• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

Stupid Question, Probably

brokedownpalace10

brokedownpalace10

Titanium Teammate
Donator
Been too busy to play for a while and looking for something I could do (even more so) in bits of free time here and there.
I've done a STB on ACRB and it worked, poorly. I have no PH meter/paper so STB is easy with the overbasifying.
What if one were to extract the ACRB with vinegar water, dry the extract,then do a STB?
Would the dried extract then lose it's acidity? If so, would I use a 1:1 ratio of lye to the original bark or to the extract?
Would the extraction be more efficient with all the plant matter out of the picture? I realize it would not be as good as an A/B.
On the original STB from powdered bark I pulled and pulled and just kept getting a little more each time. First pull was Naptha but Xylene seemed to get more.
 
It does seem to be better to pre-acidify ACRB before adding base. It should still work to extract having done B/A/B as you plan; if you're accustomed to adding excess base and can spare it, having a little excess vinegar in with the bark won't do any harm.

If you can get hold of red cabbage in any form, you can make indicator solution. It will turn blue in alkali, green-yellow in strong alkali.

If you decide to remove the plant material it's best to strain it out of the acidic phase and maybe do another acid boil with it.
 
I didn't ask my question as clearly as I should have. Mea culpa. This was a brand new extraction. In my previous STB I pulled and pulled and it finally did slow down. The bark solution was gummy and gooey, it seemed.

I am busy taking care of my woman after surgery and I was looking for something I could do in little installments before she wakes up. I was actually mostly wondering if drying the acid pull totally would remove acidity.

Anyway, I did what I should have done at first and started to play and read. First, I found that vinegar does evaporate cleanly. Then I started a 10 gram extraction, the smallest I've ever done, (I've done 20 grams a few times). This is for fun and learning. It's been a while since I partook and the process can be a preparative ritual IMO.

A few quick extractions with 50% vinegar followed by one with water. In a bowl with a fan overnight. This morning it was pretty thick and no vinegar smell.
Added water and 10 grams lye, pulled 3x with Xylene and the pulls did get more cloudy than the STB at first and tapered off more quickly.
It's all sitting in the garage for the Xylene to evap and for the lye to work a little more in the bark solution. I'll pull once more tomorrow morning.
Then I think I'm gonna throw the bark back in, add water and 10 more grams lye, let sit for a couple/few days, and see if I can pull any more.

This is taking me 1/2 hour to an hour each morning. I'll learn a lot about getting every last drop with ACRB. And, it's kinda fun. You did give me some useful data in your reply, as I always get here. Thanks!

Hey, has anybody done the acid pulls on the ACRB and then tried the "spent" bark in an oral Ayahuasca combo?
 
Last edited:
Transform said:
Sounds like your experiment is on track, and a STB on the 'spent' bark would be a reasonable way of checking the efficacy of the acidic pulls. (y)
Click to expand...
Thanks again for all your expertise always.
When doing the vinegar extract on the bark, I used 50/50 vinegar but only boiled about 1/2 hour per pull.
I did three like that, then one identically with less vinegar and one with straight water.
So, a quick extract, but not bad.
I overbased the spent bark yesterday and did one pull it with an excess of Xylene this morning.

The Xylene was fairly yellow. I don't know if I'll get a chance to essay that separately. I'm pretty busy and quantities are small.
But, there was surely still a significant amount of something to be gotten.
I think a useful experiment would be to try the "spent" bark in an Aya brew. People talk about using a teaspoon of bark. Maybe twice that of spent bark would surprise you.

Not a rigorous trail. But it told me something. ACRB is disappointing in yield. I'm looking for an easy way, as I do.
A simple acid extract needs to be followed by a STB or, possibly, using the bark orally.
It does go much easier working with the acid extract later when pulling with a non-polar than with the whole bark.
 
brokedownpalace10 said:
ACRB is disappointing in yield. I'm looking for an easy way, as I do.
Click to expand...
It seems acacia in general requires a different approach, of which there's active discussion in the acacia extraction workspace. The ease of STB extraction from MHRB may well have caused the community to be a little complacent. There's a strong argument for finishing off extractions with a xylene pull to maximise the yields as, e.g., @Kalitechnik recently observed.

brokedownpalace10 said:
The Xylene was fairly yellow
Click to expand...
This leaves me looking forward to hearing how your xylene pull turns out after evaporation. You may also want to consider backsalting into vinegar and recovering from that acidic solution in one of various ways - direct addition of lye in water, which can precipitate freebase if enough is present, as per @doubledog's recent observation, or evaporate down and mix to a paste with lime or SC as the base, then, after drying, pull with something like acetone, ethanol or heptane, all of which are less stinky than xylene to evaporate (but you're only using a tiny bit of it for this small scale experiment).
 
I've been reading the thread on extracting with acetone or ethanol. There was a lot of conjecture and varied results. I did find it pretty interesting but it's left me with questions more than answers.

A common problem in the thread seemed to be the sc coming through into the alcohol. My guess would be that any water at all in the alcohol (even 5%) adds to that considerably.
In my case, I've overbased with lye, so I'm thinking I wouldn't have to add any sc or lime to the mix before drying to a paste. Or would I?
And, isn't lye somewhat soluble in alcohol? So how much lye would you think would come through into the alcohol? I do have 99% IPA.
Could I just evap the alcohol, add water and a little xylene, shake well, and pull the xylene to remove any lye since it is insoluble in xylene and soluble in water?

Xylene is nasty stuff, so it's nice to minimize the quantity used. Naptha is nicer to work with. But, xylene gets the NMT out of the Acacia better.
I do think that NMT definitely does flavor the experience. I actually like to make changa with acacia and then add DMT from MHRB to taste.

Oh, and do you think the initial vinegar/water extraction gets the NMT? If not, it's possible that what I got out of the "spent" bark is NMT.
 
brokedownpalace10 said:
In my case, I've overbased with lye, so I'm thinking I wouldn't have to add any sc or lime to the mix before drying to a paste. Or would I?
And, isn't lye somewhat soluble in alcohol?
Click to expand...
If there's a significant amount of leftover lye, I personally wouldn't pull it with alcohol or acetone, on account of the solubility of lye in the former and the reactivity of the latter. (Although, see below.)
brokedownpalace10 said:
Oh, and do you think the initial vinegar/water extraction gets the NMT? If not, it's possible that what I got out of the "spent" bark is NMT.
Click to expand...
NMT acetate should be freely soluble in water, although the N-H bond, as found in the NMT side chain, is labile so it quite conceivably may have a stronger tendency to remain bound by things like plant tannins. With xylene's stronger solvation properties, its ability to pick up traces of tryptamines that dissociate from a tannin matrix would drive further dissociation, leading to the increased yields, this in addition to its ability to dissolve the oligomers that are largely insoluble in naphtha below its boiling point.

A careful analysis and comparison of naphtha pulls against subsequent xylene pulls would throw more light on this question. I don't specifically know anything about NMT's tendency to form oligomers, however.

brokedownpalace10 said:
Could I just evap the alcohol, add water and a little xylene, shake well, and pull the xylene to remove any lye since it is insoluble in xylene and soluble in water?
Click to expand...
This seems like a reasonable idea, although it's worth bearing in mind that lye will form a fair amount of sodium carbonate from contact with the atmosphere as the solution dries out. Otherwise, lye tends to be deliquescent which makes it hard to dry out (until it has formed the carbonate).
 
Well, I finally got to try that Xylene pull on the "spent" bark. As you said, it was a small amount to it is hard for me to make a real call. I evaped onto a tiny bit of Passionflower and got 1 hit. Nothing to write home about but it was definitely active. I did feel more "body feeling" and less colorful stuff, which is what NMT rich changa does for me. However, that is also the case to an extent with light doses (which this surely was), so who knows?

So, not a very good experiment. The only thing it tells me for sure is that the first vinegar extraction did not get everything. Even with all the caveats, I think it did show that.

Acacia is indeed hard to work with. Xylene seems to be needed and a lot of pulls... and Xylene's nasty. I've extracted larger batches before and Xylene will definitely get more after Naptha pulls peter out

To minimize the sovents, next time I do an extraction on ACRB I'm considering trying to get what I can out of the bark with 99% IPA. Then follow with 1 Naptha and a couple Xylene pulls.

What do you think of this?
Basify bark with SC or Lye. (Lye and/or SC would have to be removed later)
Dry - extract with IPA
Dry - add water and overbase
Pull with Naptha
Pull with Xylene

Transform said:
This seems like a reasonable idea, although it's worth bearing in mind that lye will form a fair amount of sodium carbonate from contact with the atmosphere as the solution dries out. Otherwise, lye tends to be deliquescent which makes it hard to dry out (until it has formed the carbonate).
Click to expand...
I'm assuming Sodium carbonate as well as lye is insoluble with both Naptha and Xylene?
 
Back
Top Bottom