Shellite pulls are clear, Yellowish oil

[EvilSparx]

After doing various extractions of different Acacias, I've noticed that my Shellite pulls are always clear, but when I evaporate it, no crystals form, only a sticky olive oil residue. This could be due to the fact that the Acacias I am using do not contain any DMT, but surely there should be a little more oils than that? I do perform 2-3 defats with either shellite or mineral turpentine, so maybe that is why. When I try smoking the oil, I don't feel anything, although it does taste like burning plastic, I'm more worried that I'm inhaling Shellite vapour. Any suggestions? (Besides identifying an Acacia Obtusifolia)

(Edit) I'm doing an A/B tek

 

[Du57mi73]

Maybe you are not basifying enough. Are you positive your pH is high enough to freebase the DMT?

 

[Tranzcentral]

I wouldn't use turps for a de-fat...i know its a small amount, but just use shellite, i've never heard of anyone using turps before...

My shellite pulls are very clear also. Remember if your using borosilicate glass, you need to get it much hotter than your regular glass. Has to be the right temp during your acid soak, if not hot enough, then you'll have some troubles and wont have any crystals, they will all still be in your extract.

This has happened to me once, extract simply wasn't hot enough, so first yield was only 400mg. I had to re-base the extract and start again. Something as not being hot enough can ruin everything, or rather make it much more time consuming.

So if your using lab grade borosilate glass, get it nice and hot.

 

[pitubo]

After doing various extractions of different Acacias, I've noticed that my Shellite pulls are always clear, but when I evaporate it, no crystals form, only a sticky olive oil residue. This could be due to the fact that the Acacias I am using do not contain any DMT, but surely there should be a little more oils than that?

Could be lots of things, hard to tell if you're not really specific about the things you did in the course of extracting.
You don't even mention what you're extracting; bark, phyllodes or leaves. These require different techniques for best results.

Search the forum for a proven technique for your choice of plant material, use that technique and then reference the location where the technique you used is described when asking questions about that technique. That makes it much easier to help you.

I do perform 2-3 defats with either shellite or mineral turpentine, so maybe that is why.

If you have doubts about the defatting treatments, you could always do an acid wash of the defatting solvent and then basify and extract that with fresh solvent. Evaporate/freeze and see what you get.

When I try smoking the oil, I don't feel anything, although it does taste like burning plastic, I'm more worried that I'm inhaling Shellite vapour. Any suggestions? (Besides identifying an Acacia Obtusifolia)

My guess is that you're inhaling more Shellite while doing extractions than when smoking the (properly evaporated) oily residue. Burning plastic sure does sound awfully much like DMT though (burning plastic shit would be even better).

 

[EvilSparx]

Ok, So I collected about 1 kilo a 70/30 bark phyllode blend. (Yes, I made sure to damage the trees as little as possible, got it all off a couple of what I suspect were longifolia or floribunda)

I acidified water with tartaric acid (following elfspices tek) and put the blended up bark and phyllodes in it for 24 hours. After this, I filtered with a cloth and stored the Acidified water in a large crockpot (Not aluminium). I then recovered the bark and simmered it twice for and hour and recovered the liquids after straining, which I then poured into the crock pot.

I reduced the acidified water down to about 1.5 litres, let it cool a little, then poured it into 2 separate jars. About 50 mls of shellite was added to each jar, which was then agitated and stirred.

The shellite absorbed a bunch of fats and oils (Which shouldn't contain DMT, as the alkaloid is in an acidic solution), which I then filtered out with a crudely designed separation funnel (I used a HDPE plastic wine glass, with a hole in the bottom. Works great)

The remaining layer was siphoned off with a syringe, and one more run of the separation funnel was used to ensure no shellite was in the final mix. This was done twice to both jars.

I added 5 teaspoons of 98% Sodium Hydroxide slowly to 250 mls of water, until it all dissolved. I then added half of the solution to each jar slowly while stirring. The dark brown liquid went even darker.

I added 50-75 mls of shellite to each jar, swirled and agitate for a good 5 minutes. A small emulsion formed, but there was a distinct seperation within 10 minutes, so I began to pull up the shellite with the syringe.

As the shellite was quite clear (Some pulls were milky) I skipped the water wash process, and instead put the shellite pulls straight onto a plate to evaporate. I did 2 shellite pulls for each jar.

Upon leaving it overnight to evaporate, I got the results of barely any oils, and no crystals (Probably no DMT in plant).

What worries me the most is that I'm not getting more oils, as my extraction couldn't have been that clean, and for 1 kilo of material, I was expecting some sort of yellow/orange goo/oil.

 

[pitubo]

EvilSparx, I have to admit that I have exactly zero experience extracting phyllodes, so I won't be of much direct help, but I hope that your more specific account will help others to help you more.

With regard to oils vs. crystals, it is not uncommon to not get nice crystals right away, certainly not when doing a first or experimental extraction. Some plant material, like mimosa hostilis root bark gives spectacular crystals from straight to base extractions even if done sloppily. Other plant materials only give results that just won't crystallize nicely, even though the extraction was done by the book, even as the result may be >90% dmt. A bit of plant oil or wax can royally screw up crystal formation. Sometimes it's not oil and wax but nmt or tryptamine or other alkaloids that prevent easy crystal growth. Sometimes the crystals only form after a long time. Just because you have not yet gotten crystals doesn't mean your extraction was a failure.

Nevertheless, apart from the extraction questions, you should also try to verify that you are indeed extracting the right plant. Even if I were knowledgable about acacias (which I am not) I couldn't help you as you have not provided any means of identification of your material.

 

[EvilSparx]

I have a new batch of phyllodes and twigs which I have collected. I found a government/local council website that stated that in a particular area near my location, was a sort of foresty area. It had a list of species of common plants, one of which was an Acacia Obtusifolia shrub. I went there and found what I do believe should be Obtusifolia. There was also no mention of any other type of Acacia there, so I am quite confident in my new findings. Will post results soon.

 

[JefFlux]

Hi EvilSparx,
Just saw your post while trying to work out what a clear almost watery substance on the evaporation plate might be.
Your method and plant sources are similar to how I have been working.
I quickly abandoned Longifolia though as not worth the hassle. Floribunda was the first acacia from which I could smell the tryptamines after extraction, although negligible yield.
Subsequent attempts with Maidennii yielded a clear oil with low viscosity that smelt of tryptamine but did little to smoke (when mixed with Caapi leaf).
A recent attempt with Acuminata phylodes gave an unmistakable milky white hue to the Shellite and crystal formation was visible on the plate...Without the usual Xylene de-fat this time, on scraping though it quickly reformed into an opaque honey like oil of about 1 percent by weight that sure as hell works to smoke !
It is so important to work with reliable material given the many variabilities ...although I learnt much about the practicalities of extraction the process. Elfspice's tek calls for 5 teaspoons of NaOH which I do feel may be on the low side...and many say a 1:1 ratio of Plant matter to Lye is called for this also seems excessive. My rule of thumb has been base till black and it seems to be working. However, there is a distinct chemical taste to my spice that I would like to eliminate with some fine tuning.
hope this helps, and as I see the thread is almost two years old, assume you have had great success since,
cheers

 

[Asho]

You need to get ahold of acacia acuminata my friend can do a ab or stb should still result in good yeild