My buddy just followed this tek to a TEE and only got 400 mg of acetate from 51 grams of bark that yields 1.2% freebase with a STB. I'm assuming (logically) that when freebased, this is going to decrease in weight substantially. Any ideas on where I could've gone wrong?
Tough to say. On a bad day, Swim gets only a little over 6g from 450g of bark. That's from a super supplier that has real good bark, which is one factor. Now you basically did 1/9 of that, meaning if you got swim's yields you'd have roughly 6/9 of a gram, or 2/3, or ~666mg. You got two thirds of that. Could be your bark, could be your tek. Could be cuz you're working with such small amounts, those couple hundred mg that always get lost sticking to the sides of your containers and whatnot are a bigger deal than they are to swim who does a pound at a time at least.
For what it's worth, swim doesn't lose a whole lot during the freebasification process, but again he's working with larger numbers. Also swim gets those yields going STB with NaOH, after cooking the bark in an acidic solution for a few hours (these daze he cooks in a crock pot with 23g citric acid per pound for several hours before pouring the whole thing, liquid and bark sludge and all, into his basification chamber and adding hella NaOH, this seems to give the ultimate yield). Anyway maybe try again using this mehtod, with more bark... I dunno. YMMV.
you say sodium carbonate is not good for STB... are you talking about dry or wet. i can understand how it would be bad to use in a wet tek, but will a drytek sodium carbonate STB work? that poor canadian dude never had his question answered Sad
Sorry man didn't answer cuz I don't know. Never tried a dry tek before. Might work. Lemme know if you try it.
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A few more things I thought of that may be pertinent:
Swim no longer uses vinegar to salt out, cuz he's found that if you evap vinegar it leaves behind some kinda residue. Obviously it's not harmful and probly won't make it thru to the final stage if you're freebasing, but it makes the acetate salt solution taste yucky (he likes to dissolve 'em in hot water and keep 'em in an eyedropper bottle for oral administration by adding a dropperfull to a shot of water and taking it on top of harmaloids).
These daze he uses glacial acetic acid. It's nice cuz you can drop some into your dimitrified limo and it clouds up as the alkaloids crash out. Then he adds a little distilled water, lets it set overnight so they all salt out, and evaps for a much cleaner acetic salt goo, which is then redissolved in a little hot distilled water.
Salting out time seems to be a factor... you will lose yield if you don't allow enough time for diffusion to make all the alkaloids go from limo to gar. Keep that in mind if you find your yields are lower than Swim's, there may still be some in your limo.