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recrystallization

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positive_space

Rising Star
On my first pull of my first extraction ever I ended up with a good amount of lye in it. The result was about 500 mg of some brownish crystals. I redissolved in warm naphtha and siphoned off just the naphtha, then freeze precipitated again. After that, I had about 250/300 mg of some still orange crystals.

Maybe I should have gone straight to recrystallization (with the 500) but, anyway, I thought this 300 mg would be a good little batch to test my skills with. I used bestine and put my shot glass in the fridge. After a couple hours there was a tiny spot of brown in the bottom with white crystals on top that I assumed to be the lye and a small puddle of solvent on top of that. I thought it might be a good idea to just pour the bestine off into another shot glass and stick that in the freezer (rather than having to separate layers).

Anyway, the next morning what I have in the second shot glass looks pretty much the same. It's a small amount of solvent with a tiny amount of something white in the bottom but there's no crystals whatsoever. This is weird. Is it possible that there was more lye than actual dmt in what I had?

Will this procedure work better if I used at least 600 mg of some cleaner crystals? I sure hope so.
 
Can somebody just answer this for me?

Does that make sense what I mentioned about pouring the solvent into another shot glass before sticking in the freezer? In theory, it seems like that could keep you from having to separate the deemsters from the lye.
 
You should not have any lye solution in the naphtha when you stick it in the freezer.

Plant oils, yes, lye solution, no.

it is much better to loose a few mls of naphtha than have 1 drop of basic solution in your final product.

Yes, you should transfer glasses when recrystalizing.

Here I did some leg work for you. Check out these threads for more info:

Washing your Spice - Advanced/Enhanced chemistry - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus washing spice
Glass Shard Re-Crystallization Pictorial - FAQ - All your basic questions and answers - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus Recrystalization
Recrystalization on STB Yield - STB - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus Recrystalization

If you think you have lye contamination you need to do a wash. Don't use ammonia.
If you are looking to get the yellow/orange out 1-2 recrystalizations should do the trick. It's more of an art than a science.
 
If you get some brown spots in your pull but there's no noticeable excess water, pour it through a filter.

Works like a charm.

Especially with Xylene.
 
Wow. Thanks guys. That's great! I'll look at those other posts.

I just realized what an idiot I am. I guess I wasn't sure at first about the white in the shot glass but yeah, it's dmt. Duh! I think the fact that it was whiter than I expected and the fact that it precipitated before even being put in the freezer threw me off. Maybe it's due to the temp. variance since the solvent started out hot?

Anyway, is it normal to have about 2/3 the weight after doing this?
 
Recrystallization removes unwanted alkaloids from the spice, so expect to lose some mass. The more yellow the spice is before recrystallizing, the more mass you'll lose.
 
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