Finally Asking for Help

[phildo]

Hey everybody. Swim has been doing extractions for almost a year now, maybe 10-12 total, with not many issues cropping up. The info on the forum here has been invaluable. But seems on this most recent extraction swim has met his match. Lots of issues all the way through.

He follows an STB tek.

900ml distilled water
100g Powdered bark
100g naoh
30g of non ionized salt, for emulsions?
Heated naphtha pulls
Heptane re x

So all previous extractions have gone more or less without issue. Minimal emulsion, yellowish spice after the naphtha freeze precipitate, clean white after the re x.

This time however there were extreme emulsions which took days to settle. Tried adding water, more naoh, more salt. Absolutely nothing helped. Even a hot water bath barely helped. Also tried being crazy gentle with how the solvent was mixed. The only thing swim noticed was if he used fresh nps for each pull there was minimal emulsion. But that's such a waste of solvent. So that was issue #1.

Another new issue was a large amount of black sludgy sediment at the bottom of the container. Like at least 30% of the volume was this sludge. And even after it was filtered it out, the emulsions persisted.

Eventually the yield was about 1.8% which seems normal but it was such a fight this time.

Now the issue swim is having is making the vape juice. Been doing the same thing for a year. 1:1 spice: pg. Melting spice, adding pg, and mixing. But the spice keeps crashing out this time. Even adding a bit more pg, it still crashes.

tl;dr
help with emulsions and sludge and vape juice crash out.

Any help and advice is appreciated. I keep a decent log of each extraction so I can probably provide more details if you need them.

 

[Crystal Licker]

Hey everybody. Swim has been doing extractions for almost a year now, maybe 10-12 total, with not many issues cropping up. The info on the forum here has been invaluable. But seems on this most recent extraction swim has met his match. Lots of issues all the way through.

He follows an STB tek.

900ml distilled water
100g Powdered bark
100g naoh
30g of non ionized salt, for emulsions?
Heated naphtha pulls
Heptane re x

So all previous extractions have gone more or less without issue. Minimal emulsion, yellowish spice after the naphtha freeze precipitate, clean white after the re x.

This time however there were extreme emulsions which took days to settle. Tried adding water, more naoh, more salt. Absolutely nothing helped. Even a hot water bath barely helped. Also tried being crazy gentle with how the solvent was mixed. The only thing swim noticed was if he used fresh nps for each pull there was minimal emulsion. But that's such a waste of solvent. So that was issue #1.

Another new issue was a large amount of black sludgy sediment at the bottom of the container. Like at least 30% of the volume was this sludge. And even after it was filtered it out, the emulsions persisted.

Eventually the yield was about 1.8% which seems normal but it was such a fight this time.

Now the issue swim is having is making the vape juice. Been doing the same thing for a year. 1:1 spice: pg. Melting spice, adding pg, and mixing. But the spice keeps crashing out this time. Even adding a bit more pg, it still crashes.

tl;dr
help with emulsions and sludge and vape juice crash out.

Any help and advice is appreciated. I keep a decent log of each extraction so I can probably provide more details if you need them.

Very interesting, almost like it doesn’t want to go into the vape cart.

To me that says stop what you’re doing but I could be projecting so please do your own analysis and keep in mind it’s not always about the science.

Sometimes it works out and sometimes it just doesn’t, make hay while the sun shines and all that, just remember to listen and pay close attention to what is happening and imagine for a second if it were a person doing that, could it be for a reason? Or is just chance?

Have you ever had the Antz show up during the process? That was a trip!!! They all got washed away, must have been like a flood. Many died, some survived.

 

[The Sofa Traveler]

Now the issue swim is having is making the vape juice. Been doing the same thing for a year. 1:1 spice: pg. Melting spice, adding pg, and mixing. But the spice keeps crashing out this time. Even adding a bit more pg, it still crashes.

Maybe your room temp drastically changed (for colder) ? The lower the temperature, the more the DMT tends to precipitate out of juice, especially at such concentration.

 

[phildo]

Maybe your room temp drastically changed (for colder) ? The lower the temperature, the more the DMT tends to precipitate out of juice, especially at such concentration.

Hmm yes it's possible it cooled too quickly when going from the hot water bath to the bottle. Should the juice stay relatively warm for an extended period of time after mixing?

 

[blig-blug]

Melting spice, adding pg, and mixing. But the spice keeps crashing out this time. Even adding a bit more pg, it still crashes.

You could try heating up PG (in a hot water bath) and adding the spice to the hot PG instead.

 

[phildo]

You could try heating up PG (in a hot water bath) and adding the spice to the hot PG instead.

Yeah I mix with both of them warm though. Atm if I put the juice back in a hot water bath, it'll stay mixed with a consistent dark orange color. But after about 5 minutes in ambient temp, it starts crystallizing

 

[TheGreenPhantom]

Have you ever had the Antz show up during the process? That was a trip!!! They all got washed away, must have been like a flood. Many died, some survived.

Wait: you've also had ants show up during your alchemical process? I thought that was a me thing!

 

[Transform]

Yeah I mix with both of them warm though. Atm if I put the juice back in a hot water bath, it'll stay mixed with a consistent dark orange color. But after about 5 minutes in ambient temp, it starts crystallizing

Curious. Maybe you formed a new polymorph of DMT which is less soluble in PG. In which case, you're kinda screwed. This is a known problem in pharmaceutical production and has entirely disrupted production of at least one drug. There's a video about this phenomenon somewhere around here, we can probably dig it up for reference.

Before entirely resigning oneself to that gloomy conclusion, we ought to consider some other possibilities. Besides the temperature factor, there are almost countless possible other nuances. Has the humidity level changed? Are you using a different batch of absolutely any of the materials? How have you been storing the material? Is there a possibility that your PG has absorbed excess moisture, or become contaminated with acid?

Try making a list of all these components and going through all the possibilities that may have arisen. It could even be that you've changed your dishwashing detergent!

However, considering the emulsion problem that has arisen, the way that it manifests appears to me to indicate an issue with that particular batch of bark. Are you using the exact same bark as ever?

 

[phildo]

Curious. Maybe you formed a new polymorph of DMT which is less soluble in PG. In which case, you're kinda screwed. This is a known problem in pharmaceutical production and has entirely disrupted production of at least one drug. There's a video about this phenomenon somewhere around here, we can probably dig it up for reference.

Before entirely resigning oneself to that gloomy conclusion, we ought to consider some other possibilities. Besides the temperature factor, there are almost countless possible other nuances. Has the humidity level changed? Are you using a different batch of absolutely any of the materials? How have you been storing the material? Is there a possibility that your PG has absorbed excess moisture, or become contaminated with acid?

Try making a list of all these components and going through all the possibilities that may have arisen. It could even be that you've changed your dishwashing detergent!

However, considering the emulsion problem that has arisen, the way that it manifests appears to me to indicate an issue with that particular batch of bark. Are you using the exact same bark as ever?

I saw that mention of polymorphs somewhere in the forum but that seems way over my head. The pg I use hasn't expired yet but I suppose it's possible that it's over saturated. I live in a very dry climate but the temperature inside the house does fluctuate.

I was doing 2 extractions simultaneously, in 2 different vessels. 1 with leftover bark from a previous source and 1 from a new source. The one from my previous source still wasn't great to work with despite having no trouble in the past. The bark was sitting for a few months before I used it. Is it possible something happened to it?

Could the quality of naoh play any part? I try to use lab grade but a few times I've just grabbed drain cleaner pellets to add to try to fix the emulsions.

How sensitive is the extraction to temperature? For example not waiting for the naoh water solution to cool down before adding the bark. Or using warm nps. Could these have any effect? I really try to stay away from heat baths to help separation because the spice gets pretty dirty.

Sorry lots of questions here.

At the end of the day I think you're right to chalk it up to the bark. That would explain the sludge too I assume?

 

[Transform]

At the end of the day I think you're right to chalk it up to the bark. That would explain the sludge too I assume?

It, possibly along with the NaOH, might explain the sludge and emulsions but not necessarily the issue with solubility in PG. That's something that probably has to be considered mostly independently.

EDIT: storing bark for a few months shouldn't have much of an impact on its properties, as long as it's kept dry enough.

 

[Crystal Licker]

Wait: you've also had ants show up during your alchemical process? I thought that was a me thing!

I’m terrible with sarcasm sorry but I suspect a hint?

The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one,
The little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching two by two,
The little one stops to tie his shoe
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching three by three,
The little one stops to climb a tree
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching four by four,
The little one stops to shut the door
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching five by five,
The little one stops to take a dive
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching six by six,
The little one stops to pick up sticks
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching seven by seven,
The little one stops to pray to heaven
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching eight by eight,
The little one stops to shut the gate
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching nine by nine,
The little one stops to check the time
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching ten by ten,
The little one stops to say "THE END"
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!