Low Yield - 1.5g from 1lb Bark

[Plasmod3smata]

Hello. A friends kitty I know did an extraction on 1lb root-bark that came straight down from Heaven.

It only yielded about 1.5g, seems a bit low compared to other members results.

The kitty has also yielded the same results using Marsofold tek on bark she got from a Bear friend she has.

4 acetic acid-pulls were done in a crockpot using a pH of 2.8 - 3

The end result filled about two 1-gallon glass jugs 3/4 up with purple bark juice.

Each jug was brought to pH 13.4+ she is pretty sure, the kitty cats digital pH meter is kinda questionable at high pH's even though she says the calibration is set.

3 pulls were done using about 300-400ml heptane on each jug.

The first pulls were kept together, 2nd kept together, etc.

The pulls were evaporated down until the solvent became cloudy then freeze precipitated.

The first pull was small, second pull was about 1g, and third pull didn't have too much at all. 4th pull is waiting to be completed.

The remaining combined filtered solvent from all pulls after the freeze evap was evapped down to about 30ml for another freeze percip which yielded nothing.

The total yield for the 448g bark was only 1.0g fluffy white DMT, .5g light yellow, and about another .2-.3 of heavily yellowed crystals. :?

Was there an error in the extraction procedure?

Perhaps I would recommend to this kitty that she bumps up the pH in each jug to a MORE then high level (14+ if possible) and try to see if anything else can be pulled out?

Perhaps using naphtha instead of heptane for the initial pulls?

Any ideas that I can relay to the kitty cat?

Thanks a lot for any input! :d

 

[Noman]

Perhaps I would recommend to this kitty that she bumps up the pH in each jug to a MORE then high level (14+ if possible) and try to see if anything else can be pulled out?

Perhaps using naphtha instead of heptane for the initial pulls?

Maybe and maybe.
My friend, rather than metering his pH, just adds lye until the solution is slippery black and then adds 25% more.
pH meters aren't all that accurate at the high and low ends.
My jury is still out on whether heptane is any good for NP pulls. My friend found it yielded the same as naptha once the product was cleaned up but I've heard of several others getting poor yields using it.
I'd add more lye, warm the solution up in a sinkfull of hot water, and pull a couple of times with naptha.

 

[Plasmod3smata]

Thanks a lot Noman... great tips to know. :d

I will relay the message and once her paws dip into the new tips I will post any new progress.

 

[Entropymancer]

Also (if you can do it safely), then it would probably help to heat your nonpolar solvent for the next round of pulls also. Heated pulls will tend to pull a little more non-DMT gunk, but they can also pull substantially more spice. If the product comes out dirty, you can always clean it up.

 

[Plasmod3smata]

Thanks for the tip Entropymancer! I have made sure the kitty heated up her solvent for this round...

I can hear the kitty purrin all the way over here as she's doin some hot extraction action!

She has already heated up one jug and added some HOT solvent into it.

She's workin on the second jug now and I will get results from her to post tomorrow.

 

[Trickster]

A FOAF finally got a magnetic stirrer/heater. On his 4th pull he managed to get another 0.35 g of spice out of 150 g of mhrb that added up to grand total of 1.5 g. His 2nd and 3rd pulls produced meager 0.1 g.

Thanks to Noman's suggestions this FOAF have found out that more water and stirring does help.

Another fellow spirit once said that a magnetic stirrer is worth its weight in spice.

I suggest one last long (3 days or more) pull, shaking as often as practical. Heating the jar to 50-60C also should help.

This FOAF tried 2 different lab grade heptanes (n-heptane and a combination of different isomeres of heptane) both worked fine producing yields around 1%.

 

[acolon_5]

I have never had a problem at pH of 11.5-12.5 I use heptane for my frist 2 pulls and it seems to pull a lot less oil over after that I switch to naphtha.

Something I noted on my last extraction....cook times really matter. I did 5 (yes 5) acid cooks at ph 2 using phosphoric acid. I combined the first 4 washes and let the 5th cook for about 2 days. I basified my last cook in a seperate jug and added heptane. I got 1/2 gram from that 5th cook.... 1/2 a gram! (from 1lb of bark). I believe that 3 cooks for a few hours is not pulling all of the spice from the bark. Do extra long cooks. The amount of water used decreased with each wash...for example: first cook used 2L, second cook used 1.5L third 1L and 4th and 5th used only enough to cover the bark.