I have made 3 attempts at Cielo and didn't get crystals or goo, but I think I recovered M from the extract solution. The first two runs I skipped the fridge rest. All 3 times I got clouding when adding CA and the EA turned a much lighter olive green color. Then after about 24 hours the solution was clear again and no signs of crystals or goo.
On my last attempt I did the fridge rest and carefully decanted leaving behind the water and some EA. I left the jars at room temp for about 12 hours before adding CA. The solution turned very cloudy and I really thought I had nailed it this time with the fridge rest. The next day I checked the jars and no signs of crystals but what looks like a water/goo layer on the bottom. Those jars are still resting.
My first two attempts were with 100g and 50g of cactus powder. I'm sure the cactus is not "bunk" as I grew it myself and the cuts were cured for several months. These same cuts make a pretty potent tea, especially when cured. I added more CA but it just fell to the bottom of the jar. I was about to toss out the solution and consider it a failed experiment, but then decided to try to salt out the M with vinegar like in 69rons limo tek. So, I added 50ml vinegar and shook the jars several times. The EA and vinegar layers separated readily. I continued to shake the jars for about 5 minutes doing ~50ml vinegar at a time, and separated with a sep funnel and filtered the vinegar through a coffee filter. Then I reduced the 200ml of vinegar on a double boiler down to less than 100 ml and finished drying in a dehydrator overnight. From 150g cactus powder I ended up with 9.6g of what looks like very pure Mesc. I'm just wondering what others thoughts are on this alternate method of salting. I tasted it and it tasted exactly like Mesc, but also very sour. It had a pungent vinegar smell, So after scraping it up I spread it out over some filter paper and dried in the dehydrator at 110F for another 5 hours. This shed about .3g of weight and really knocked back the vinegar smell. The material certainly looks and tastes like Mesc. I sampled 100mg a few days ago and found it pleasant, but barely threshold. The next day I sampled 200mg and it was barely noticeable. I didn't take any yesterday and I'm going to try 300mg today.
My goal is still to get the tek to work as intended and get citrate crystals to precipitate out. I believe the coffee filters I've been using are maybe too thin so on my next attempt I will try with thicker filter paper.
On my last attempt I did the fridge rest and carefully decanted leaving behind the water and some EA. I left the jars at room temp for about 12 hours before adding CA. The solution turned very cloudy and I really thought I had nailed it this time with the fridge rest. The next day I checked the jars and no signs of crystals but what looks like a water/goo layer on the bottom. Those jars are still resting.
My first two attempts were with 100g and 50g of cactus powder. I'm sure the cactus is not "bunk" as I grew it myself and the cuts were cured for several months. These same cuts make a pretty potent tea, especially when cured. I added more CA but it just fell to the bottom of the jar. I was about to toss out the solution and consider it a failed experiment, but then decided to try to salt out the M with vinegar like in 69rons limo tek. So, I added 50ml vinegar and shook the jars several times. The EA and vinegar layers separated readily. I continued to shake the jars for about 5 minutes doing ~50ml vinegar at a time, and separated with a sep funnel and filtered the vinegar through a coffee filter. Then I reduced the 200ml of vinegar on a double boiler down to less than 100 ml and finished drying in a dehydrator overnight. From 150g cactus powder I ended up with 9.6g of what looks like very pure Mesc. I'm just wondering what others thoughts are on this alternate method of salting. I tasted it and it tasted exactly like Mesc, but also very sour. It had a pungent vinegar smell, So after scraping it up I spread it out over some filter paper and dried in the dehydrator at 110F for another 5 hours. This shed about .3g of weight and really knocked back the vinegar smell. The material certainly looks and tastes like Mesc. I sampled 100mg a few days ago and found it pleasant, but barely threshold. The next day I sampled 200mg and it was barely noticeable. I didn't take any yesterday and I'm going to try 300mg today.
My goal is still to get the tek to work as intended and get citrate crystals to precipitate out. I believe the coffee filters I've been using are maybe too thin so on my next attempt I will try with thicker filter paper.
