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Using a pressure cooker (PC)

Migrated topic.
This is an old thread, but I tried using a PC yesterday for the acid step, for the first time.

I tried using the pressure cooker for the first boil of the mimosa powder. I left it to cook for about 45 mins and it totally broke the plant material to mush. The texture feels like a few weeks old soup instead of a fresly made one.
I didn't used jars inside the PC, I just throwed the mimosa and water together with a dash of vinegar inside the pot.
I see some dangers to this: While it was boiling, the mimosa powder was splashing violently inside the cooker. If the water level was higher than it should be, this powder could theoretically block the top airflow and cause an explosion.

I believe the PC made the first boil super effective at breaking the plant material very quickly. I'll try again for the next extraction if the yield is decent, and I don't see why It shouldn't be.
 
pantostao said:
This is an old thread, but I tried using a PC yesterday for the acid step, for the first time.

I tried using the pressure cooker for the first boil of the mimosa powder. I left it to cook for about 45 mins and it totally broke the plant material to mush. The texture feels like a few weeks old soup instead of a fresly made one.
I didn't used jars inside the PC, I just throwed the mimosa and water together with a dash of vinegar inside the pot.
I see some dangers to this: While it was boiling, the mimosa powder was splashing violently inside the cooker. If the water level was higher than it should be, this powder could theoretically block the top airflow and cause an explosion.

I believe the PC made the first boil super effective at breaking the plant material very quickly. I'll try again for the next extraction if the yield is decent, and I don't see why It shouldn't be.
Click to expand...
Great! Please write again about how it went. If you follow your old routines for the rest of the extraction you might se how a PC affected the yield.
 
murklan said:
Great! Please write again about how it went. If you follow your old routines for the rest of the extraction you might se how a PC affected the yield.
Click to expand...
I'm following the same procedure as my previous attempts, except for the PC.
I haven't finished yet, but I do have some comments for now:

1.- The PC made the acid boil step super quick and easy. But it broke the plant material "too much", resulting in a very difficult and slow filtering step. It took three days of decanting and vacuum filtering to get it all clean.
I've always extracted from powdered root bark, so I know the filtering is tedious, but this pressure cooked powder was even more tedious, or so I believe.

2.- The yield doesn't seem to be affected for now. I've gotten 0.8% in the first couple pulls with minimal NPS and no heat. I expect to, at least, double that number in the next couple pulls with a bit more NPS and some heat.

Would I recommend using a PC? I don't think it's providing any advantages if you're working with powdered material. It wasn't a disvantage either, if you don't mind waiting longer for proper decanting and filtering.
I'll probably try again next time just to see If I can improve the filtering step.

Edit: The resulting product is the cleanest I've ever seen. It's not even white, it's colorless, transparent, amazing crystals.
 
That's lunar new year spice if I ever saw it 😆 and also 🤩

Thanks for sharing - the first one really brings the phrase "ice-like shards" to mind.

Now, was it thanks to the PC, or more your finely honed extraction skills, I wonder?

And I'm still inclined to suspect that the positions of the planets may have some arcane effect on the outcome of crystallisation (but just for fun)!
 
Great follow up, thank you!
I do never filter the mimosa acid boils and that works well (shredded bark) so have you thought about not filtering? But if you get those crystals then perhaps filtering is really the way to go :)
 
murklan said:
have you thought about not filtering?
Click to expand...
I have tried StB, AtB (no filtering) and A/B with filtering. I don't see any advantages in going AtB without filtering. To me, that seems like performing a longer StB.

Let me explain: the alkaline soup alone is enough to break all the plant material without using an acid beforehand, if you leave it enough time to react. The point of boiling the plant material in acid is to break the cell walls, but this can be achieved through several means (heat, pressure, freeze/thaw cycles, acid or base...). So, if you are going to keep the plant material in the extraction anyways, I don't see the point in starting with an acid step before basifying it all. StB will do the same, only maybe a bit slower because you can't boil the alkaline solution (too risky).

The advantages of filtering, on the other hand, became pretty obvious to me the first time I tried it: I can reduce a huge volume of soup to a minimal amount and perform the naphtha pulls in a 0.5l - 1l bottle. That uses WAY less lye, its easier to manipulate, and you can pull the naphtha easier from a narrower container. Emulsions don't form on the filtered soup even when vigorously shaking it, the naphtha separates quickly and easily, and It gets less yellow-y color.

Also, if you filter, you can use a separating funnel instead of a pipette for both separating the phases and performing a water wash afterwards. I haven't done it yet (even If i do have a separating funnel), but I've seen people do it and, again, it looks way easier than siphoning.

After doing my first A/B, I still tried some StB variations, and they work well for smaller extractions (let's say around 50g of MHRB), but I believe A/B is the way to go once you go past that amount. Mimosa powder is very messy, and filtering it is a bit tedious but super easy, you just need some patience.


Transform said:
That's lunar new year spice if I ever saw it 😆 and also 🤩
Click to expand...

Lol, thank you! That made me laugh. BTW those "finely honed extraction skills" (you make me blush) are nothing more than some practice and lots and lots of reading in here. I don't have any chemistry background, I'm just careful, but I've been learning and improving the process by doing it lots of times in small scale.
 
pantostao said:
I have tried StB, AtB (no filtering) and A/B with filtering. I don't see any advantages in going AtB without filtering. To me, that seems like performing a longer StB.

Let me explain: the alkaline soup alone is enough to break all the plant material without using an acid beforehand, if you leave it enough time to react. The point of boiling the plant material in acid is to break the cell walls, but this can be achieved through several means (heat, pressure, freeze/thaw cycles, acid or base...). So, if you are going to keep the plant material in the extraction anyways, I don't see the point in starting with an acid step before basifying it all. StB will do the same, only maybe a bit slower because you can't boil the alkaline solution (too risky).

The advantages of filtering, on the other hand, became pretty obvious to me the first time I tried it: I can reduce a huge volume of soup to a minimal amount and perform the naphtha pulls in a 0.5l - 1l bottle. That uses WAY less lye, its easier to manipulate, and you can pull the naphtha easier from a narrower container. Emulsions don't form on the filtered soup even when vigorously shaking it, the naphtha separates quickly and easily, and It gets less yellow-y color.

Also, if you filter, you can use a separating funnel instead of a pipette for both separating the phases and performing a water wash afterwards. I haven't done it yet (even If i do have a separating funnel), but I've seen people do it and, again, it looks way easier than siphoning.

After doing my first A/B, I still tried some StB variations, and they work well for smaller extractions (let's say around 50g of MHRB), but I believe A/B is the way to go once you go past that amount. Mimosa powder is very messy, and filtering it is a bit tedious but super easy, you just need some patience.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply and explanation.
I'm aware of the breaking down of plant mater in the base soup, therefore I often don't do long acid boils (or use acid at all) but after a few first pulls let it stand for some days until broken down and then do some more pulls. But like you wrote, I don't do larger extractions then 50 g mimosa. I find that easy with the flasks I have (0,5l).
But since I've borrowed a PC I'm getting curious of using it. In your experience, did the boiling leave a smell in the PC even after leaning? Would not like that :)
 
murklan said:
In your experience, did the boiling leave a smell in the PC even after leaning? Would not like that :)
Click to expand...
I haven't noticed any smell in the PC after a thorough cleaning. It wasn't even hard to clean, there was hardly any residue that didn't go away with plain water.
 
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