mesc extraction query

[kingpin]

someone's dog is planning on doing a mesc extraction from some pedro but is tossing up whether to do 69ron's tek or house's cacti prep tek. the dog has large healthy pedro and no food hydrator so should this dog go with house's tek? also regarding the prep tek can fido leave the waxy skin on during the boils or should they be removed before dicing and freeze/thawing?

thanks

 

[Poekus]

I wouldn't bother to dry it first to do a STB. Just pressure cook the cacti chunks, strain and repeat.
Then do a liquid/liquid extraction with your basified concentrated tea and a solvent of your choise.
It's a lot less messy and less solvent is needed. I never bothered to take that waxy skin off. Also I didn't freeze in betweens. I don't think it resulted in much less yield because it was like 1%. Do take the thorns off though as it makes the straining a lot more comfortable . Also don't make the chunks to small. The larger they are, the more easy the straining process will be.
Make sure your concentrated tea is not too sludgy. It will make the separation more difficult as emulsions will form far more easily with sludgy tea. If it is too sludgy add a little more water (with base).

 

[kingpin]

Now if one does not have a pressure cooker just boil it x3-4 and then add the limo? What should the ratio of tea to solvent be in this case, same with the base?

 

[Poekus]

I did 3 parts tea 1 part solvent, but you probably can use less solvent.

Pressure cookers makes it faster at lower temperatures. If you just use regular cookers, do like 3 times 2 hour simmering (just enough heat to let it slowly boil).

For the basification step just use enough to reach PH 11-12. Strips or a simple PH meter are a wise investment especially for the salting step. It gives you far more cleaner results and strips can be bought of ebay for 10$ a package,

Edit: some people use citric acid in the boiling process. It is supposed to release the alkaloids easier. I never bothered to do so without having bad yields.