Why are the 1st NPS pulls different from equal proportion jug?

[Binary Drool]

1K Acacia Confusa extraction:

4x 3L wine jugs.

250g Acacia Confusa + 2L water +1L vinegar (mix occasionally and sat over night)

250g NaOH + ~3g iodized salt added to each the following day (mix occasionally and sat over night)

Topped off each jug with Naphtha (mix occasionally and sat over night)

In consolidating pulls it was noticed that three of the jugs where slightly tinted yellow and 100% transparent, which has been fairly normal and consistent with previous extractions, though the NPS from the fourth jug was extremely cloudy and nontransparent leading me to believe that this pull is much more saturated than the other three first pulls.

Can anyone explain to me why this one particular pull would be more saturated than the other three when the exact proportions were used in all four jugs.

Unfortunately all NPS pulls were consolidated for reduction and crystallization so measurements can not be made but it is highly probable that just by its appearance it was highly saturated unlike the other three.

 

[BongWizard]

It could be a number of factors, depending on whether it was fat/proteins or alkaloids giving it the milky colour.

Was it the first one you put on?
- Time plays a big factor in the dissolution of fats by naphtha, especially if this is the first vessel to be acidified and subsequently based

Was it any warmer than the others?
- warm/hot naphtha dissolves significantly more fat than cold and does so much more readily. (I like to get my nps to just a hair under boiling point, as a result all 4 of my pulls come out looking like piss, another 2 or 3 and it starts getting clear)

Is your bark of even consistency?
If not, the more powdery bark will relinquish its contents quicker and easier, thus resulting in more extracted material under what appear to be the same conditions.

It also could just be a matter of bark from different area on the root mass. I find with mine (I harvest wild acacia maidenii and obtusifolia) that the highest alkaloid content comes from the smaller roots (not the tiny capillaries, but the one those capillaries shoot from) rather than the larger, more mature roots.

Also, had the fourth been unstoppered for the same period of time? (ie did you uncork all the bottles and leave them open while you did your pulls?)
- if that's the case, it could be a matter of evaporative cooling. When the DMT laden solvent begins to evaporate it cools quite rapidly, the effect if this cooling is that alkaloids become less soluble and begin to crash out, which would explain a whiter milky consistency.

Also, it's worth noting, that in a 3L brew you should only need about 120-150g NaOH to achieve a pH of 13+ And you could add up to 100g or so of NaCl to help force your spice out of the aqueous solution. If you don't mind me asking, how much solvent did you use? And it sounds like you did it all in one pull. While it is attractive, you will extract more by doing 3 or 4 smaller pulls. The reason being that solvent becomes increasingly weak (in terms of solvency power) as the solution becomes more saturated. That is to say if you can dissolve 1g of a given compound in 50mL of a given solvent you might only be able to dissolve (for example) 1.9g of that compound in 100mL of the same solvent.

 

[Binary Drool]

This was just the first pull, and of course I plan on doing multiple pulls. I've done many extractions. I would say the pulls are roughly 100ml each. I never use heat and am able to fully exhaust the bark ultimately yielding about 1.5%. but it was strange how each vessel was treated equal and there was such a drastic visual difference in one pull.


I always double up on NaOH thinking it week help force the alks, and the NaCl Helps clear emulsion.

at these proportions im able to shake vigorously and have 100% separation within minutes and no heat and ultimately complete the first few pulls of the extraction in one day.

I leave a 4th pull in for days, and same for the 5th.