Looking for an efficient route to IPA extraction from fresh material

[blig-blug]

I have a decent amount of cactus material (but not necessarily of actives) and want an IPA-extracted full spectrum resin (following @doubledog's tek) as the end result.

So far, I've been boiling the cacti, evaporating the liquid until resin combining several boils (with freeze-thaw cycles for the cacti), and cleaning that crude resin with IPA.

This works well, however it is extremely time consuming, as the cacti stay noticeably bitter in their greener surface areas even after four or five boils. So I'm looking for more efficient ways.

An option that I have thought of is squeezing the fresh cacti and collecting their dry juice, and then evaporating it intto a very crude resin that would be cleaned with IPA. I would also let the pulp dry (it should be much faster after it having been squeezed, and can maybe heat it up in a hot water bath) and extract that with IPA too.

Anyone has done anything similar, or has any comments or ideas?

 

[doubledog]

Water and cactus is always lot of work. Do not bother.
I would extract dried cactus powder with ipa/water solution. Or alkaline alcohol.

 

[DetritusTheEgo]

Not that you have a soxhlet but I did a bunch of reading and stumbled across this gem Mescaline quantification in live cacti using TLC from An1cca which has a PDF attachment. In the attachment the first half covers mescaline quantification via TLC and in the second he does an alkaline ethanol extract via soxhlet.

That came to mind when doubledog mentioned alkaline alcohol.

 

[doubledog]

Soxhlet would be great, but even without it, extraction using alkaline alcohol is quite easy. It's especially usefull for processing lot of weak cactus.

As there is a pH change, it's a question if we could still call it full spectrum.

 

[DetritusTheEgo]

That extract I linked I feel was worthy of a share but don't want to redirect the thread. I have a soxhlet and ran into it after searching here on the Nexus. Mine is 1000ml and I don't have a thimble yet but I've estimated you can process ~100-125g of dry powder as a reference point which doesn't scale massively to but can swap thimbles out which An1cca mentions.

I'm following along and interested on the discussion. I was following along in the Defatting/Purifying San Pedro Resin thread but admittedly started to get lost in regard to broad stroke implications of some of the modifications resulting in the subsequent affect.

 

[Jamie01]

Unpopular opinion. Long boils are entirely unnecessary and you can have full activity with a fast 30-40 minute boil.

I have experimented a bunch with 12 hour books, 30 minute boils etc. I just do short cooks now because I don’t notice a difference other than longer boils = more sickness.

Some people have resorted to juicing cactus.

I just reduce the tea, base it and pull with hot iso.

 

[blig-blug]

Long boils are entirely unnecessary and you can have full activity with a fast 30-40 minute boil.

After such a short boil, isn't your leftover cactus material still very bitter?

 

[Jamie01]

I dry and powder the cacti first of all so I should clarify that. I’ve made 2 brews in the past few weeks just low doses a few grams of super potent bridgesii. I also have stopped removing the outer skin. I slice it up with the spines on, dry it then just snap off the spines from the chips and powder it in a mortar. This is what I then brew in acidic water.

I tasted the mush after filtering through a T shirt and it’s not entirely devoid of the bitterness but it’s pretty mild. I have been listening to the mescaline garden podcast a lot and some others and this has been an ongoing discussion. There isn’t really a consensus…some people swear by brewing for 3 days…others do the quick brew. I honestly don’t notice much of a difference personally aside from the long brewing times I used to do made me more sick. The quicker boils I have done produced a cleaner feeling brew. I have sworn off cactus brews in the past but the last 2 I have been fine. I don’t know what’s going on tbh but it could be longer boils are pulling extra alkaloids that bother my guts more or some people claim it’s other non alkaloid stuff coming out.

I do know that I am pulling the non mesc alkaloids through because I can clearly feel them hitting within 30 minutes and then the mesc at like hour 4.

It could also be that I’m working with a lot of potent bridge in my garden now where you can trip off a few inches etc and in the past I have drank a lot of peruvianus and weird pachanoi that needed more material so begin with.

Anyway I’m rambling good luck cactusing.

 

[Jamie01]

Also I should add I do at least 2 boils. I don’t always do 3 but still if you are trying to cut down on time and dealing with larger volumes of cactus it’s still probly annoying

 

[blig-blug]

extraction using alkaline alcohol is quite easy

Could you go a bit into detail on how you do this? Overall process and ratios involved.

 

[doubledog]

Easiest would be to make a wet alkaline paste similar as in CIELO (using calcium hydroxide, but also sodium or potassium hydroxides works) and macerate it in alcohol, ofc you need multiple pulls, then evaporate the alcohol (distillation would be great here, otherwise it's quite wasteful).
You can also use ammonia as in mentioned tek, I did it in the past, but do not remember the details, sorry.

There are many ways how to extract cactus, but all are in some way messy or work demanding.

 

[blig-blug]

How much is it reasonable to use per pull, relative to the volume or weight of the alkaline paste?

There are many ways how to extract cactus, but all are in some way messy or work demanding.

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Still very much worth it Extracting directly with alcohol sounds potentially easier than boiling, plus I'm tired of heating up the house in the middle of a heatwave.

 

[doubledog]

I would use 800ml per 100g of powder in first pulls, then smaller amount in later pulls.
Yes, boiling in water is fine when you have potent cactus, otherwise it's not the best ime.
Evaporating alcohol is very convenient during heatwave.

Btw. there is some bitterness (it's more like adstringent taste with slight bitter undertone) in cactus which is not mescaline.

I would recommend you to extract directly into alcohol (with no pH change).

There is one crucial step which most people seem to skip in alcohol based teks: after evaporating alcohol, redissolve residue in water again and filter it. This is the most annoying step as it's quite difficult to filter. As almost always, sedimentation is your friend.