ChemisTryptaMan
Rising Star
I wanted to mention here quickly that I am in the middle of a STB tek where I follow the same proportions of Lye:Naptha:Water:MHRB. In this case I am using 100 g MHRB. I had recently been thinking about the effect of the ionic strength of the aqueous layer in the efficiency of the reaction. I decided to add 150g of crude salt to the mix to see if more spice is pushed into the NPS. I havent yet added the Naptha, but I just checked the jars and in each of them there is a very thin(about a half of a millimeter) layer of oil floating on top of the solution. This leads me to believe that the plant oils are being forced out of the solution. It stands to reason then that all non-polar molecules are less soluble in the aqueous mix. I hope this translates into more efficient pulls but now fear an issue with the oil content. I will let all of you know how my pulls turn out, but think this may be a valuable addition to the already simple to use STB tek. With an A/B tek where no oil is present, I think adding salt to the mix may turn out to be even more beneficial. I have done this before with much smaller amounts of salt but never enough to raise the ionic strength enough to make a considerable difference. Thoughts?
Edit: I should have left a few jars without the salt just to compare. The closest thing to a control that I have is the last few jars I only added 90 to 100g instead of the 150g I added to the rest of them.
Edit: I should have left a few jars without the salt just to compare. The closest thing to a control that I have is the last few jars I only added 90 to 100g instead of the 150g I added to the rest of them.
