First Extraction Help

[CYYBZ]

Hey everybody. I'm having some difficulties with my first extraction and would like some advice from someone more experienced. So this is the breakdown of things:

1. Shredded 100g of mimosa root bark into powder
2. Added 100g of root bark powder to glass flask that has volume of 1L
3. Added around 500ml of distilled water to flask
4. Dissolved around 80g of NaOH into 200ml of water and added to flask
5. Then i let it sit for about 2 hours while mixing and shaking it occasionally (to my understanding this is where NaOH frees all available DMT from the bark)
6. Added around 50ml of heptane and let it sit for about an hour while venting and gently shaking the flask
7. My first 3 pulls I waited an hour before each pull, then I did 2 more pulls but only waited about 30min. So I did 5 pulls total

Now this is where I'm concerned. After 5th pull I put it all in my final container and was very careful not to get any water or anything else than solvent. Then i let solvent evaporate because to my understanding this is where solvent is supposed to turn milky or cloudy and then you are supposed to freeze it. So I was letting solvent evaporate on a room temperature but it was taking forever so I used a hair dryer to speed things up. I think around 50% of my heptane volume evaporated or something but solvent never turned cloudy or milky or anything. I feel like I did something wrong maybe? Even though solvent didn't turn milky or cloudy I put it in a freezer anyway because i didn't know what else to do. Any advice on what I should do next?

 

[Voidmatrix]

Did you only put one 50ml of solvent in, or did you do it 5 times?

If you did it once, then you just need to do more pulls. And tumble it a lot lot. Another note, is your solution may need to be more aqueous for NAOH to work effectively. That just seems low to me. In my tek, total volume exceeds 1.5L.
Do you know the PH of your solution?
Also, are you actually "shaking" things? If so, don't, that's dangerous. Tumble over/under several times. Sorry if that was unnecessary information, but safety first.

One love

 

[fractals4life]

You may have been too gentle in step 6, you need the two layers to mix up well and then separate out, otherwise the DMT isn't exposed to enough of the NPS.
I tend to gently invert the flask and back again a few times then let lt settle out ( takes a few minutes ) then repeat.

 

[CYYBZ]

Did you only put one 50ml of solvent in, or did you do it 5 times?

If you did it once, then you just need to do more pulls. And tumble it a lot lot. Another note, is your solution may need to be more aqueous for NAOH to work effectively. That just seems low to me. In my tek, total volume exceeds 1.5L.
Do you know the PH of your solution?
Also, are you actually "shaking" things? If so, don't, that's dangerous. Tumble over/under several times. Sorry if that was unnecessary information, but safety first.

One love

I put 50ml of Solvent 5 times for each pull. I don't know PH of my solution unfortunately, i bought testers and I'm waiting for them to arrive but I just couldn't wait and started without them

 

[CYYBZ]

You may have been too gentle in step 6, you need the two layers to mix up well and then separate out, otherwise the DMT isn't exposed to enough of the NPS.
I tend to gently invert the flask and back again a few times then let lt settle out ( takes a few minutes ) then repeat.

Okay, that might be something, I was trying to avoid emulsion. Will try if this batch turns a failure

 

[fractals4life]

Try freezing each pull separately, if you combine them all then you're most likely diluting the first pulls with the the last ones. Freeze precipitaion is all about having as concentrated a solution as possible before chilling it. Also you get a better idea of how things are proceeding if you keep them separate.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Okay, that might be something, I was trying to avoid emulsion. Will try if this batch turns a failure

Most extractions can be saved Emulsions are fixable.

One love

 

[fractals4life]

I put 50ml of Solvent 5 times for each pull.

That sounds like you ended up with 1250 ml in total over 5 pulls? That's way too much for 100g bark. I think our terminology needs aligning!

To me a "pull" is adding 50ml of solvent to the bark soup, mixing it well several times, then pulling that solvent off the top once it separates for the final time.

Then add another 50ml and repeat the above.

So " five pulls" results in 250ml of solvent being used. Though I normally do a couple of pulls at a time, freeze precip those, then re use the poured off solvent for the next pulls.
That way you can see the amount of DMT gettign extracted diminish as you go along and do the later pulls with less solvent to keep the concentration up.

 

[Sakkadelic]

Solution not turning milky is ok, it's likely not concentrated enough and/or warm it will still produce xtals with freeze precip. you can reuse the solvent or further concentrate it to retrieve more dmt.

I would also add that if you're not able to get it into fine powder you may need to let it sit longer in the base before pulling (might produce more yellow dmt) or go the A/B route.

 

[CYYBZ]

That sounds like you ended up with 1250 ml in total over 5 pulls? That's way too much for 100g bark. I think our terminology needs aligning!

To me a "pull" is adding 50ml of solvent to the bark soup, mixing it well several times, then pulling that solvent off the top once it separates for the final time.

Then add another 50ml and repeat the above.

So " five pulls" results in 250ml of solvent being used. Though I normally do a couple of pulls at a time, freeze precip those, then re use the poured off solvent for the next pulls.
That way you can see the amount of DMT gettign extracted diminish as you go along and do the later pulls with less solvent to keep the concentration up.

how did i end up with 1250ml? i dont follow. I added 50ml of solvent to the bark soup, mixed it and pulled it out and i did that 5x so i ended up with around 250ml of solvent after my pulls, and i combined them all together

 

[Voidmatrix]

I put 50ml of Solvent 5 times for each pull.

This is funny.

I think I know what happened. He thought you added 50ml of solvent 5 times for 1 pull, and did that 5 times.

@fractals4life am I right?

One love

 

[CYYBZ]

This is funny.

I think I know what happened. He thought you added 50ml of solvent 5 times for 1 pull, and did that 5 times.

@fractals4life am I right?

One love

ohhhh okay maybe i phrased it wrong

 

[fractals4life]

Yep, exactly that ... got to be careful and take written down things pedantically literally when debugging

So " After 5th pull I put it all in my final container" and "I put 50ml of Solvent 5 times for each pull." multiplies up to 1250ml ... which I'm glad to hear wasn't the case