IridiumAndLace
Stardust in lingerie
Hi friends!
I'm trying out Cyb's Max Ion Tek, using MHRB powder, citric acid, NaOH, and Bestine. I froze/thawed; acidified, cooked, and decanted (x3); and finally filtered. I got 1L of tea from 50g of MHRB, to which I added 70g of pickling salt.
As the salt dissolved, a light-colored precipitate crashed out of the tea. I let the mixture stand for a bit, and the precipitate gradually floated to the top of the liquid to congeal into a semisolid mat. I was able to skim this off with a fork, and I set it aside.
I continued with basifying the tea, and in the process, the remaining floating bits of precipitate redissolved. My pulls so far have gone as expected.
I also did a mini A/B on the floating sludge I skimmed off. When I basified it, all the precipitate dissolved, other than a small amount of tarry sludge that I also set aside. I did a couple pulls on it, and yielded a lot less spice than I might have expected if the precipitate had been mostly DMT. (The first pull produced crystals in the freezer, the second just turned slightly milky.)
My question is, what was that floating precipitate? It dissolved into the acidified solution, crashed out with the addition of salt (carrying some DMT but not a huge amount), and then redissolved with the addition of NaOH.
My best guess is that it's medium-chain fatty acids that were able to dissolve in the acidified solution, then "salted out" when I added the NaCl, then saponified with the addition of NaOH. I suppose the tarry sludge is probably polymerized tannins and/or jimjam, but I don't know for sure and I'm not entirely sure what to do with it.
Follow-up question: is it better to remove the precipitate like I did, or just leave it in the tea to redissolve? I imagine I don't want to leave anything even remotely lipophilic in the tea when I'm doing my extractions, but does that small amount actually make a difference?
Or: am I the first person in the world to observe this strange precipitate??
I'm trying out Cyb's Max Ion Tek, using MHRB powder, citric acid, NaOH, and Bestine. I froze/thawed; acidified, cooked, and decanted (x3); and finally filtered. I got 1L of tea from 50g of MHRB, to which I added 70g of pickling salt.
As the salt dissolved, a light-colored precipitate crashed out of the tea. I let the mixture stand for a bit, and the precipitate gradually floated to the top of the liquid to congeal into a semisolid mat. I was able to skim this off with a fork, and I set it aside.
I continued with basifying the tea, and in the process, the remaining floating bits of precipitate redissolved. My pulls so far have gone as expected.
I also did a mini A/B on the floating sludge I skimmed off. When I basified it, all the precipitate dissolved, other than a small amount of tarry sludge that I also set aside. I did a couple pulls on it, and yielded a lot less spice than I might have expected if the precipitate had been mostly DMT. (The first pull produced crystals in the freezer, the second just turned slightly milky.)
My question is, what was that floating precipitate? It dissolved into the acidified solution, crashed out with the addition of salt (carrying some DMT but not a huge amount), and then redissolved with the addition of NaOH.
My best guess is that it's medium-chain fatty acids that were able to dissolve in the acidified solution, then "salted out" when I added the NaCl, then saponified with the addition of NaOH. I suppose the tarry sludge is probably polymerized tannins and/or jimjam, but I don't know for sure and I'm not entirely sure what to do with it.
Follow-up question: is it better to remove the precipitate like I did, or just leave it in the tea to redissolve? I imagine I don't want to leave anything even remotely lipophilic in the tea when I'm doing my extractions, but does that small amount actually make a difference?
Or: am I the first person in the world to observe this strange precipitate??
