OK, I'll try to reply to this without being a total jackass.
I'm not trying to be insulting but many of your comments display a lack of understanding and ignorance of the most basic concepts of the extraction procedures. This is carelessness in educating yourself at the very least, and in the worst case it could prove to be dangerous if you tried to apply such understanding to the wrong thing.
El Ka Bong said:
Lye Eaters unite ! Come on, what's "new" about this lazyman's tek..? I mean listen to this:
... "But then, he added a load more lye/water mixture before doing the 4th pull"
First, there really is no need to intentionally be insulting to myself or Noman. If you paid any attention at all, you would have read that this is Swims very first attempt in his life to extract the Spice and he used 50 grams just to get a feel for it. Additionally, Nomans tek really has nothing to do with being lazy and has more to do with being fast and efficient. And, the manner in which you state this would suggest that you believe yourself to be more knowledgeable than Noman and so many other, and of this I have my doubts.
El Ka Bong said:
This shoveling in more lye, without a clue about the pH is a mistake - why do people do this..?!
EZ4U', you say "nothing on the first few pulls" ... ? huh..!? that's not a normal event - the dmt should be taken out first thing ? But you shovelled lye in before the 4th pull, and then you get crystals...?
Your own understanding of why near to nothing was pulled until the 4th pull is flawed and your assumption of changing the PH by adding more lye/water mixture is completely inaccurate. The reason that nothing would migrate to the naptha is simply because the lye/water/bark powder was entirely too thick for anything to move through it.
Following is a simplified explanation of why nothing was pulled until the 4th pull when the mixture was thinned out. First, the naptha is much lighter than the lye/water/bark powder mixture and floats on top. These two do not mix and remain separated. Because the powder was so fine the mixture was very thick, much like hot tar or very thick cold oil. You could practically compare it to the consistency of pudding. Basically, it was like silt mud.
If, for simplicity sake, you consider the basified DMT is like a balloon, which will float on water, it will also go to the top of the mud and migrate into the naptha. The problem is, the balloon is stuck in the mud and can't make it's way up. So by adding more liquid you thin the mud out so that it has the consistency more like chocolate milk or just muddy water. Now it is thin enough that the balloon doesn't get stuck and is allowed to float up and gives it a chance to migrate to the naptha. Yes, if you leave it long enough the DMT would make its way to the top, but with as thick as it was, that could take weeks. I understand a lot has to do with polarity, density, and solubility but this is just an easy way to picture it.
Now, if you just add water without lye then this would actually lower the PH because there is less lye to water ratio. If you add one liquid of a lower PH to a similar liquid of a higher PH then the PH of the final mixed liquid will come out to be somewhere between the two. On the other hand, if you use the same lye to water ratio each time you add it to the mixture then regardless of how much is added the PH will remain roughly the same. I say roughly the same because the bark powder ratio will affect the PH as well, however, its effect is minimal and the PH will come closer to that of a strict lye/water mixture.
If one considers the experiences of others who have used the same lye to water ratio, and who have measured the PH throughout the procedure, then we know that this creats a mixture with a PH of about 13, give or take a little. The precision in this is insignificant enough to be considered irrelevant. As for the lye to water ratio that Swim used, it would be on the lower side of the 13, probably somewhere between 12 and 13, because Swim went with the lower mark of measuring lye and the higher mark of measuring the water.
El Ka Bong said:
Or are you freezer precipitating without evaporating first..!? I'm sure you know, DON"T throw out any naphtha .>!
In point of fact, Swim is freeze preciping, but he did evap quite a bit first. And no, he doesn't throw anything away.
I will also note this, the 1st and 2nd pulls stayed in for a few hours, the 3rd pull stayed in about 18 hours, while the 4th pull stayed in for 2 days. Also, they were all ultimately combined. The 1st pull was evapped down and put in the freezer and got minimal crystal formation (I believe the phrase was "near to nothing"). Then the second pull was added to the 1st and this was evapped and put in the freezer and still minimal formation. Again the same was done for the 3rd pull with similar results. Before doing the 4th pull, the basified mixture was thinned out quite a bit by adding a lye/water mixture with similar ratios of the first lye/water mixture; however, Swim did use a little less lye to the same water. Then when the 4th pull was separated and added to the previous 3 it was evapped quite a bit and put in the freezer and the formation covered the bottom of the casserole dish as in the picture.
El Ka Bong said:
WHY skip acid-solubilization of the dmt ..!? Why..? ! are you cheap, broke, or unaware of why any bonafide organic chemist would do the acid-extraction first..!? Why skip measuring pH in acid or when basifying..!?
The reason to skip this is simply because it isn't really needed with dried MHRB. If it were foliage then defatting would be a must. The reason that you use the acid is to keep the DMT in a polar salt form so that it will not be soluble in your non-polar solvent. Then the solvent is used for defatting to pull out the oils and tannins that you don't want in the end product. If you go this route, you have to measure the PH because if it becomes to acidic then you will be destroying the DMT. The reason that measuring PH is less important with STB teks is because the DMT molecule more easily damaged by acid than base. In fact, it seems to be fine even in very high base.
There are two other factors to take into account here. First, the amount of oils and tannins are minimal in the roots of mimosa hostilis. In fact, even if you just smoked the bark powder by itself there are still more tars, oils, and other pollutants in tobacco, gram for gram. Swim is an addict and smokes a pack and a half a day so why would he be worried about a little bit of oil that might be left in the spice. Even 50 grams of spice is not going to have as much of those type of impurities that a single non-filter cigarette has.
Additionally, if you freeze precip, it makes defatting less needed still. When the naptha pull is put in the freezer and the spice gets cold it crystallizes and falls out. However, since there are very few oils in the first place they remain in the naptha and do not solidify enough to fall out. This is why you will inevitably get cleaner crystals by freeze precip than evap.
El Ka Bong said:
Let's hear about the yeild % ..! do you have scale..!? At most 50 g MHRB should give 0.5 g MAX of dmt-freebase, or less if you choose a lye-eater tek. Any more than 500-ish mg and you have also 'extracted' lye, and imo it looks like there's way more than 500mg in that tray !
I'm not real sure that is near 500mg but if it is then Swim will be rather satisfied because he is positive that with the exception of a couple very small droplets it is relatively pure. Swim hasn't received his scales yet but they should be delivered this coming week. Also, keep in mind that the dish is about the width and length of a DVD case. It isn't a large dish. To be honest, like I said, this is Swims first extraction of the spice so neither one of us have any idea what 50mg or 500mg looks like. I was guessing 75-100mg but I'm probably not correct.
El Ka Bong said:
And so let me ask, nit-picking,so what about purity..? Let's hear the de-virginated tales of wonder ! and how did it taste.?
As for the purity, it hasn't been cleaned yet, but the white is definitely DMT crystals and it has a very distinct smell, and it isn't anything like the smell of lye. I actually like the smell of it. I can see why people say it is a "plastic" smell but I don't think it really smells like plastic at all. I'm sure it smells like... well... DMT.
El Ka Bong said:
And pictures sure help .. ! How long did it take to evaporate those trays..?
This was evapped down and then freeze precipitated. To evap it, Swim used a crock pot on low and let the dish float in the water for a couple hours with a fan blowing over it. Then it was put in the freezer for a day and a half. The naptha was poured off of it and this was left to dry for a few hours aft.
El Ka Bong said:
Unless you really really sped-up the evap' using a strong fan, that second photo of the tray (EZ4U'...)looks like it's got lye in it - basically I see few dmt crystal shapes excpt the yellow ones, there's grainy 'cob-webs' of white stuff. I got to wonder if that white stuff is as pure as teh yellow, based on shape alone.
Cob-webby crystals are a tell-tale sign of poor quality / contamination. If you evaporate slowly (over 2 - 5 days) you get perfect dmt crystals. Or use a fan to remove 80% of the solvent in one day, then let it evap' slowly.
Now, if you are suggesting the white is lye and the yellow is DMT then this causes you to loose credibility if it doesn't suggest incompetence. In point of fact, where you see the yellow spots, those are from a couple small droplets of the basified lye/water/powder solution that were accidentally sucked up with the naptha because Swim doesn't have a sep funnel. So you have it totally backwards. The yellow is lye contaminated, the white is crystal.
Also, the natural color of pure DMT crystal is clear white crystalline. When broken or shaved it will appear white. If you have crystals that are any other color than clear, or white when chopped and powdered then there is something more than DMT in your product. This isn't always a bad thing because some of the alkaloids that cause the different color can have desirable effects.
In addition, your reasoning for doing a slow evap is flawed. Yes, you can form larger crystals, but bigger isn't necessarily better. First of all, when you evaporate the naptha it is going to leave everything that is in the naptha behind. This includes some petroleum deposits. (This will occur regardless of how cleanly your naptha might evaporate. Petroleum products will always leave some traces behind. Granted, the amount that you will have really doesn't matter because you will inhale more and worse pollutants in the first breath you take when you step out your door to go start your car.) Secondly, as the crystals form they will inevitably trap some impurities that you wont be able to wash out. The larger the crystal the more impurities it will trap. So in general, 1 gram of large crystals will have more impurities than 1 gram of small crystals, although this can be changed to a degree by re-crystallizing.
Since lye doesn't readily mix with naptha the only way you will have excess lye is if you pull out a little of your base solution with your naptha (Swim accidentally did that). And guess what. You will always pull out some lye with the naptha. It might be a microscopic trace amount, but you will always have some and it doesn't matter how little lye you might have used because the difference of the amount of lye you'll use to bring the PH to 11 or 12 compared to 13 isn't going to have nearly as great of an effect as the surface area where the base solution and naptha come in contact. This doesn't necessarily mean you will notice it if it's only one part per billion (I don't actually know the numbers and this is probably way off but the point is made) and it certainly doesn't mean that it will matter because the amount should be insignificant.
In other words, the reason the bigger crystals aren't necessarily better is because you are evaping and not freeze preciping. As such, you are trapping more lye and oils and other impurities by simply evapping. So basically this means you should always do an ammonia wash if you evap only. The problem with the large crystals is the lye can't be washed out as thoroughly because it is trapped inside the crystal whereas the smaller crystals have less impurities trapped.
So, if you are looking for purity, then I would tend to believe that freeze evap, ammonia wash, dissolve repeat freeze evap, then re-crystallization is the way to go, however, this might be a little wasteful. The reason for this is pretty much like I stated above. Even if you do defat your bark there is still going to be some trace amounts of oils left in the bark that will migrate to the naptha along with the DMT. When you freeze it, the DMT will solidify and crystallize where as the plant oils will not solidify and will remain in the naptha (or at least it will be an insignificant amount). That is unless there is an excess of oils such as when using foliage without defatting. Then you might get some solidified oils.
After it is nice and frozen you can pour off the naptha which will still contain some DMT as well as some plant oils and other impurities. (You can save that for later for purification.) Then you can dissolve in fresh clean naptha and repeat the freeze evap and then go to a more traditional re-crystallization using warm solvent and if you want you can do a slow crystallization. But, if absolute purity is the goal then it would probably be best to go with a couple of faster freezes producing smaller crystals before doing a slow crystal formation to produce larger crystals.
Furthermore, from what I have come to understand, the reason that STB teks with larger amounts of lye produces more is not necessarily because people are pulling lye. The fact is that A/B teks and STB teks can produce equal amounts. However, when the acid process is done, it is more likely that it is easier to damage or destroy some of the DMT molecules with a too low of a PH, resulting in less yeald, as it is less likely to do so with too high of a PH. Additionally, the higher PH solution will more convert the DMT to its base quicker because it bonds the appropriate atoms more thoroughly and quickly. And finally, by having a solution that is more liquid than solid, it will more readily and easily allow the basified DMT molecules to migrate to the naptha.
El Ka Bong said:
Also isn't it "Bestine" brand of solvent, and NOT 'benzine', the nasty carcinogen..?
nit-picky, aren't I..!? but, omg, I sure wish I had a sep' funnel like that !
I believe, Bestine is a brand of petroleum benzine. In other words, Bestine and benzine is the same thing just as naptha is petroleum ether. Benzine is different from benzene, which is what you I think you are thinking of. Benzene is very carcinogenic.
sippyj said:
If you want to consume lye you're more than welcome to ignore elka's advice, but she is right on point with her comments. I would agree, what EZ's got in that tray is mostly lye that never dissolved in the soup.
Don't be an ass mitch, your comments add nothing to the discussion.
Regarding the "go-along" comment, please read above. Additionally, I can assure you that it is not lye that didn't dissolve. The reason I know this is because Swim mixed the lye into the water adding only about a half a teaspoon at a time while stirring and waiting to add another half teaspoon only when the previous was dissolved. After all of the lye was added, the jar was capped and got the hell shook out of it and then sat on a shelf and shaken every quarter hour for the following 2 hours before being added to the powdered root bark.
And as for mitch, he was simply pointing out (in his own unique way) that El Ka Bong was lacking in tact and sensitivity. Also keep in mind that some people might feel that mitch’s comments added more to this discussion than your own comments.
AstronomyDomine said:
Well to answer a few questions:
EZ4U2Shoot:
Keep in mind, this pic is from a fraction of the first pull, most of the first pull is still in the funnel with the MHRB/water/lye mix.
I expect more of the same really.
El Ka Bong:
I've done a few extractions the same exact way and this is just more of the same. I am rather impatient and the pic up there is from being in the freezer for ~4 hours, then under a fan for ~2 hours. Not good for crystal formation, I know, but it's perfectly smokable and smells of indole, not a trace of naptha residue.
He buddy, I wasn't trying to imply that you had a bad pull. Like I said, this is Swims first time trying to extract Spice. I was just saying that you did a good thing and have increased Swims confidence about impending success. You might also keep in mind the dish Swim used is rather small. It's about the size of a DVD case. Also, I think this one pull probably got the majority of the Spice out because the new pull isn't anything like this one. We will see.
And one final note. Again, please understand that this is Swims first Spice harvesting adventure and he will improve it. Also keep in mind, none of that has been cleaned yet. Swim will do an ammonia wash and re-crystallize when everything is collected and scales have been delivered. At that time we will have a better idea of how much Spice is actually there.
Also, Swim is by no means an expert, nor is he a chemist. However, he does have chemist in the family that works for GE and consults him on occasion. As a result Swim has a fair understanding of the processes. Additionally, I do usually spend more than 35 hours a week doing nothing but reading and, believe me, I have read a lot about this subject in the last 3 months. Now, swim is taking my knowledge and applying it in practice. So, if any of my information is inaccurate, then please show me. I am always willing to admit when I'm wrong because it allows me to learn what is right. But please show me. I may not know every detail of the specifics and I may not know all of the proper names, phrases, and terminology but I do understand the reasoning.
Oh, and one more thing. Swims final product might very well be a little bloated in the end anyway because he used the same dish he usually uses for making honey oil and there was definitely still a wee bit-o-honey in there. So, Swim might have honey oil contaminated Spice... hmmm... Honey Spice.
