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Fast degradation of DMT in fridge AND freezer

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prottel

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I have a little dilemma. Weekly, me and my girlfriend tend to drink 'ayahuasca'. So I brew up rather big batches of mimosa. But when I store it in the fridge (ph around 4) the brew loses potency, and fast! I store it in a jar with a lid on. In the beginning, the potency loss might be about 15 percent per week. Then the decomposition slows down gradually. After a couple of weeks, the potency loss might be around 5 percent or less per week.

Also, when I put it in the freezer, it also loses potency. not when it is completely frozen, doesn't really matter if it stays 2 days in the fridge or 6 months. It loses about 10% every time I take out out! So I suspect the losses happens during either the freezing or thawing phase.

The question is, what should I do to stop or slow this process considerably? I would prefer it if I could keep the brew in a liquid phase somehow.

Another question, how does it happen? Heard someone mention that dmt could convert in a Pictet-Spengler reaction, any thoughts about it? Could it be something in my water supply that makes it happen so fast? Can't really remember it happen this fast back in the old days with a different water supply.

Methods I have thought about to resolve this(Don't know which will work):
1. Make it into jello. This way the reactions may stop?
2. Lower the pH.
3. Increase the pH.
4. Freeze only 1 dose at a time in ice cubes. Although this might make it hard to further tune doses.
5. Somehow remove the air in the jar.
5. Help!?????
 
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Is this the same dagger from the Ayahuasca forums????


Welcome either way!!!

Sorry, I don't really have an answer to your question, but I imagine that many others will be able to help you.
 
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Hi dagger,

It is very nice to have a dmt degradation report here, since people just tend to speculate about this issue. Now, it is of course a bad thing that this happens but from SWIM's point of view this is just teaching...

Anyway, I do not have a clear answer why this happens, but I can see many reasons of why this thing might be happening.

1. You are doing an acid extraction of plant material, thus extracting a lot of substances from the plant. Some of them can be hazardous to the alkaloids and given time (e.g. 1, 2, 3 weeks in the fridge) they may make considerable damage to them. Even though I find it quite unlikely (especially if you are boiling your material), certain proteins that are extracted during this process from the plant can degrade dmt. Note that proteins tend to hate very high or low temperatures and pH extremes e.g. more than 8 or less than 6). But even though it may not be proteins, other molecules lying around in the solution can damage the alkaloids.

It is important to mention that inside the plant cells substances are compartmentalised (so that you do not get unwanted reactions!). Now, in your solution it is safe to assume that this is not the case!

2. the acidic pH may to varying degrees enhance the degradation of the alkaloids per se, even though it is hard to find some good data on this point

3. Repeated freeze-thawing can also damage the alkaloids; This is a general consensus in chemistry and biology where people assume that even simple molecules can degrade by freeze-thawing. I do not know really why but one possibility is that by freezing water, ice crystals are formed and they assume a different conformation than when water is liquid, thus forming the crystal lattice of ice. Now, if other compounds are dissolved in water, their structure may bent due to the formation of crystal lattice and they may degrade both during the freezing and/or thawing.


I would advise preparing the aya fresh each time!
 
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Freeze only 1 dose at a time in ice cubes. Although this might make it hard to further tune doses
Click to expand...

This would probably be the best way to keep degradation to a minimum. I would suggest maybe making the brew a little stronger than normal, by say 10-15% or adding 10-15% more brew per cube. This allows you a little wiggle room if you find the brew has degraded


5. Somehow remove the air in the jar.
Click to expand...

I have read that this works well. Using a vacuum pump for canning jars will suck out all the air and will allow you to store your brew for longer periods of time in the fridge. Also putting your fresh, hot brew in a canning jar and sealing the lid will create a vacuum as the brew cools, giving it a little less air and less chance for molds to grow.

There has been some discussion on this forum about DMT N-Oxide as a psycadelic. While I don't think this relates to freezing/thawing it certianly relates to fridge stored brew.
 
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Thanks for the replies.

Ronue said:
I would advise preparing the aya fresh each time!
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Too much work for me. I prefer making it by the kilo :lol:

One thing, I usually remove most of the oils(?) or whatever it is that is in the brew. Could it be that the oils protects the actives and by removing them I increase the rate of degradation?

Could chlorine or other compounds from the drinking supply(faucet) degrade dmt?

It seems like I have a lot of thinking and experimentation to do to find a satisfying solution to this problem. Hopefully someone will come up with the solution to it before I fry my brain :shock:
 
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i know chlorine degrades LSD pretty readily, distilled is pretty cheap around me.
glass Yoohoo bottles or glass jars can store pretty well if they are filled to almost the top and closed when the liquid is hot so it vacuums when it cools

do you find your cappi brews to degrade too?

oh and welcome dagger!
 
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I do not really know whether the oils that you remove can protect the alkaloids in the brew; how do you actually remove these oils? I hope it's not with naphtha, since it is difficult to remove every last bit of it and it is nasty to drink it!

The best way SWIM can think for protecting the brew is to aliquot it in individual standardised doses (like the ice cubes you mentioned) then keep it in the freezer. At least in that way you will avoid repeated freeze-thawing of the same batch.

What could also work (amidst fears that very low pH may damage the brew) would be to neutralise your brew, for instance bring it to around pH 7 using baking soda, then aliquot it and store it in the freezer.

And you may not even need a pH meter for this neutralisation. Just slowly add baking soda in the brew and mix; the brew should start reacting releasing carbon dioxide, so continue to add baking soda until no more reaction is seen (= pH 7ish)

NOTE: SWIM has NOT tried neutralising aya acid brew with baking soda, so this is a speculative advice. What SWIM has done in the very very long past is to play by neutralising vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice by slowly adding his mother's baking soda. It gives a nice reaction and Dagger you may as well try playing with the vinegar/lemon juice and baking soda first beforey trying anything on the brew!

Hope that helps!
 
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rellik said:
do you find your cappi brews to degrade too?
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No, my caapi brews are just fine. No deterioration. Same water supply.

how do you actually remove these oils?
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There is two methods I use to remove the oils. The last method I recently discovered.
The first method is freezing the brew, then putting the bottle you froze it in, over a jar, upside down, so the brew can thaw and drip into the jar. In this process. The first thing that comes out is concentrated oils.When it starts to dilute, you just thaw the brew, and refreeze it and do the whole thing again. Repeat this until satisfied.
This method works for mimosa, viridis and chaliponga.

The second method, is to increase the pH of the solution to about 7-7.3 or so. Not quite sure of ideal pH. Anyways. When it gets there, the oils or whatever starts to precipitate. It is easily removed by filtration. Should remove perhaps 98% of the oils? I don't really think you lose much of the actives by doing this. You can always reduce the pH later.

Ronue said:
The best way SWIM can think for protecting the brew is to aliquot it in individual standardised doses (like the ice cubes you mentioned) then keep it in the freezer. At least in that way you will avoid repeated freeze-thawing of the same batch.
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Yeah, I will consider it :)

Ronue said:
What could also work (amidst fears that very low pH may damage the brew) would be to neutralise your brew, for instance bring it to around pH 7 using baking soda, then aliquot it and store it in the freezer.
Click to expand...
I tried this. From the few experiments with it, it seems to be losing actives at about the same rate. Not quite sure though. Perhaps even faster? Btw, isnt pickling lime better? Much less is needed, making for a more palatable brew.
 
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Something similar happened to me once. I put aya in the freezer and when i took it out of the freezer again and the stuff had melted, it just didn't work anymore. I think maybe if you make aya, the same way as you normally do, but put it on the fire a little longer so al the water evaporates, you probably get some brown powdery stuff. (at least with mimosa) Everytime i made aya, there was allways some sludge left in the jar and after a few days when al the water had evaporated it became a red/brown powder.
 
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I have thought about reducing it down to a powder/goo. But will that let me tune the dose down to an accuracy of 5 percent? I mean, wont I need a scale that is accurate down to 10 mg or less?

Also, when in crude powderform, is the actives evenly distributed? Might I get perhaps get one dose twice as strong as the last or is it the same as if I had a liquid?
 
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Powder would be better - Whatever degrades the alkaloids in the brew is going to be more concentrated in a very very condensed solution and would likely do more damage. If you can reduce it to a totally dry dust then it may solve your problem, since many chemical reactions are dependent on an aqueous environment.

Please tell us if you can actually turn an aya brew into a dust, that would be very interesting!
 
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I think I may have found the reason for the loss of potency.
I checked out the cotton I use to filter the brews, because I have noticed there is a distinct taste to the cotton pads if you filter through them.

It turns out that it is bleached with hydrogen peroxide. It has strong oxidizing properties. Perhaps it could turn DMT to DMT N-Oxide?
 
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Dagger said:
I think I may have found the reason for the loss of potency.
I checked out the cotton I use to filter the brews, because I have noticed there is a distinct taste to the cotton pads if you filter through them.

It turns out that it is bleached with hydrogen peroxide. It has strong oxidizing properties. Perhaps it could turn DMT to DMT N-Oxide?
Click to expand...

I do not think so. Hydrogen peroxide has a fairly short half-life and no residues of it are expected on the cotton. As long as the cotton is dry (that is, it is not freshly bleached and wet!) one is safe to assume that all water has evaporated and all hydrogen peroxide has broken down to water and oxygen and evaporated with the rest of the water.
 
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a method that has been mentioned for mushrooms should work with DMT:

just take a bit of dry ice and place it at the bottom of a jar, then place your DMT (in a baggie with all the air squeezed out) on top of this and place the lid loosely on top. put this on your desk and just wait for all the dry ice to evaporate, as soon as it is tighten the lid and place this into the freezer.

CO2 would prevent oxidization, then you could just put tape around the jar or put it into a paper bag and it should hypothetically keep for however long you want.
 
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