LysergicBliss
Rising Star
I've done a decent number of mescaline HCl extractions (mostly from San Pedro) and have used both xylene and limonene as NP solvents. IME I've noticed a big difference in the final product depending on the solvent used (even after acetone and IPA washes). In my experience, xylene has given cleaner extractions as well as a higher yield of purified, washed mescaline, while limonene tends to pull a lot of salt with it and not as much mescaline/alkaloids. I'm curious if others have also noticed a difference between solvents, or if you prefer one solvent over the other and why?
My experience with this:
I started out using xylene for extractions but decided to give the limonene a try since it's food safe (and doesn't smell awful). I was initially optimistic; it seemed like my salting yields were decent and I was able to do more salting pulls while still getting what I thought was mescaline/alkaloids. However, after doing an acetone & IPA wash on the extract, the cleaned product had a very noticeable salty taste (as well as being somewhat bitter). After taking a weighed dose it was definitely apparent that the effects were considerably weaker than the mescaline I'd extracted using xylene as a solvent.
After removing the NaCl via boiling IPA I found that about half the weight was salt, leaving me with much less purified mescaline than if I'd used xylene (same dried plant source used in both cases, with xylene I can get usually get around 1% but with the limonene it was closer to 0.5%). I used the limonene for 3 or 4 different extractions and the result was the same each time. As soon as I switched back to xylene, I was again getting better yields of very bitter, clean mesc HCl. Have been using xylene ever since with no problems.
One possible cause could be that I used 95% pure d-limonene, whereas in retrospect I should have used a higher purity
So I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed limonene pulling salt/other contaminates like this? I know a lot of people here use limonene, so to those that use limonene have you noticed a salty taste to your extract? or is it always very bitter as it should be? Is limonene commonly used simply because it's food safe, or has anyone noticed an advantage to using it over xylene?
My experience with this:
I started out using xylene for extractions but decided to give the limonene a try since it's food safe (and doesn't smell awful). I was initially optimistic; it seemed like my salting yields were decent and I was able to do more salting pulls while still getting what I thought was mescaline/alkaloids. However, after doing an acetone & IPA wash on the extract, the cleaned product had a very noticeable salty taste (as well as being somewhat bitter). After taking a weighed dose it was definitely apparent that the effects were considerably weaker than the mescaline I'd extracted using xylene as a solvent.
After removing the NaCl via boiling IPA I found that about half the weight was salt, leaving me with much less purified mescaline than if I'd used xylene (same dried plant source used in both cases, with xylene I can get usually get around 1% but with the limonene it was closer to 0.5%). I used the limonene for 3 or 4 different extractions and the result was the same each time. As soon as I switched back to xylene, I was again getting better yields of very bitter, clean mesc HCl. Have been using xylene ever since with no problems.
One possible cause could be that I used 95% pure d-limonene, whereas in retrospect I should have used a higher purity
So I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed limonene pulling salt/other contaminates like this? I know a lot of people here use limonene, so to those that use limonene have you noticed a salty taste to your extract? or is it always very bitter as it should be? Is limonene commonly used simply because it's food safe, or has anyone noticed an advantage to using it over xylene?
