pete666 said:
I can't help myself, but exposing mescaline freebase to the air, or even heat doesn't sound good to my ears. I never understood dry teks for this reason. I don't have problem baking salted mescaline, but I would never leave fb exposed to the air.
Moreover dry teks seem to be quite messy compared to STB.
Sorry friends, I am not saying that I am sure STB is better. I rather think I don't get something. What are the reasons for anyone selecting drytek? Avoiding lye? The danger of accident?
Hey pete666,
I believe that Loveall covered most of the explanation about using heat as it is in freebase form. Originally, and still, I don't use heat once I have converted the salt into freebase. I believe Loveall was experimenting, and that is encouraged!
The point of this thread, from the beginning, was to build a collaboration of different approaches to see which ones will produce results that the community is looking for.
In this particular tek, the solvent that is pulling the
mescaline from the mix is acetone. Others have used ethanol and isopropyl alcohol. I am not sure if their results have been posted, but all of the mentioned solvents are miscible with water. So the "dry" part of the drytek is to remove as much water as possible.
Why would someone want to use this approach over any others? There can be many answers, and some would say that they prefer other approaches over this one. Some people don't like lye, some folks don't like xylene or toluene - or other solvents that may be considered less safe.
Acetone, ethanol, and isopropyl are all relatively safe to work with. They don't smell like xylene or toluene. Some people use D-limonene instead of xylene or toluene. In some cases that is fine, but d-limonene has a very strong citrus scent, and it is often difficult to remove all traces of the aroma/flavor from the final product. If you like oranges, then this might be fine! I liked oranges..... a few liters of d-limonene later.... I almost preferred the smell of toluene.
Acetone could not be used to directly pull
mescaline from an aqueous mix. The acetone is miscible with water, so there would be no layers of separation - thus the drytek allows for sufficient separation and filtration of the acetone from the "dry" cactus blend without worrying about excess water. Excess water would introduce ions into the acetone/water mix.
Once the acetone is separated from the cacti mix, water is fine - if you are following the
mescaline sulfate preparation method. Many of the other
mescaline salts will be soluble in even a small amount of water. So, with the titration of sulfuric acid into the acetone/
mescaline the
mescaline sulfate will crash, and continue to crash when placed in the freezer - even if there is water present.
Some people cannot find sodium hydroxide in their area, thus they are limited to calcium hydroxide. While calcium hydroxide is not very soluble in water, it's still capable of raising the pH of a cacti paste to a sufficient level for extraction. It will not fully dissociate in water, and is not considered a "strong" base.... though it's a pretty strong base. I suppose the inability to fully dissociate and lower pH values are appealing to some people? I wrote this for people to use as an experimental basis. If they find that the calcium hydroxide works fine, and is easily sourced from a grocery store, then that may be a consideration worth investigating.
I hope that I have helped clarify any questions regarding the nature of a drytek vs a wet tek. There are no "better" approaches, however people have their preferences.
edit: I forgot to address the air issue. Yes, there would possibly be some oxidation in the time between adding the calcium hydroxide and reaching full dryness, but I'd keep a lid on the extraction vessel to minimize gas exchange. If you have equipment to put the vessel under reduced pressure until "dry" then that is even better.