Godsmacker
Rising Star
Over the past couple years I have had the privilege of being able to extract from MHRB harvested in Brazil and in Mexico. Both were shredded inner root bark and had similar yields (1-2% on average) of fluffy white elfspice.
Despite being pretty much the same, I noticed one major difference in the extraction process (STB in both cases with pulls done in a heat bath). When doing pulls on the Brazilian bark, it took an average of 3-6 minutes for the layers to separate after agitation. When I extract from the Mexican Bark, It takes 30 to 60 minutes for the layers to separate after agitation. I also noticed that the Mexican Bark, no matter how much lye or heat I added to solution when pulling, would always form a nasty emulsion when mixed with naphtha that could take up to an hour to separate-oftentimes i had to poke and jingle the vessel in order to burst some bubbles and keep the breakage going. Conducting 7 pulls on Brazilian MHRB can be completed in a span of 4-6 hours whereas the same number of pulls (assuming I do 4-5 agitation-separations on the bark each pull) can take up to 3 days (14-18 hours of pulling) to complete.
I was wondering if any other Nexians who have experimented with Brazilian and Mexican MHRB have noticed a similar difference in separation time and a tendency for the Mexican stuff to form emulsions with each agitation. Why is it that Mexican bark takes so much longer to separate than Brazilian bark (i.e. could there be a difference in chemical composition and Mexican bark contains emulsifiers whereas Brazilian doesn't)? If so, what techniques (other than taking your sweet time) could you suggest to help alleviate this problem? I am curious to know why Mexican bark is so much moar of a pain to separate than brazilian bark and if there is anything I can do to make it separate faster.
Thanks,
-Godsmacker
Despite being pretty much the same, I noticed one major difference in the extraction process (STB in both cases with pulls done in a heat bath). When doing pulls on the Brazilian bark, it took an average of 3-6 minutes for the layers to separate after agitation. When I extract from the Mexican Bark, It takes 30 to 60 minutes for the layers to separate after agitation. I also noticed that the Mexican Bark, no matter how much lye or heat I added to solution when pulling, would always form a nasty emulsion when mixed with naphtha that could take up to an hour to separate-oftentimes i had to poke and jingle the vessel in order to burst some bubbles and keep the breakage going. Conducting 7 pulls on Brazilian MHRB can be completed in a span of 4-6 hours whereas the same number of pulls (assuming I do 4-5 agitation-separations on the bark each pull) can take up to 3 days (14-18 hours of pulling) to complete.
I was wondering if any other Nexians who have experimented with Brazilian and Mexican MHRB have noticed a similar difference in separation time and a tendency for the Mexican stuff to form emulsions with each agitation. Why is it that Mexican bark takes so much longer to separate than Brazilian bark (i.e. could there be a difference in chemical composition and Mexican bark contains emulsifiers whereas Brazilian doesn't)? If so, what techniques (other than taking your sweet time) could you suggest to help alleviate this problem? I am curious to know why Mexican bark is so much moar of a pain to separate than brazilian bark and if there is anything I can do to make it separate faster.
Thanks,
-Godsmacker
