To powder or not to powder, that is the... Well, that is one of about 50 questions.

[SazzleToe]

I’ve learned most of what I know by pushing DeepSeek into helping me build a theoretical research paper on DMT extraction. It has been useful, but some of the variance in its explanations makes me question whether I’m interpreting certain steps correctly. These are my main questions:

1. Root bark particle size.
I’m starting with chunked bark because I want the freshest possible material. I have a heavy-duty grain mixer that can reduce it to either stringy fibers (after a short cycle) or a very fine powder (after several minutes). The powder obviously maximizes surface area for protonation during the acidic phase, but it becomes extremely difficult to process afterward. Büchner funnels clog, separatory funnels clog, and removing the powder completely is a chore. Would it be better to leave the bark more fibrous and simply extend the acid cook instead?


2. Ultrasonic bath vs ultrasonic homogenizer.
My current method uses a 2 L beaker containing 100 g of bark and 1000 mL of water, adjusted to pH 3.2–3.5. The beaker sits in a 40/40 kHz ultrasonic cleaner with constant overhead stirring, usually run for 60 minutes at 60–65°C. I’m wondering whether an ultrasonic homogenizer (the handheld probe type) would be superior. The ultrasonic bath gives cavitation and sound-wave penetration, while the homogenizer introduces massive shear forces. My concern is whether the homogenizer generates problematic emulsions, and whether emulsions even matter at that stage.

3. Salting the acidic solution before defatting.
I was told that salting the tea (still in the acidic phase) prior to defatting helps with separation. In practice, once I’ve filtered out most solids and then add NaCl, I see a sudden resurgence of suspended organic material. It makes me wonder how much DMT might be getting trapped in that organic layer. Should I skip salting at this stage? Or should I salt, keep the organic junk in suspension, then basify and run everything through a separatory funnel that allows the heavier particulates to pass?

4. Timing after basification.
Once the solution is made basic, how long should it sit before adding the nonpolar solvent? Does deprotonation occur instantly, or is there an optimal wait time (e.g., several hours) to ensure complete conversion?

5. Mixing the basified solution with the nonpolar solvent.
How aggressive should the mixing be? I know vigorous shaking can cause emulsions, but if most of the organic debris has been removed by this point, emulsions are less of a risk. I’m also interested in automation, because manually shaking for minutes at a time is inefficient. Are orbital shakers or similar devices sufficient, or is something stronger required?

6. HCl precipitation vs freeze precipitation.
I’ve been told that adding a hydrochloric acid solution directly to the final nonpolar solvent will cause DMT to crash out immediately as the salt form, eliminating the need for freeze precipitation. I’m curious whether this method is reliable, scalable, and clean.

7. Solvent recovery.
Is a rotovap the best tool for recovering spent solvent, or are there more efficient or simpler options for small-batch extractions?

These are just a few of the questions I’m working through, but they’re a good starting point for feedback.

 

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1. Finer the better.

A wet A/B isn't the only way, I follow a dry tek (q21q21). Besides filtration issues, it's just needlessly tedious to cook the bark for hours and concentrate the liquid down, especially if starting with powdered bark. The q21q21 tek just soaks the powder in warm vinegar for 30 minutes, and doesn't need to separate the bark. You end up mixing calcium hydroxide into the warm, vinegar-infused bark powder and the DMT is ready to be pulled straight away. The whole process takes less than an hour.

2. I think they're both good, I know for sure baths have been cited in studies.

3. I personally don't use salt. It seems most relevant in Cyb's Max Ion Tek. You don't have to defat MHRB.

4. It should be instant. DMT becomes exposed to oxidation at this stage, since it's no longer water soluble and there's no non-polar solvent to dissolve into. So do your pulls ASAP. People that do straight-to-base teks might wait to let lye break down their bark, particularly if it isn't powdered and since they skipped any acid step.

5. Matter of personal choice I think. I'm on board with saving time and energy, so I use a mud mixer in a power drill.

6. That's incorrect. HCl solution would convert the DMT to its hydrochloride salt, but since there's water it would go into solution. It's also a hygroscopic salt, so it's often reported as a non-solid. I think there's only one reference to HCl crystals and it's sort of a mystery how they got it.

But you have the right idea; you can salt DMT out instantly with benzoic acid, and fumaric acid via the FASA tek. Yea it's pretty reliable, scalable, and clean. So is freeze precipitation.

7. I guess if you have one lying around, but I wouldn't spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on one just for this. If you're salting the DMT out or freeze precipitating it out, the solvent can be recycled as-is. Could distill it once in a while.

 

[aizoaceous]

6. That's incorrect. HCl solution would convert the DMT to its hydrochloride salt, but since there's water it would go into solution. It's also a hygroscopic salt, so it's often reported as a non-solid.

Yeah. I feel like the LLM probably hallucinated from procedures where a solution of HCl in organic solvent (not water) is added to precipitate crystals of an alkaloid with a well-behaved hydrochloride (not DMT).

In general, many of these questions are good, but not directly answerable by any existing literature and thus not answerable by an LLM. You may wish to set up basic analytical facilities and try to answer them yourself in the lab. For example, you can determine how much mixing is required in a liquid-liquid extraction by spotting a sample of the organic solvent on a TLC plate, mixing more, spotting again, and so on, then looking to see how quickly the spot approaches its final maximum intensity (taking care that you don't spot so heavily that it appears to saturate prematurely). TLC is less accurate than the HPLC or GC methods that would be used in a professional lab, but it tells you quite a lot for <$100 initial investment.