Generally, just scaling all the ingredients in the recipe in one of these extractions isn't the way to go, it sounds like you ended up with too little water.
Don't give up on your current extraction. Try adding more water so it can slosh about more and mingle with the NPS properly.
I find that too viscous a mix will hang on to a lot of the NPS I put in, adding a bit of water can then result in a decent layer of NPS just appearing overnight as the base mix lets go of it.
No crystals can mean any combination of:
- Too low pH, so no freebase formed. If the bark and water mix turned almost black when you added NaOH then you're probably good, adding 10g more lye to a mix of around a litre won't hurt if you want to make absolutely sure. If you already put 50g or so in about a litre then you're already good and this is very unlikely to be the issue.
- Not enough mixing with the NPS ( IMHO this is most likely by the sound of it).
- Try mixing by inverting the vessel ten times or so. You should be able to see the NPS separating out quite quickly, over the span of a few minutes. Don't mix again until the mix has separated as much as it can (ideally you will see a pretty smooth interface between the two liquids, a thin layer of persistent emulsion between the two indicates you're starting to mix too hard, or not waiting long enough between mixes), repeat this mixing and clearing half a dozen times or so.
- Way too much NPS added ... you need to make sure you have a good concentration of DMT in the NPS you pull off, otherwise freeze precipitation won't happen. Try just 50ml or so. The only down side is you might have to do more pulls to get all the DMT out. But for a first exploratory extraction then we're looking for easy success, rather than ultimate efficiency.
- Not cold enough freezer.
- Generally you need to get to around -20C for the solubility of DMT in your NPS to drop enough that you get a decent crop of crystals precipitating.
- No DMT in the bark in the first place ... Unfortunately the only practical way to test this at home is to try an extraction, so that's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. It's a natural product, so content can vary from supplier to supplier and batch to batch. I've never seen zero though, over about four different suppliers.
Hope this helps, you can add a bit of a heat bath when mixing the NPS to make a bigger difference in solubility between in the vessel and in the freezer, but I usually only have to do that for pulls 3 onwards where the bulk has already been extracted.
All the figures above are inexact, the extraction happens on a spectrum and there's no particular sharp step cut offs where you'll get nothing out of good bark because you used too much or too little of something, just inefficient extractions that might take more time or energy than strictly necessary. The one exception is that your ph must be suitably high for the freebase to form.
Good luck!
what a detailed reply, thank you very much.
the aqueous is almost tar like, very black and does not slosh at all, most likely as you suggested, not enough water, so i will add more.
i continually tested the ph after each 1/8 teaspoon of NaOH was added, i also checked the temperature before and after adding it, never went above 117.
the ph was closer to 14 than 12 according to the test strips which i tested frequently.
with the aqueous being so tar like i imagine no "mixing" occurred.
which brings me to your original question of how do i think the dmt transfers, i thought i got what chris said in his video but i may have misunderstood (though i have watched it probably 30 times including while i was making it)
he says the dmt "wants" to go to the NaOH but has trouble getting back into the aqueous.
i looked for a better explanation but found none.
i do like to know how things work. he did not expand on the "swirling" part too much, as mine refuses to swirl this may well be part of the problem as i now see other possibilities from your text.
you mention too much nps...this is likely also. i think i had about an inch or so. i have no problem doing as many pulls as necessary using less, i am not at all lazy.
i wondered, after i complete the pull, do i put fresh nps back into the vessel or do i wait until after the freeze and reuse the original. chris said to reuse it. which i understand but do reuse it on like the 3rd or 4 pull or wait overnight and then use it for the 2nd pull the next day?.
i had lowered the temperature of the freezer to -18.8c (-2f)
i will lower it to -20.
bark quality is as you stated, unknown. i bought from a recommended supplier, i dont think im allowed to mention them here, but please correct me if im wrong.
it was mostly powder with some fibrous material mixed in.
chris was right about making it in the garage, i was not too careful when pouring some NaOH back into the container, and spilt some on a somewhat new varnished butcher block kitchen counter. when i cleaned up in the morning it had etched into it, so i WILL suffer to get there!
im a woodworker among other things so not a problem to fix.
i will continue trying with this, but as i mentioned earlier i do have a backup plan which i will talk at length about in another post which will also tell you all more about me.
