a pot and left in the dark for 3 months. Initial tests with sod carb inevitably congealed the mass and led to 1.0-1.7% yield, adding the water straight on and mixing just gels everything and makes larger clumps... underwatering, spraying and cutting chunks as much as possible does the trick at keeping it all apart and this improves on getting etac to come in and out and around the mass, also helps in recovering as much as etac from the mass, leaving it extracting and shaking as long as possible, etc.
Around 400 mg of oral mesc malate is a moderate to intense at peak, below 300 mg is nice but very light, with little visual effects. Feeling and existing is awesome, senses 1000% high and the most beautiful shards of light are made. The world gains gravitas. At peak, ego dissolution and forgetfulness within a sea of fluid light occurs for some 30 mins and psychological support is recommended or get your shit together and embrace breathing. Nausea and the gut-throat crunch are common, but strangely at 400 mg less nausea was felt. I always get headaches at > t0900 hr at any dose and take NSAIDs and choline supplements to cut it a bit though it only goes away on the next day.
These were very helpful to choose doses: doi.org/10.1038/s41398-024-03116-2 ... doi.org/10.1038/s41386-023-01607-2 ... (there are many others). Coupled with the salt calculator that someone (Transform???) has made available here, there is some sensible preparation and assurance to go up the stairs.
Thank you CIELO team!
