Keep getting emulsion?

[Back2Normal]

Did my batch at 15:1:1. 1st pull was fine. 2nd wasn’t separated and I added salt at a ration of .3 grams per gram of bark. It separated about halfway and then I had a yellow layer with about half my solvent trapped in it. I pulled all of that out of my bark/water mix. I put it in heat bath for several hours but it only separates like a couple milliliters at a time. I have to pull off like 5ml and put it back in and then it will separate another 5ml over like an hour, then repeat, repeat, etc. Went to throw my solvent back in and I didnt put any of that yellow layer back into the bark/water. I started by mixing it back and forth on its side. Did that twice and it separated fine. Did it a couple more times before bed and left it to settle all night and during work today. Got home and had some time to try pull and it was only like barely separated again. So now Im doing the dang heat bath thing again but it is sooooo slow. Am I agitating it too much? Im definitely agitating it more than usual but that was because I’d read people not having emulsion problems with so much Lye water. Was it because my bark was shredded this time and I normally powder it? Could I be terrible at identifying bark and I have ACRB instead of MHRB and my solvent is just full of fat? How do I break the cycle!?

 

[redbird]

Didnt you have another post i replied to? Cant find it.
Anyway, i'm assuming you mean 1.5L water, 100g lye, 100g source material. If so, you're right, getting that bad of an emulsion shouldnt be so likely.
First question is what's your mixing method? Are you doing the bike pedal method? Flipping end to end gently? Or shaking? Almost always this level of emulsion is from mixing too vigorously, but would need a description of your proces in order to help.
Second is, is that picture as dark as your soup gets? With the ratio I listed I would expect the water phase to be pitch black.

Either way, you'll need to wait that one out and it might take a few days or more. Hopefully your answers to the above can avoid it happening again.

 

[Back2Normal]

Didnt you have another post i replied to? Cant find it.
Anyway, i'm assuming you mean 1.5L water, 100g lye, 100g source material. If so, you're right, getting that bad of an emulsion shouldnt be so likely.
First question is what's your mixing method? Are you doing the bike pedal method? Flipping end to end gently? Or shaking? Almost always this level of emulsion is from mixing too vigorously, but would need a description of your proces in order to help.
Second is, is that picture as dark as your soup gets? With the ratio I listed I would expect the water phase to be pitch black.

Either way, you'll need to wait that one out and it might take a few days or more. Hopefully your answers to the above can avoid it happening again.

I did have another post but it was removed. I did appreciate your replies though!

What’s the bike pedal method? I normally flip end to end gently but this one I shook.

That picture actually has 4 layers (solvent, yellow, light brown, then black)but the glare covered the black layer in that jar thats only like the bottom 100ml. It’s because I just decanted into that jar to try to get that emulsion layer off. You can see the jar next to it is pitch black.

 

[fractals4life]

I normally flip end to end gently but this one I shook.

There's the issue right there ... it's like making mayo, you need to shake things up to make an emulsion.... so don't do that!

Do you really not know if you have ACRB or MHRB in there? Anyway plant fats will not become evident until you try and precipitate, before that they are in solution in the solvent and invisible ( I think, never tried ACRB myself ).

Also the amount of salt needed is about the amount of liquid in there, not the amount of bark, it acts to push solvent out of the water and does not interact with the bark.

I'd say shredded will be better at preventing emulsion vs powder.

So all in all it points to too much shaking in my opinion. The more you agitate the faster you get DMT into the solvent, but only up to the point where emulsions start to form, when you then end up wasting time waiting for the emulsion to break. So increase agitation slowly and watch how it separates each time so you can tell when you are starting to go too far.

FWIW I have no idea what the "bike pedal method" looks like either. To my understanding a bike pedal stays in the same horizontal orientation and just moves in a circle during pedalling, so that would hardly mix anything at all! I go for gentle end over end flips.

 

[The_Embalmer]

Did my batch at 15:1:1. 1st pull was fine. 2nd wasn’t separated and I added salt at a ration of .3 grams per gram of bark. It separated about halfway and then I had a yellow layer with about half my solvent trapped in it. I pulled all of that out of my bark/water mix. I put it in heat bath for several hours but it only separates like a couple milliliters at a time. I have to pull off like 5ml and put it back in and then it will separate another 5ml over like an hour, then repeat, repeat, etc. Went to throw my solvent back in and I didnt put any of that yellow layer back into the bark/water. I started by mixing it back and forth on its side. Did that twice and it separated fine. Did it a couple more times before bed and left it to settle all night and during work today. Got home and had some time to try pull and it was only like barely separated again. So now Im doing the dang heat bath thing again but it is sooooo slow. Am I agitating it too much? Im definitely agitating it more than usual but that was because I’d read people not having emulsion problems with so much Lye water. Was it because my bark was shredded this time and I normally powder it? Could I be terrible at identifying bark and I have ACRB instead of MHRB and my solvent is just full of fat? How do I break the cycle!?
View attachment 108547

Ive found those vibrator massagers for the neck they sell at CVS with the soft ball on the end help really well with getting emulsions out quickly. You dont want to set the ball of the vibrator right on the jar either unless its a fine vibration if its rough put it in a pyrex dish with a towel under it and put the ball next to it on the towel but not touching the jar. Or same thing but on a table with a towel under the jar.

 

[Back2Normal]

There's the issue right there ... it's like making mayo, you need to shake things up to make an emulsion.... so don't do that!

Do you really not know if you have ACRB or MHRB in there? Anyway plant fats will not become evident until you try and precipitate, before that they are in solution in the solvent and invisible ( I think, never tried ACRB myself ).

Also the amount of salt needed is about the amount of liquid in there, not the amount of bark, it acts to push solvent out of the water and does not interact with the bark.

I'd say shredded will be better at preventing emulsion vs powder.

So all in all it points to too much shaking in my opinion. The more you agitate the faster you get DMT into the solvent, but only up to the point where emulsions start to form, when you then end up wasting time waiting for the emulsion to break. So increase agitation slowly and watch how it separates each time so you can tell when you are starting to go too far.

FWIW I have no idea what the "bike pedal method" looks like either. To my understanding a bike pedal stays in the same horizontal orientation and just moves in a circle during pedalling, so that would hardly mix anything at all! I go for gentle end over end flips.

The bark should be MHRB, the only reason I said that is because I’ve never dealt with this issue. I was getting some red oils when I wash but was informed that was more dmt and my solution is too saturated or cooling down to much.

I think I’ll have to raise my salt level a bit and see how it goes. If I’m at 35 grams for a 1.5 liter, how much should I raise that?

Guess I’ll be chillin on the agitation and spend the next while waiting on this to settle. Thanks for the advice

 

[Back2Normal]

Ive found those vibrator massagers for the neck they sell at CVS with the soft ball on the end help really well with getting emulsions out quickly. You dont want to set the ball of the vibrator right on the jar either unless its a fine vibration if its rough put it in a pyrex dish with a towel under it and put the ball next to it on the towel but not touching the jar. Or same thing but on a table with a towel under the jar.

Also definitely don't want to be shaking it, id recommend a slow roll of the bottle from top to bottom this is known as "bike pedaling" as if you had the pedals of a bike in your hands instead of a jar and you need to rotate the pedals.

Right on, think I’ll give it a try. Think I have one of those stuffed in a drawer somewhere.

Definitely done shaking it.

 

[redbird]

The bike pedal method has one hand on the top of the jar, one hand on bottom. Start with the jar 45 deg left to right, then circle your hands opposite directions so that halfway through the 45 deg is inverted then come back around.
Do that in a fluid motion for roughly 30 rotations, let settle for 3 to 5 min, then repeat up to 3 or 4 times for a pull.

And yes, the warm solvent does cool rapidly when the water is left room temp but it was reported in the minimum polymer thread to still be beneficial without the enhanced risk of polymer brought by warming the basified water.