You added more water and got bigger yields? I don't understand how that is possible unless the solution was so thick that it wouldn't mix. I thought that was really the only reason to increase water. Adding water should lower the ph and hence lower the yield, assuming it is already mixing properly.

SWIM followed Noman's instructions on the wait time between making the solution and adding naphtha and waited about an hour and a half before adding the naphtha. He has since made a 3rd solution. This time he waited the same amount of time to add the naphtha but did the agitation over a 24 hour period before doing the first extraction. He did not notice a significant difference in yield, though he did not measure the difference. SWIM also did a sodium carbonate wash this time so he may have lost some spice from it. On a different note, he did his 6th extraction from the old second solution that was now about a week old and he got a bigger yield than he did from the 5th extraction so there seems to be something to waiting a long time. I don't know for sure either way. I too would be curious to hear more about this. There seems to be mixed opinions on this on Nexus but I don't know if it has a clear answer either way.