Looking for some advice on extraction

[Albefresh420]

Edit! My wall of text was a bit difficult to follow along so lets try a new format so the information is more laid out and easy to digest.

Background: 5 kilos of MHRB powder was mixed with water and vinegar, frozen, and then thawed out 3 times. Bark was mixed to best of what was possible to ensure even distribution and then put into seperate small plastic containers. Monkey A was not present for this part so this is just what Monkey A is assuming that Monkey B did. Monkey B is no longer part of the picture.

First round of extractions went very well. However some problems started to occur in regards to the consistency of the solution. CYBS Max ion tek was used as the basis. Here are some of the notes that I took during the process while troubleshooting.

-the bark mud was mixed so that it had an even consistency and then poured into a 1000 mL storage media bottle to around the 500 mL line.

-Added ontop was 200g water brought a boil and 40g of salt.

-Added in 25g Lye mixed with 100g water.

-Noticed that the mixture actually was getting very thick so poured some of it out into a seperate jar.

-Added around 200mL hot water to try and loosen the mixture.

-Added in another 25g lye mixed with 100g water.

Then naptha was added in and basically just followed the tek. However the pulls have not been yielding much at all compared to the first batch.

I didnt exactly do well in chemistry in school so im sorry if any steps that were taken make you cringe. I work in kitchens so a little improvisation was being done in terms of troubleshooting the problem so if you were wondering why some things were done like that thats probably why lol. I was wondering how to procceed and if anyone with actual chemistry knowledge would be able to guide me in the right direction because my chemistry knowledge is that I know what the periodic table looks like. just the shape. of the table. lol. I have a few questions so if anyone has any comments or answers or tips feel free to chime in.

What happens if the solution's ph is not at 13? Would the naptha basically be doing nothing?
Is there any harm in adding in extra lye to the mix when there is already naptha in it?
I can still use the naptha that i did the previous pull with? It has like a green color to it.
If the mixture is too heavy in bark is that why the naptha is not pulling any DMT out?

Nothing has been tossed yet but concern is starting to grow and with that doubt towards the ability to extract as well. Hopefully this is a little easier to read than my inital post which was just for lack of a better word verbal diaherra. Thank you for taking time to read this post and I look forward to any replies that might be able to shed some light. If any info was missed let me know and I will give you the relative info that is needed to the best of my abilites.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

The main thing that springs to mind is this:

Attitude Page - DMT-Nexus Wiki

wiki.dmt-nexus.me

No commercial-scaled extractions and reckless “spreading”

The Nexus is not a place for commercial operations and we do not want to support drug dealers; we believe in using these substances for personal use.

If and when sharing these substances, we believe that it has to be done without money or other payments involved, with a careful approach and care when facilitating the introduction and/or experience of others.

It is imperative to take care that the person ingesting has no contraindicating medical/psychological history, takes it in a proper set and setting, and correct dosage/method of ingestion. This cannot be done if the substances are spread on a large scale. We do not want to "turn on the world", those who are ready will seek it. Indiscriminate spreading of psychedelics can lead to potential serious damage to people and is a big legal liability. Big extractions (and the preparations leading to it and gathering of materials) can attract the attention of the Law.

Spreading of the message of psychedelics itself through superficial YouTube videos showing use or extractions can also cause a lot of damage to the community (as happened with salvia) and is frowned upon.

Beyond that I'm practically speechless.

 

[Albefresh420]

Im sorry that was never my intention to cause any harm to anybody. Unfortunately, the other monkey dumped this whole situation into Monkey A's lap and just ran off hence why other monkey is no longer in the picture at all. Monkey A enjoyed working on the extraction and learning about the science behind it and just didn't want to toss everything in the garbage. And the last thing one would want is to attract the eyes of the law. Again I want to apologize if it seemed like this was a buisness venture as opposed to a more personal one. Never the less, thank you for your guidance. It was taken to heart and greatly appreciated.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

OK, good to know... :?

It was getting late last night when I found your question; along with your clarification I'm now more ready to put a coherent response together.

The main situation here is that you have been applying guesswork to a situation where having some firm information would be better. What form was the acidified MHRB in when it was frozen? I would guess a firm paste - that would, at least, be optimal. I see you described it as mud but that covers a wide range of consistencies.

It would be helpful to know what the weight of the remaining unprocessed material is - and if you did happen to know how much of it you've used in the initial attempt that would be even better. Presumably the only processing your 'bark mud' received was the acidification and freeze/thaw treatment? What colour is it at the moment? I would hate to think you've received a pile of post-processing sludge.

The other thing is, you've got a huge resource filled with information about how to extract from plant materials so you might want to take a bit of time to read through the main extraction topics, along with the wiki where you'll find pictorials for the main extraction methods. Some of it might be a bit outdated in places (maintaining this body on a voluntary basis with mostly a bunch of random hippies as the main contributors can be a hit-and-miss affair at times) but the bulk of what you need to know will be there.

We also have a chat function where you can at least have the chance of a semi-realtime interaction with people if you have any questions or simply feel like getting to know us a bit.

Your acidified mixture will keep practically indefinitely, especially if it stays in the freezer, so there's no need to hurry the process if you're not yet fully confident of your abilities. Some of what you've reported sounds a little odd, such as the green naphtha - and this was a little unclear to me:

Then naptha was added in and basically just followed the tek. However the pulls have not been yielding much at all compared to the first batch.

-in that it could be interpreted that the material had been extracted once before.

Yeah, and most people don't try extracting 5kg all at once so you might want to avoid having anything to do with that monkey friend of yours.

 

[Albefresh420]

Ok I should've been more clear about the subject. I am have 2 1000 mL storage media bottles that I work on at a time. I dont think I could gather enough vessels to even do all 5 kilos at once to be honest. The mix is not in the freezer anymore it was thawed out before Monkey B jumped ship. I took the mixture and just put it into some hdpe buckets i found. I think where I am having trouble is that how do i know how much water/vingear is in mix? If for example the tek calls for 100g of bark, 200g water, 60g vinegar, how do i go about measuring that out if the bark was mixed with water and vinegar already. When portioning out the bark for just easier storage, to the best of my abilities I tried to make the entire thing the same consistency but it was alot to deal with at once. the bark right now is just sitting in some buckets with water and vinegar though those are unknown amounts. Whenever i start working on a jar I make sure to mix it as best as I can. Should I strain out the bark? and then just add in water and vinegar and follow the recipie? I learned that hard way that you can't just add those weights together and measure out that weight from the mix because it becomes way more than 100g of bark in the mix and then chaos ensues.

Thank you for the reply by the way.

 

[Hyper Turtle]

I don't have any good ideas about the water content, unless you wanna dry a portion and weigh it before and after.

About the vinegar, i'd add none if it has already soaked with vinegar before. Maybe a little splash. I would just use distilled water for the top-up.

How much water you add kinda depends on how you want to proceed.

If you want to strain out the bark and proceed with liquid only (basically doing textbook A/B), i'd add plenty of water (such that it at least covers the bark well, up to double the height of the wet bark in the container). You can reduce it after straining (but before basing) if you want a lower volume for the pulls. If you do add vinegar, do it while the bark is still in and give it some time and heat. There's no point in adding vinegar after straining - on the contrary, it can cause lower yield if you add too much, because the acid and the base will create a buffer and trap some of the alkaloids in solution. The acidification step is mostly there to improve/accelerate the migration of the alkaloids from the bark into the water. And to make sure all the alkaloids are in salt form, which they should already be in the plant afaik.

If you want to basify and pull with the bark still in there (making it STB or rather ATB since there was acidification first), you simply add the amount of water that gives you the consistency you desire. It's possible to work with consistencies from thick paste to thin soup. You can add a bit of vinegar if you like, or not. Personally i like both thick paste and thin soup, but not anything in between.

With a thick paste, the naphtha kinda runs over/through it during mixing and then flows back out without picking up much bark or any water (the bark paste tends to keep a significant portion of the solvent though). Idk if this is an option with lye, everytime i went this route i used calcium hydroxide as the base, which helps it be extra thick.

With a thin soup, the liquids usually separate quite well and there's not much emulsion, unless you overdo the agitation. The naphtha mostly has contact with the water, not so much with the bark, and you should be able to get nearly all your solvent back out.

With runny paste or thick soup, imo you combine the bad aspects of the two. The bark will swallow a lot of solvent, and it's easy to produce tough emulsions. Maybe that's just me.

If you do get nasty emulsions, if nothing else works, filtering them should do the trick.

What happens if the solution's ph is not at 13? Would the naptha basically be doing nothing?
Is there any harm in adding in extra lye to the mix when there is already naptha in it?
I can still use the naptha that i did the previous pull with? It has like a green color to it.
If the mixture is too heavy in bark is that why the naptha is not pulling any DMT out?

I'm not sure what pH is really required. I just go by the color change - after adding enough lye the solution turns black, with creamy bits for a short while and then all black-ish. I add like 10% more for good measure at that point.
I don't think there's harm in adding more lye after the naptha is already in. You add it as an aqueous solution, which doesn't mix with the naphtha.
Yes you can (and should) reuse naphtha from previous pulls. It might even still hold some DMT from those... Green color sounds strange though, it should normally be somewhere between clear and yellow/amber.
I don't think "too much bark" would cause the naphtha to not pull DMT.

My guesses for possible causes of low yield are:
- you got most of the alkaloids in the first run already
- you didn't basify enough, possibly because you acidified too much
- you didn't agitate/mix the soup/bark/naphtha mixture enough, and/or the naphtha was too cold during the pull
- the bark might have soaked up part of the naphtha, including the DMT it contains
- your freezer doesn't go low enough, or you didn't freeze for long enough for complete precipitation. Or you used too much naphtha and have to evaporate part of it to get sufficient saturation, then freeze again.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

HT has pretty much covered it all there.

I think the simplest approach here is to do a couple of acid cooks on the bark and proceed as though it's an A/B.

That means straining out the bark - keeping the liquid to one side - and then cooking the bark with a fresh change of water. Strain once more and repeat once more. The three lots of liquid can then be combined and made alkaline. Warm them up a bit and pull with naphtha, 3 to 5 times depending on the relative volumes of everything.

pH13 should be fine for pulling with naphtha, assuming your pH measuring method is reliable.

As far as knowing how much original starting bark you have, you'd need to weigh all of the material that you have and make your best guess on the amount that you've already used. Fortunatelyt the ratios for water, vinegar and lye are all somewhat flexible. Having reasonably exact figures would just help you to economise with the amount of lye and naphtha, and just as long as you've added enough lye getting the right amount of naphtha for your bark will help optimise yields with a freeze precipitation as HT has already pointed out.

 

[Albefresh420]

I noticed that in one of the jars that i had made, I put into it about 500 mL of my bark mix and from there i added 200g Water + 50g Salt then about 100g more water. After that i added in the 200g + 50g Lye. My mixture however became super thick and when i added the naptha into and rolled it just once, it became a very jello like consistency. I decided to thin it out with some hot water but maybe i added too much water and it caused the ph to drop down? Would there be a way for me to weight out the bark + water + vinegar in the beginning stages of the tek if the bark is already been soaking with an unknown amount of water and vinegar? or is it neglibile the amount of vinegar/water in it and I should just weigh out like 100g of the wet bark and just add in the water that is needed for a new jar. And I have been adding in the naptha to my jars from the freezer like super ice cold. Would it better for me to heat up naptha in like a double boiler before adding it into my jar? For some reason I remember being told that adding in the naptha straight from the freezer is the best way but then again I could be wrong.

*side note* i just looked at one of my jars that i had thinned out with water and the mixture's color is more like a brown now. as opposed to like the dark black that is usually there. So i think i might have brought the PH down accidently when i added in the hot water to try and thin out my solution.

Thank you for the replies.

 

[OrangeEnergy]

pH13 should be fine for pulling with naphtha, assuming your pH measuring method is reliable.

DMT will exist as 50:50 freebase:salt at pH8.5
At 10.5 it will be 99% and at 11.5 it will be 99.9%freebase, so 11.5 is the aiming point, or you're just leaving spice salt in solution.

This is all from MaxIon Tec.

I mean, sure, go up to 12, but at 13 you're simply wasting lye and making some serious strong alkaline unnecessarily?
Surely all weights and measurements are simply guidance, and if you have accurate pH measurement do not need to be worried about?

 

[Albefresh420]

Hmmmm. Makes sense. Lye don't just grow on trees either... and I should have probably paid more attention in high school chemistry...dang

Thank you for the info.

 

[Loveall]

There is a possibility that above pH12 DMT begins to aggregate in the low solubility conditions (sel-interact). That hypothetical larger structure could make it more difficult to pull into the solvent, and it may tend to crash from the solvent as an oil instead of xtalizing.

Bottom line: follow the max ion TEK. Experimentally it does a good job at minimizing DMT oils (hypothetically). The Na+ from NaCl may be important for this too.