Hi everyone.
So I finally got some Acacia Simplex bark, and tried to proceed an A/B extraction. The problem is, I cannot get anything out...
Let me detail what I did :
I first did 3 acidic water boils (with white vinegar - acetic acid -). 1 hour for each boil.
I filtered the solution with coffee filter.
I then added salt, until saturation.
I then based the solution, but here is where it goes wrong. I was unable to reach a pH over 9. I guess I didn't have the good lye... I mean, I put more and more lye, until saturation, and was only able to get a pH 9 from it... My guess is my lye wasn't pure (or not even) NaOH. It wasn't marketed as caustic soda, it was marketed as some lye to use to clean stuff around the house.
The solution was not black as everyone says it should be. It was like a reddish chocolate brown. pH 9, as I said.
So with that I still tried and did a pull with naptha, ended up with a big emulsion that I couldn't break.
So I proceed to remove the emulsion, put it in a storage jar to see if I can use it later.
Just over the emulsion was a little bit of clear naptha (maybe 15 ml from the 200 ml of naptha I put in).
So I then removed this clear naptha layer, and let it evaporate to see if I would get anything from it.
What I got was a very thin layer of gooey looking crystals, I scraped this up, there was nowhere enough to smoke, so I just vaporised it from the razor blade to check the smell. Boom, smells just like DMT!! Pretty good sign, but still need some more work to get this done properly.
So what I did is I got some pure NaOH, and proceed to add some of it to get the pH up.
I didn't have my pH meter at this moment, so couldn't have a pH reading. The solution heated and darkened a bit, but still not black. It looks like brown chocolate (a bit darker than before, but not enough I guess). I guess the pH upped a bit, maybe to 10, but still not enough.
I then did a naptha pull. No emulsion this time, looking good. Let it evaporate, but nothing came out. I mean, absolutly nothing at all, not even a thin layer of anything smelling like DMT... Just nothing at all...
Here is where I need some help to understand what happened :
So it seems that I got the acidic cooking good, so I guess I got the DMT in the solution, but I am not able to get the pH near 12 or 13 to make the DMT freebase to pull out with naptha.
What I think happened is, because of the first lye I used (that was only a pH 9 lye, certainly not NaOH), I saturated the solution with this pH 9 lye. So my guess is, when I added the true and good pure NaOH lye, because the solution was already saturated with the firstly used pH 9 lye, the NaOH lye was not able to dissolve in the solution (and I saw most of it wasn't dissolving), thus not getting the pH high enough.
Is this possible?
Another thing I thought is maybe the salt I used (until saturation, as I said) to salt the solution prior to basing it is not good and blocked the pH one way or another.
Is this possible?
My guess and more logical way of thinking leads me to think this is due to oversaturation with the first (not good) pH 9 lye, so the true pure NaOH i added later was not dissolving, thus not upping the pH. Am I correct?
So what can I do to finally get the pH up?
I think I should first add more water to desaturate the solution a bit, then add an acid (acetic) to neutralize the lye (will adding water to desaturate it a bit is necessary, or can I directly proceed to put my acid in there?)
Then reduce the now acidic solution to a workable volume (around 1000 ml - not necessary if I don't need to add more water to desaturate it -).
Then base it again, with the pure NaOH (and not the shitty ph 9 lye).
Then hopefully I should be able to get the pH high enough (12 - 13) to get the extraction done with naptha pulls.
Does this procedure seems correct to you? What are your adivses?
This leads me to another question : when my solution is saturated with lye, can I neutralize the lye by addind acetic acid? I mean, my guess is yes, but what will happen? Will the lye evaporate? Or how does it get out from the solution? Is it needed to first add more water to desaturate it a bit? Or can I proceed directly by neutralizing the lye with acetic acid? (Remember my solution is oversaturated with lye).
I hope I was clear enough, and that someone will be able to help me out to get this done.
Thank you very much.
So I finally got some Acacia Simplex bark, and tried to proceed an A/B extraction. The problem is, I cannot get anything out...
Let me detail what I did :
I first did 3 acidic water boils (with white vinegar - acetic acid -). 1 hour for each boil.
I filtered the solution with coffee filter.
I then added salt, until saturation.
I then based the solution, but here is where it goes wrong. I was unable to reach a pH over 9. I guess I didn't have the good lye... I mean, I put more and more lye, until saturation, and was only able to get a pH 9 from it... My guess is my lye wasn't pure (or not even) NaOH. It wasn't marketed as caustic soda, it was marketed as some lye to use to clean stuff around the house.
The solution was not black as everyone says it should be. It was like a reddish chocolate brown. pH 9, as I said.
So with that I still tried and did a pull with naptha, ended up with a big emulsion that I couldn't break.
So I proceed to remove the emulsion, put it in a storage jar to see if I can use it later.
Just over the emulsion was a little bit of clear naptha (maybe 15 ml from the 200 ml of naptha I put in).
So I then removed this clear naptha layer, and let it evaporate to see if I would get anything from it.
What I got was a very thin layer of gooey looking crystals, I scraped this up, there was nowhere enough to smoke, so I just vaporised it from the razor blade to check the smell. Boom, smells just like DMT!! Pretty good sign, but still need some more work to get this done properly.
So what I did is I got some pure NaOH, and proceed to add some of it to get the pH up.
I didn't have my pH meter at this moment, so couldn't have a pH reading. The solution heated and darkened a bit, but still not black. It looks like brown chocolate (a bit darker than before, but not enough I guess). I guess the pH upped a bit, maybe to 10, but still not enough.
I then did a naptha pull. No emulsion this time, looking good. Let it evaporate, but nothing came out. I mean, absolutly nothing at all, not even a thin layer of anything smelling like DMT... Just nothing at all...
Here is where I need some help to understand what happened :
So it seems that I got the acidic cooking good, so I guess I got the DMT in the solution, but I am not able to get the pH near 12 or 13 to make the DMT freebase to pull out with naptha.
What I think happened is, because of the first lye I used (that was only a pH 9 lye, certainly not NaOH), I saturated the solution with this pH 9 lye. So my guess is, when I added the true and good pure NaOH lye, because the solution was already saturated with the firstly used pH 9 lye, the NaOH lye was not able to dissolve in the solution (and I saw most of it wasn't dissolving), thus not getting the pH high enough.
Is this possible?
Another thing I thought is maybe the salt I used (until saturation, as I said) to salt the solution prior to basing it is not good and blocked the pH one way or another.
Is this possible?
My guess and more logical way of thinking leads me to think this is due to oversaturation with the first (not good) pH 9 lye, so the true pure NaOH i added later was not dissolving, thus not upping the pH. Am I correct?
So what can I do to finally get the pH up?
I think I should first add more water to desaturate the solution a bit, then add an acid (acetic) to neutralize the lye (will adding water to desaturate it a bit is necessary, or can I directly proceed to put my acid in there?)
Then reduce the now acidic solution to a workable volume (around 1000 ml - not necessary if I don't need to add more water to desaturate it -).
Then base it again, with the pure NaOH (and not the shitty ph 9 lye).
Then hopefully I should be able to get the pH high enough (12 - 13) to get the extraction done with naptha pulls.
Does this procedure seems correct to you? What are your adivses?
This leads me to another question : when my solution is saturated with lye, can I neutralize the lye by addind acetic acid? I mean, my guess is yes, but what will happen? Will the lye evaporate? Or how does it get out from the solution? Is it needed to first add more water to desaturate it a bit? Or can I proceed directly by neutralizing the lye with acetic acid? (Remember my solution is oversaturated with lye).
I hope I was clear enough, and that someone will be able to help me out to get this done.
Thank you very much.
