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quick stb question

Migrated topic.
M

manrig

Rising Star
Hey,

Just now after I added 120g mhrb to basified solution (120g lye) / 600cc distilled water, I had it first in a jar but ran into some isolation issues and transfered it to a larger container

)my question is( my solution sits low in the jar, can I add distilled water straight to the mix to beef it up a couple inches?

thx

I have moved this to the STB Extraction Subforum - acolon_5
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The usual equation is 1g MHRB/ 1g Lye/ 15ml water - so I would assume that you could get away with adding another 1200 ml /cc without having to add more lye.
 
geeg30 said:
The usual equation is 1g MHRB/ 1g Lye/ 15ml water - so I would assume that you could get away with adding another 1200 ml /cc without having to add more lye.
Click to expand...

I used around 1000ml-1100ml of water with 100g of lye and bark. If 600cc (this 600ml?) is 600ml, then I would just add another 400ml-500ml of water. You should have no problems after that.
 
Yes that is correct - 100g MHRB, 1500ml water and 100g Lye. You can get away with using less lye ( but there would be a higher chance of emulsions, salt would be handy to add when using less lye).
And yes 600cc = 600ml , cc = cubic centimetre.
 
The naptha will look clear when you pull it off the bark/lye mix, but when you evap it down it should start to look cloudy. Then you freeze precip.
 
ALWAYS EVAP BEFORE A FREEZE PRECIP!! the higher the concentration of spice in the solution, the more you can get out. there have been times where i have freeze precipitated out nothing from a solution i knew to contain spice. i then evaporated away 25-40% of my solvent and then threw it back in the freezer. eureka!! how long you let your entire solution of mhrb/naoh/h20 sit will determine the color of your naptha pulls. if you do immediate pulls the same day you make the solution, it will be clear and will yield pure white spice. if you let the jars sit, your naptha pulls will be more yellow due to plant fats/oils that were broken down and extracted as well. i know that white spice is always preferred, but lately i have been finding that dark yellow spice will throw you farther than you could ever get with white stuff. glad to hear everything is working out for you..
cheers..
 

heres 2 photos of what it looks like now

the reason theres a bunch of nap in there is because i had been adding naptha thinking the naptha was stuck in the solution thus wasnt seperating.

i heated the jug up in a bath and all the naptha has seperated

quick question, for my first pull is it ok to pull a few cms then jar and freezer it?
or should i let it sit and evaporate then freezer?

and is a few cms for my first pull ok? should i pull a couple of batches and freeze 2?

thx.
 
i pulled a bit less than half.

had my fan on it till it was cloudy to see through

then capped the jar and it's sitting in the freezer

i'll post my results

sidenote-

whats the recommended time the jar should be in the freezer for?
how long should i freeze it for?
 
Just remember that if you add water, you also need more lye if you want to keep the same pH. The amount of lye depends on the amount of water, so to speak. The simplest method is to make a solution of only water and lye with the same concentration as your MHRB-solution, and then simply add some of it. That way you will keep your concentration of lye and therefore pH no matter how much you add.

When it comes to the evaporation-discussion, I've always had troubles with it. Evaporating down heptane is troubling enough, but evaporating naphtha is very difficult. For now I keep it in a dish with a paper upon (prevent dust from falling into it), but the level of naphtha does not seem to change that much over the days. Do anyone have any valuable evaporation-tips they want to share? I would greatly appreciate it! I have the ability to add heat, but I probably don't want too considering the risk of N-Oxide formation.
 
Unless you are doubling the amount of water or more, I wouldn't worry about adding much, if any lye. It doesn't take much lye at all to take the pH of distilled water to 13. It takes A LOT of water to move a pH of 13 to a pH of 12....a lot.

As far as evaping heptane, it is one of the easiest solvents to evap. Heptane is VERY volitile and evaps extremely quickly. You don't even need a fan. Just leave it uncovered overnight...don't even put a paper towel over it, that will just slow the evaporation.

Naphtha is a little slower, but until you've evaped 300mL of Xylene you don't know how hard a solvent is to evap, that stuff takes forever. I personally use a small personal fan, it's maybe 5" across and doesn't have much power. Just keep the fan clean of dust and you shuldn't have a problem.

I've never worried myself over dust. Unles you live in a really dusty area, I wouldn't worry about it either.

If you really need to reduce the volume of naphtha/heptane, simply put it in a baking dish (more surface area the better) and let it sit for a bit with a fan on it. The formation of DMT N-Oxide doesn't happen instantaneously...and DMT N-Oxide is almost as active at DMT freebase, so I wouldn't worry a whole lot about that either. While the dmt is in a solvent very little is exposed to the air...drying xtals is a different issue, but evaping solvent is not an issue.

My best advice is to use smaller amounts of naphtha so that you don't have to evap anything at all. If you keep your pulls under 100mL you won't have to evap anything. Use a tad more for larger amounts I use 100-300mL for 500g extractions...yeah you need to do more pulls, but I hate evaporating naphtha in my home. After 5 solvent pulls my jug is usually almost spent. This is better for an A/B because of the problem of the mimosa sludge eating up the naphtha in a STB extraction, but if you are not having this issue then just use less naphtha per pull.

Almost all the STB and A/B teks out there call for WAY too much naphtha in my opinion. This is why there are so many "failed" extractions, because people are using extreme amounts (more is better right?) of naphtha and its just not getting concentrated enough to crash out in the freezer. Use less naphtha for BETTER results!
 
When it comes to lye I have to disagree, just a little though. If I put a certain amount of lye in a certain amount of water, I did that to reach a certain concentration of my choice. By changing either water or lye, I will change that concentration (not only talking pH here). This is of course only a concern when you reach a certain degree of experimentation with your own method, not when you're a novice. So sorry if I sounded complex, you're most certainly right. The pH won't shift +/- 1 until you've diluted/concentrated ten times the original volume. I just wanted to make it clear that the amount of lye you want depends on the amount of water, not MHRB.

I were a bit unclear there too, sorry again. Heptane is a whole other story for me than naphtha. But almost every time I evaporate heptane, I get some small amount of oxidizing, and that's why I'm careful when it comes to evaporating stuff. Most logically the oxidizing happens when stuff starts to precipitate out into the air though, so I guess I'm safe for just evaporating down. Is this correctly assumed?

Thanks for the fan tip, I'll make sure to try it when I'm just evaporating down, not evaporating all. Yes, but the N-Oxide changes the experience a bit and makes the powder a whole lot more difficult to handle (it's nature is not solid in STP). I often try to make clean spice, and then oxidize it (by evaporating or hydrogen peroxide) to my favourite amount of oxidization! I actually prefer a little, as a beginner, but I still want to control the level of oxidization to not end up with something I can't scrape up firmly.

I often use small amounts, the thing is just that I'm ending a period of extracting and I have a LOT of naphtha I've used several times. It won't probably yield a lot if I just freeze precipitated it just now, so I want to get it a little more concentrated. Also, I've been having a little problems with emulsion with this last extraction (too little space and therefore also lack of water), so I've been using a little more than usual.

My recommendation is also to use a little less naphtha, and add some table salt to the solution (more lye won't hurt either). With these conditions it's possible to shake a lot more, and therefore get more concentrated pulls and finally, greater yields from freeze precipitation.

I really appreciate the answer acolon_5, you always seem to have such well-written ones! 😉
 
I see what you are saying about the concentration vs pH, but I still don't think it's going to affect yields.. I mean, if you dump 1/2 of your STB into another jug and then fill both to the top, yeah, you're probably going to affect pH a bit.

Also keep in mind that I prefer A/B extractions, and have only done a few STB's. So most of my biases and thoughts come from these few experiences with STB. Although my recommedation for the amount of naphtha per pull is the same no matter how you extract.

I think that even with STB many people add way too much lye, not that this creates a problem, but it's just a bit wasteful to me. You don't need to get it to a pH of 14 to have a very successfull STB.

Yes, for evaporating off some of the solvent, you are rather safe from oxidization....you should be able to see any DMT N-Oxide that forms because it is practically insoluable in heptane and will fall right out. This shouldn't really happen, like I said, the amount of actual DMT freebase that is exposed to the air is limited by the surface area exposed to the air, even then, most is protected by the naphtha molecules that surround it.
 
Just throwing in my 2c, I never evap - period. I pull and freeze it. Pour naptha still freezing cold back into my jar with my solution. I turn the collection jar upside down and let it air dry, but this gives off little to no smell that will attract unwanted attention.
 
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