some preliminary WARNINGS about the use of ethanol as a solvent in thye procedure described below:
- Ethanol is flammable and ethanol vapors are potentially explosive. Keep away from open fire and other sources of ignition (even static sparks), especially ethanol vapors.
- Obviously, all evaporation should be done in a highly ventilated area, preferably outside, and away from any sources of ignition.
- Other handling of hot ethanol should also be done in a well ventilated area.
- Additionally, breathing ethanol vapors that accumulate in an enclosed small space may cause loss of critical faculties and coordination of the operator.
- Be careful. Think ahead of what could go wrong and take adequate precautions.
Use no more ethanol than you need to cover the herbs with. Fill your mixing container with the herbs to measure its height in the container. Then remove the herbs again and fill the container with the ethanol. Now heat the mixing container with ethanol in a pre-prepared hot water bath. Try to use a container that you can close with a lid while you are not stirring. Otherwise too much water vapor might get into the ethanol and too much ethanol vapor gets into the atmosphere while you're working.
Add the harmala freebase first, it is the hardest to get to dissolve. The ethanol probably needs to be near boiling before the harmala freebase will dissolve completely. You may also need to stir or swirl a lot. When the harmala freebase has fully dissolved, you can add the dmt freebase, and this should dissolve readily. If any of the alkaloids will not dissolve fully, despite heating and stirring, only then add more ethanol and allow for the added ethanol to heat up. When all alkaloids have dissolved, then finally add your herbs, but leave a little bit (about 5%) out for later use. Now you are ready to evaporate the ethanol off.
Ideally, you should evaporate the ethanol as fast as reasonably possible. To do this, make sure the water bath is close to boiling again and cover it with some plastic wrap with a hole in it just wide enough to fit your ethanol, alkaloids and herb container. This stops the evaporation of the water in the bath, which would otherwise cause the water bath too cool down unnecessarily and it would deposit water vapor into the ethanol mixture, slowing down its evaporation.
A small fan can help speed up evaporation. Change the water in the water bath with fresh boiling water when the bath temperature too low. Keep stirring regularly to ensure good mixing and even deposition of the alkaloids on the herbal matrix. This gets more important as the amount of ethanol decreases to a small layer below the top of the herbs.
When almost no ethanol is present as a liquid, take the container out of the water bath, dry the container's outer side from water, and dump the still hot and ethanol-wet changa onto a preheated dish. The larger exposed surface should aid in getting the final bits of ethanol to evaporate quickly.
Now you'll probably notice a lot of residue sticking on the inside of the container. Use half of the herbs that you saved earlier to scrape the walls clean. Add these herbs to the dish and mix it in with the drying changa. When the changa in the dish has dries sufficiently, put it on another clean dish. The other dish probably also has accumulated some residue. Wet the last bits of clean herb that you reserved with ethanol and wipe the residue from the dish with it. Add this herb to the bowl and mix thoroughly.
The last step is to place the bowl in an oven preheated to 140 degrees Celcius. The oven must be turned off before you put the bowl inside it. I cannot stress this enough, the oven must be turned off before placing the ethanol-wet changa mix inside. When ethanol vapor comes in contact with anything hotter than 365 degrees centigrade, it spontaneously takes fire (or perhaps even explodes). The heater element when red hot, or even a spark from the thermostat switch, are hotter than that. Make sure that the oven is turned off, so that none of this can happen while there are ethanol vapors inside the oven.
With the bowl of almost dry changa inside, leave the oven door slightly ajar to let ethanol and water vapor escape. You can only do this oven drying when the changa has only minute traces of ethanol present or else the amount of vapor given off would be dangerous. After an hour of drying, the oven will be sufficiently cool to take out the bowl with changa. Smell test to check for the presence of ethanol. If no more smell of ethanol is discernible, store the changa in a closed jar and smoke and share as you like.
I repeat one more time that all evaporation should be done outside, well away from sources of ignition. Other handling of hot ethanol should also be done in a well ventilated area. Ethanol is flammable, ethanol vapors are potentially explosive. Additionally, breathing ethanol vapors that accumulate in an enclosed small space can cause loss of critical faculties and coordination of the operator.
Be careful. Enjoy
