Skinning cactus: not really necessary

[cactophage]

Hi.

Until I can go paddle with the grown ups, I figured I'd post some of my recent findings on San Pedro here.

After tiring of the labour intensive practice of removing skins before making a cactus tea, a friend of my uncle's decided to make teas purely out of

1) the waxy outer skin, and

2) the inner core (at this age not woody),

of a 1ft San Pedro cactus of known potency.

he drank both (separately), reasoning that if they did nothing, he was under no obligation to either remove the skin or include the core in his brews.

His first brew tasted only ever so slightly slightly bitter and had no discernible effects. He concluded that there's little point removing the waxy skin if you're planning to strain / seive the solids later.

The second brew reduced very carefully under very low heat to the "goop" stage; tasted real nasty indeed, with a less "planty" alkaloid flavour than goop made from green flesh and a bit more tang (if possible). he felt mild nausea and possible threshold effects. He will need to conduct further experiments to be sure if these are useful; they may make reasonable fodder for eg a d-limo tek.

 

[Virola78]

I would like to know if the core contains enough (if any) mescaline to make an extraction (69ron style) worthwhile. Otherwise it would be a waste of chemicals. Remember Plux- posting somewhere about cats actually extracting mesc from (only?) the white flesh.

Very interested to hear more about bioassay on the white flesh.
If you can bear the nausea. I would not.

Some bridgesii is on the way
and perhaps there will be a pull on the white flesh

I seem the time has come 8)

 

[SnozzleBerry]

I would like to know if the core contains enough (if any) mescaline to make an extraction (69ron style) worthwhile. Otherwise it would be a waste of chemicals. Remember Plux- posting somewhere about cats actually extracting mesc from (only?) the white flesh.

Very interested to hear more about bioassay on the white flesh.
If you can bear the nausea. I would not.

Some bridgesii is on the way
and perhaps there will be a pull on the white flesh

I seem the time has come 8)

I've gotten resin from my white cores that looked identical to the other cactus resin. It hasn't been bioassayed or extracted, but that's on my to-do list at some point in the next couple months. If you experiment with this, I'd love to see your results.

 

[Madcap]

I've got a bag of core powder that I have ben saving just for this reason. Just been too lazy to f with it so far.

 

[kushy]

In my experience with the sludge tea, it's best to take a knife and basically remove most of the cactus material except for the most center core.

Past batches that included the core caused much more nausea.
Also from what I have heard from word of mouth and other teks, the inner "wooden" core contains a minimal amount of mescaline.
If you plan on doing a pure extract with d-lim I have usually heard of the entire cactus being used.

And as the OP said, I agree. Mescaline bearing cactus are truly amazing.

 

[cactophage]

After 3 cycles of freezing / thawing san pedro chunks, my friend reports a large volume of clear, thick liquid that contains no solid particulate matter is easily poured off from the solids. He's going to bioassay this stuff, but suspects it will be both strong and pleasant enough to drink.

He is thinking of a tek that uses this "freezer juice" recombined with a water extraction of the remaining solids, reduced slowly over low heat - without any of the snotty celluloids / fats / opaque particles which add bulk and goop to the liquid and limit its reduction.

If the "freezer juice" ends up containing a rather high concentration of alkaloids as he suspects it does, he may keep this as a "special reserve". If this proves a fruitful line of enquiry, he will post his results with pictures.

 

[cactophage]

Also worth mentioning (though I'm not the first to notice this): 3 freeze/thaw cycles makes the waxy skin hugely easier to remove.

 

[cactophage]

I would like to know if the core contains enough (if any) mescaline to make an extraction (69ron style) worthwhile. Otherwise it would be a waste of chemicals. Remember Plux- posting somewhere about cats actually extracting mesc from (only?) the white flesh.

Me too. There's a lot of "folklore" about San Pedro and very little evidence. SWIM may not have a laboratories as befits a scientist, but can bioassay the fruits of his cookery with some accuracy - so, with just a little thought it's quite possible to do scientific experiments to ascertain real answers to some of the unknowns we're dealing with, eg:

* does the core have any mescaline content? If so, how much, and how does the balance of other alkaloids colour the experience compared to the rest of the cactus?
* are alkaloids concentrated in the green flesh? If so, what percentage remains in the white flesh? Do the experiences the green & white flesh yield vary qualitatively?
* does prolonged exposure to heat by e.g. boiling break down the active constituents? Above what threshold?

etc. Let's do some science, people