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Is it ok to use 24,5% ammonium?

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Hi illerrre,

I presume you mean ammonia solution and that you do not have an ammonium salt (e.g. ammonium cloride, ammonium sulfate etc. which are inappropriate for raising pH). Ammonia won't work with Noman's tek because you need a strong base like NaOH. KOH and Ca(OH)2 to raise your pH above 13. Ammonia is a weak base, you can hardly raise pH above 12 plus you have to deal with that concentrated ammonia smell that can easily put SWIM unconscious down to the floor!

And do not be fooled thinking that pH 12 is close to 13 so this should not make a big difference - pH scale is logarithmic meaning that pH 13 is basically 10 times stronger than pH 12!
 
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Yes that's what I mean, sorry. I do have NaOH, but in the guide it says I should use ammonia to remove the remaining lye and other impurities from the crystals.
 
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No, not a must. There are 2 good ways I know of to clean up spice.

Recrystalization
Wash with baking or washing soda

Most people feel that cleaning up the spice is not necessary though...it can be smoked as is after a freeze precip.
 
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If I recall correctly, noman said that has abandoned the idea of a amon. wash because it washes away lots of the good stuff. Use sodium carbonat (or bicarbonate) as a substitute. It seperates very easily. Seperate your naptha , put 1 part sodium cabonate+water solution (room temperature ) together with 3 parts naptha...seal the container and shake ..it should form no emulsion..very fast seperation....evap a little or freeze immideatly
 
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hm. So when I've taken out the naptha from the freezer and after letting the lye evaporate, should I then put 1/3 sodium carbonate (+water) for ever part naptha in a jar and shake it? Then after that in the freezer again? Then what?
 
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No....put your naptha in a container with your bark/naOh mix. Let it sit for a couple of hours. Agitate from time to time by rolling it around, turning it up side down and stirring it carefully to avoid forming an emulsion.

Then seperate the naptha into a small container and fill with 1/4 sodium carbonate solution (washing soda). Shake it, let the layers seperate and put the top layer (naptha, now clean) in a new container.

Now you can either freeze it or evap 50% of the naptha to help the crystals forming.

You can also skip the cleaning, do a normal freeze recip....collect the dmt, melt it in warm naptha, do a wash and re-crystalize. That should lead to the most pure result, but i think it'S not neccessary and SWIM feels thaat recrystallisation is a bit tricky...lots of spice can be lost this way.
 
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Well, it doesn't wash away the good stuff if done properly but so many people have problems with it, I've taken to advising either a polar wash or recrystalization.
My friend has evaporated his ammonia after the wash and it left behind a chalky yellow substance that had no smell of indole and when heated, burned and smoked rather than melted and vaporized. So whatever it is, he doesn't want it in his product.
But it's true as Entropymancer said, that it's not as effective as a polar wash anyway. If you do a polar wash, you need to keep the pH high. My friend tested sodium bicarbonate (pH 8.5), ammonia (pH11), and calcium hydroxide (pH 12) side by side and got nothing from the bicarbonate and over 50% more from the calcium hydroxide than from the ammonia.
STB's do definitely need to be cleaned though. I'm not that convinced that they get lye in the product (the lye comment in my tek was my editor's substitution for "gunk" or "crap" or "shit" or something) but by dissolving the bark, a lot of unwanted material gets into the NP.
I still say recrystalization is the way to go.
 
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So sodium carbonate is the best? Where can I find it? Everywhere?

Was doing the extraction tonight, guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow then:)

thanks.
 
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