low yields with acetone? yup.

[Sabnock]

Hey there, so I started out using 90% ipa when doing my extractions however the local stores apparently stopped carrying it or whatnot so I switched to using acetone for my pulls. Ever since then, I've noticed my yields seem lower than they were with the ipa. From 100 grams of mimosa inner root bark powder I've been able to time and time again pull 5 grams of extract but only getting maybe 2 grams with acetone pulls. With 100 grams of acacia confusa root bark using everclear i yielded only 600 mgs of extract oil, even though 5 pulls were done. I then mixed 100 grams of acacia and my last100 grams of mimosa together into one brew to be based, dried and then pulled from, it only yielded about 3 grams which really saddened me. It's really puzzling to me because the extract oil readily dissolves into fresh acetone so it seems pretty darn soluble. So just in case I had saved my sodium carbonate that my brews had been evaporated down onto and decided to use more acetone to see if I could pull anything else out... when I done so, I saw a milky white color with a tint of orange or yellow... after adding a little more acetone, I decided it shouldn't hurt to add what little bit of everclear I had left, and after adding it and shaking heavily for a couple minutes or so, all of a sudden the milkyness went away and now everything is a see through yellow which indicates to me it's pulled some good stuff.

So, I don't have any acetone left, no everclear either, but did order some 99% ipa from Amazon which should be here Tuesday which maybe will be enough to pull a few more times... but I think from now on, I'll stick with the ipa, acetone seems finicky. Anyone have any suggestions or opinions?

 

[Sabnock]

Yeah.... I'm gonna go back to using isopropyl alcohol. Acetone I thought was good but it does pull badly apparently. My plan with iso is to use regular 70% iso for pulling as its only about 20% lighter in iso than the 91% I used to use, and yeah it'll pull more washing soda but if I clean it up with 99% iso then things should be fine I'm sure.

Here's to using only washing soda and isopropyl alcohol for extracting goodies the best of the best I think.

 

[endlessness]

Interesting observation, thanks for sharing.

It`s weird because acetone dissolves DMT freebase really well, so in theory it should work maybe even better than IPA. But I also once experimented extracting dried freebased mimosa powder with acetone and adding FASA to precipitate fumarates, and the yield was not good. I assumed it was more because acetone had pulled a lot of impurities and prevented fumarates from preciptiating, but now that you mentioned this, maybe there`s some reason that acetone is not dissolving the DMT well. I can think of two possible explanations at least, one of which is that mimosa has another compound or mixture of compounds that when acetone dissolves it, it decreases DMT solubility in acetone. The other is that for some reason acetone penetrates mimosa`s cells less than IPA for example, but I dont think that should be the case if the plant is powdered already.

 

[jamie]

70% iso works fine IME..it might pull a bit of sodium carb but it is negligible and I never noticed a difference.

 

[endlessness]

You could also in theory just wash it with water, which would remove the sodium carb excess and leave dmt behind.

Sodium carbonate has anyways a very high boiling point so it probably wont be smoked. But even in the case of, say, unvaporized solid sodium carb particles coming across to throat and lungs, which could potentially be irritating, one could easily prevent that by smoking in a water bong.

 

[Sabnock]

Yeah acetone dissolves freebase DMT really well, which had me wondering why, if it can redissolve the freebase oil, does it not pull well.... I don't really have an answer but I just know I was getting only 2 grams with acetone when I was getting 5 grams with iso, from 100 gram of Mimosa inner root bark. But since I put more iso in the jar I can def. see the deems being pulled and the first two pulls have the good smell so I'm very glad I saved my sodium carbonate/evaporated brews from previous extractions after noticing the light yields. I bet I'll probably end up pulling 10 grams or more since most of the stuff should still be there.

And Jamie, so you've used 70% without issue? That's good to know. Only difference I can see with it besides the extra water of course, is that the alcohol turned a red color instead of the usual yellow color I get with the 91%. Though that's probably due to the extra water gaining color from the brew. No biggie though, after all my pulls are done I'll use 99% iso to clean it.

And Endlessness, you say water should, in theory, be able to clean it? I might give that a try on my next extraction.

Btw, anyone happen to know the average yield from acrb so I can compare my yields?

Thanks