official extraction help thread

[psilocybin]

Any questions or problems you may run into during an extraction can be asked to get other members input in this thread.

 

[Pyramids]

is that what the readout can show, or what the probe is claimed to be able to handle?

Btw, high pH is referred to as basic or alkaline - maybe it was just a slip-up on your part mentioning "acidic" in that context?

Tbf, I'd personally consider a pH meter to be superfluous for a simple STB extraction like this, especially given the amount of lye you seem to have added.

I'd focus on the heptane - what temperature was the soup at during the pulls? Gently warming things on a water bath (no naked flames!) to about 40°C should help the rather selective heptane to pull more DMT if it's there. If you hadn't added a vast excess of lye, I'd suggest a higher temperature, up to 70°C even, but in this case it would risk harming* the product.
*i.e. producing a large amount of dark polymer.

1. That is what the product is supposedly capable of handling.
2 Thanks, yes, my science terminology is rather under-developed. Slowly learning as I go and I appreciate the education, thanks.
3. ok, heard, great.
4. It was quite warm from the lye around 40-50°C

 

[Transform]

One more thing, I suspect heptane won't be very good at pulling polymer in that temperature range. There's a chance that the high pH has already polymerised most of your DMT. Ideally, you'd switch to pulling with xylene and running those pulls through a mini A/B back into heptane. This takes care of three issues -

• polymer does dissolve in xylene
• freeze precip from xylene is not possible, so you you recover it by washing into dilute vinegar.
• this acidification (low pH) reverses much of the polymerisation
• the solution can be made basic again, this time with the use of sodium carbonate which is gentler that the hydroxide, avoiding further polymerisation - but beware of fizzing from excess acid!
• DMT should separate visibly
• you can collect this with warm heptane and proceed to freeze precipitation for nicer crystals or
• pop it in the fridge and wait for the DMT to solidify into more of a lump before decanting off the aqueous phase.

Or at least, I hope the lab sprites smile upon you and one scheme or other works out.

 

[Pyramids]

One more thing, I suspect heptane won't be very good at pulling polymer in that temperature range. There's a chance that the high pH has already polymerised most of your DMT. Ideally, you'd switch to pulling with xylene and running those pulls through a mini A/B back into heptane. This takes care of three issues -

• polymer does dissolve in xylene
• freeze precip from xylene is not possible, so you you recover it by washing into dilute vinegar.
• this acidification (low pH) reverses much of the polymerisation
• the solution can be made basic again, this time with the use of sodium carbonate which is gentler that the hydroxide, avoiding further polymerisation - but beware of fizzing from excess acid!
• DMT should separate visibly
• you can collect this with warm heptane and proceed to freeze precipitation for nicer crystals or
• pop it in the fridge and wait for the DMT to solidify into more of a lump before decanting off the aqueous phase.

Or at least, I hope the lab sprites smile upon you and one scheme or other works out.

ok, so if i were to start over, add 1g lye per gram of bark and (if it's black) allow it to cool prior to pulling with heptane?

 

[Transform]

No need to wait. Warmer is better for solubility in heptane, and time is of the essence - the longer the DMT sits at high pH, the more it polymerises. At least, that's the current interpretation of a couple of decades' worth of observations backed up with some more-or-less controlled experimentation.

 

[Pyramids]

One more thing, I suspect heptane won't be very good at pulling polymer in that temperature range.

Ok, what temperature should i be limiting it to?
Oh...I see maybe....so you are saying that if i had added the correct amount of lye, then it wouldn't have polymerized the DMT, in which case the heptane would likely have done it's thing....

So the likely theory being, that the ph meter was not performing well at those levels and gave off false readings, which resulted in me adding too much lye, which resulted in probable polymerization (?) of the DMT, which the heptane couldn't pull....