Prewashing plant matter before extracting desirables?

[SKA]

Sorry if this isn't in the correct subforum but I didn't really know where
to put this.
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Nothing groundbreaking, just an idea to increase ease and efficiency of Extractions.

Often I've wondered why I never see extractions where undesirable plantfats, oils
& non-psychoactive crystaline solids are removed by a wash BEFORE doing the actual
extraction of the desired compound?

I often see A/B teks with many many steps to purify impurities out of Acacia extracts.
Wouldn't it be quicker and easier to do something like this instead?:

-grind up Acacia bark/leaf to a powder
-soak that powder in *solvent(s) that dissolve the undesirable fats & oils & other compounds, --filter out the Acacia powder & throw away the liquid. Repeat 3 times with fresh Solvent.
-Let wet Acacia powder-lump dry. Pulverise into fine powder.

* This/these solvent(s) should off course not dissolve any DMT at all.

After this pre-defat step the pulverised Acacia matter should be defatted enough
to perform a simple STB on it to yield relatively pure DMT, don't you guys reckon?

 

[SnozzleBerry]

Why not just A/B and then salt out and skip any additional solvent stages when still dealing with plant matter?

 

[acacian]

this could save time actually as opposed to defatting later and having to separate the layers... if doing stb it may be a good method.. like snozz said, salting kind of bypasses any plant impurity issues anyway. but do try this, i'd like to hear how it goes.. you may be onto something.

It might work well in hand with a method i've been trying lately, where I grind the plant material to a powder, add it to a large glass bottle and then add ethanol and shake. could do the same with a solvent before doing the ethanol pull. do a few pulls with the ethanol, then just base it and pull with np solvent. personally i'm not a fan of leaving the bark in my solution though so I filter the ethanol after pulling the alkaloids.. reduce to say 400ml

might try this next..

1.grind dry plant material. add to large glass bottle
2. add a good amount of non polar solvent.. anyone know which would be best for pulling fats/oils? shake the hell out of it ... there wont be emulsion will there because there's no polar liquid for it to get trapped in?
3. remove solvent from bark.. wring the bark in a cloth to get rid of any excess solvent and put back in glass bottle. then add 500ml ethanol. shake well and let sit for half an hr periodically shaking again.. pour of liquid and repeat three times, combine liquids and reduce on very low heat
4. add 10g lye
5. pull with np solvent. that would bypass using any heat at all too hopeuflly preserving any extra alks in there

thanks for this idea mate

 

[acacian]

only thing is you'd need a larger volume of solvent

 

[SKA]

Why not just A/B and then salt out and skip any additional solvent stages when still dealing with plant matter?

The prewash defat-step seemed so simple and quick to me, but if the method you describe
is equally simple I'd like yo hear it. I'm not too familiar with A/B and salting.


Freeze Precipitation :
I've found out that simple STB extractions from MHRB can be miraculously pure after
performing freeze-precipitation, rather than evaporation, to separate DMT from the solvent.
Slightly offwhite, fine, shiny crystals. I suppose most of the fatty/oily & crystaline impurities present in MHRB don't precipitate out of the solvent(Naphtha in this case) like
DMT does at sub-zero temperatures?

The reason for this topic is because I am turning my attention to Acacias as DMT source.
Their spice-rich leaves & barks are often also full of alot of fats & oils.

If a simple STB was performed on some spice-rich, but really fatty Acacia leaves or bark, would DMT precipetate out of the Naphtha as pure as the MHRB-STB product I described above?
Or would there be impurities present in Acacias that could precipetate out of the Naphtha
at sub-zero temperatures, just like DMT does?

 

[acacian]

A/B would not really be quicker... it has the advantage of acidity drawing out more dmt due to breaking down the cell walls. it also means you dont need lumps of bark in your extract.. its good to work with a clean solution if possible. but disadvantage with acid cooks is that if there's any other alkaloids of interest lurking in the plant material that they may not handle heat the way dmt does. for pure dmt extracts it doesn't matter.. though for more for spectrum plant expression it may be better not to boil. it depends on what your after. also if using ethanol you don't need to go straight to base you can jsut pour it off from the plant material..leaving a clear solution. its good to add a bit of vinegar to the ethanol too

will try this very soon on some reliable acacia bark and get back to you tomorrow as soon as possible

i'm personally thinking that ethanol shakes may even be a quicker and less alkaloids selective route than acid boiling.. ethanol certainly is more efficient at pulling alkaloids than acidic water. i used the method i posted above, though I defatted the ethanol solution rather than the bark. i did a quick boil on the bark left over and based it... nothign precipitated out indicating that the 3 ethanol pulls got all of the alkaloids.

 

[acacian]

Why not just A/B and then salt out and skip any additional solvent stages when still dealing with plant matter?

If a simple STB was performed on some spice-rich, but really fatty Acacia leaves or bark, would DMT precipetate out of the Naphtha as pure as the MHRB-STB product I described above?
Or would there be impurities present in Acacias that could precipetate out of the Naphtha
at sub-zero temperatures, just like DMT does?

if using shellite (naptha) it'll be mainly dmt and will crystalise just the same as mimosa hostilis. obviosuly it depends on the acacia you use though. if using acuminata for example.. and you extract with shellite amd freeze precip, then you'll be left with georgous snowflakes.. same with obtusifolia, floribunda, phlebophylla etc

haha sorry for typing so much on your thread

 

[SKA]

Feel welcome to type as much as you want in my thread. New inspirations & ideas should allways be welcomed.

This prewash defatting concept could probably be applied to many other natural Tryptamines.
Yopo & Cebil seeds both contain (predominantly) 5-HO-DMT, so a pre-wash defat may be handy.
Pre-washing dried, crushed Mushroom matter may make simple Psilocin extracts much cleaner.

To know what solvent would be best for the pre-wash one would have to know the solubility
of both the desired, to be extracted compound as well as the solubility of the impurities
that are to be removed. For that purpose this page is very helpfull: Psychedelic Compounds Chemical and Physical Properties - DMT-Nexus Wiki
Allthough that page still has alot of blanks I hope people will fill in soon.

It would seem that a pre-wash defatting of Yopo or Cebil could be done with D-Limonene or
Naphtha @ room temp. as the solvent, assuming these are able to dissolve the fats in the
seeds. If that checks out you could do something like this:

-Roast & deshell Yopo or Cebil seeds & ground them up to a fine powder.
-Soak this powder in a decent amount of Naphtha @ 20 degrees Celcius. Stir well. Wait.
-Strain off the dirty Naphtha through a cloth & discard. Keep the seed-pulp.
-Repeat the last 3 steps 3 times, each time with fresh solvent. Squeeze excess liquids
out of the seed pulp through cloth.
-Let seed pulp dry up. Crush into a fine powder again once it is dry.

And then you should be able to perform a fairly simple, straightforward Bufotenine
extraction on the resulting defatted seed-powder to give fairly pure yields.