yesterday i made a Yopo snuff inspired by this erowid post and it worked very well, i then came across Phenethylamine23 post and it is a similar prep with some minor changes. most importantly i can confirm that a significantly lower quantity of calcium hydroxide works just fine, i used 0.75 g for 7.44 g of dehulled seed powder, so 1/10 ratio as Phenethylamine23 suggested might be enough. it's hard to tell whether the conversion was complete or not but i noticed color and smell change and i experienced minimal burn and nausea when i tried the snuff so i think these are good indicators that it worked.
1. gentle heating on stovetop until seeds puff and few of them pop. after removing the hulls the inner seeds felt dry to me so i didn't dry them further.
i liked the smell at this point, it reminded me of toasted pumpkin seeds.
2. grind in mortar and pestle until it becomes a fine powder (make sure all small hull pieces are removed before as they don't grind well). i then passed the powder through a fine sieve and discarded the little bits that didn't pass even after a second grinding.
at this point the material looked pretty much like Phenethylamine23's second picture, light brown color, i forgot to take a picture.
3. i added the calcium hydroxide and continued grinding and mixing in mortar and pestle, i then started adding water drop by drop while mixing until it felt like damp sand and it clumps up if pressed together but crumbles easily, it also sticks a little bit to the sides of the mortar but comes off easily.
i think i used less than 0.5 ml. using more water is fine i think and probably more guaranteed but i wanted to keep it to a minimum so later the mix dries more easily.
4. i let the mix sit for 1 hour with 5 mins of mixing/grinding every 20 mins or so.
during this step the color of the mix started changing and it turned from light brown to dark olive green, i don't know if the color change is due to conversion to freebase or oxidation of the plant material but to me it seemed like a good indicator something is happening, also in this post Explorer2023 mentions that the reaction takes hours so it seems like a good idea to let the mix sit for some time during this phase.
5. i dried the mix for 1 hour in a thin bowl sitting in freshly boiled water. the mix turned from damp, clumpy and a bit sticky to powdery, crunchy and not sticky.
at the end i replaced the water with freshly boiled water and let it sit a bit more but the mix didn't seem to dry any further. it felt like the mix could dry some more but it could be just the appearance. during the drying, i was pleasantly surprised by faint freebase DMT floral smells which i think further confirms the conversion. today after 24 hours of storing in a tight jar, the mix sill seems as dry.
starting with 50 seeds, i got 7.44 g of dehulled seed powder which i then mixed with 0.75 g calcium hydroxide and roughly 0.5 g water. i ended up with 7.35 g Yopo snuff after drying. i do not know if during the reaction there is some gas exchange or whether the seeds were fully dry after the first step so i cannot tell whether the numbers add up accurately but i feel ending up with a bit less than i started with is a good sign. finally, based on the total mass, 150 mg of the snuff is equivalent to 1 seed.
first experience:
initially i wanted to try the equivalent of 3 seeds but 450 mg seemed like a lot to sniff since i am not used to this ROA so i tried 300 mg or 2 seeds.
i took it in my bedroom at night with a dim light and icaros playing in the background on low volume. it seemed appropriate to use a prehistoric knife that had a little bowl formed into it as a the administration tool and it worked perfectly. i divided the dose into 3 piles and took them consecutively. i had only ate a little bit of food in the morning and drank a light Caapi tea (first time trying it) and had a ginger/lemon tea just before the experience. i don't think the Caapi played a significant role in this experience as it was light and about 12 hours had passed.
the first feeling is the sting/burn from the mix entering the nasal cavity but this did not feel too uncomfortable, merely an inconvenience, and it subsided quickly in less than 30 secs. then a feeling of warmth and pressure started building up in my head and chest and all the typical tryptamine effects started coming on. after 2 mins i started to have CEVs and OEVs of basic geometric gridded patterns and colors, the visuals were moving fast and thoughts started rushing in my head. unfortunately, i was having negative thoughts of everything that is wrong/unpleasant in my life and everything that could go wrong, and that i cannot figure out how to make it better and stop the suffering. after about 5 mins i was feeling pretty bad and very lonely and while i wasn't feeling much nausea it suddenly ramped up and i felt an urge to puke so i went to the bathroom and did that. from then on things felt better, the visuals were still going but their speed slowed down as well as the rushing thoughts and feelings. after few mins i started coming down and i spent the following 30 mins reflecting, i came to the realization that i don't have control over the things i am suffering from and there is nothing that i can do or change that will magically solve everything and that the fundamental problem is that i am a prisoner to my own mind. other than that the experience felt good and physically refreshing, little to no nausea and no headache or any bad physical feelings the next day.
in general i would say it was a light to medium experience and i am pleased with the results and surprised by the power of Yopo, throughout the trip i was still completely aware of my self and my physical reality but i am sure there's still a long way to go and a lot more to experience with Yopo. in no way do i blame the negative experience on the Yopo since this has been the case for me with all psychedelics and why i have been reluctant to dive deep since many years. things felt a bit better now and i was able to somewhat tame the negative thoughts and not fall into guilt and paranoia spirals. I do not know if I will feel like taking a higher dose and going deeper but i think the Yopo snuff would be great to do in nature, during camping or taking a small bump on a hiking break.
there are some experiments i would like to do in the coming days and weeks and i will report them back here.
- adding harmala freebase to the mix
- trying it sublingually
- concentrating the snuff using alcohol
below i included some pictures, first one is from step 4 and you can see the black specs from the hulls that slipped through and did not grind well, second one is from step 5, third one is the final product, and last one is my little setup
.
1. gentle heating on stovetop until seeds puff and few of them pop. after removing the hulls the inner seeds felt dry to me so i didn't dry them further.
i liked the smell at this point, it reminded me of toasted pumpkin seeds.
2. grind in mortar and pestle until it becomes a fine powder (make sure all small hull pieces are removed before as they don't grind well). i then passed the powder through a fine sieve and discarded the little bits that didn't pass even after a second grinding.
at this point the material looked pretty much like Phenethylamine23's second picture, light brown color, i forgot to take a picture.
3. i added the calcium hydroxide and continued grinding and mixing in mortar and pestle, i then started adding water drop by drop while mixing until it felt like damp sand and it clumps up if pressed together but crumbles easily, it also sticks a little bit to the sides of the mortar but comes off easily.
i think i used less than 0.5 ml. using more water is fine i think and probably more guaranteed but i wanted to keep it to a minimum so later the mix dries more easily.
4. i let the mix sit for 1 hour with 5 mins of mixing/grinding every 20 mins or so.
during this step the color of the mix started changing and it turned from light brown to dark olive green, i don't know if the color change is due to conversion to freebase or oxidation of the plant material but to me it seemed like a good indicator something is happening, also in this post Explorer2023 mentions that the reaction takes hours so it seems like a good idea to let the mix sit for some time during this phase.
5. i dried the mix for 1 hour in a thin bowl sitting in freshly boiled water. the mix turned from damp, clumpy and a bit sticky to powdery, crunchy and not sticky.
at the end i replaced the water with freshly boiled water and let it sit a bit more but the mix didn't seem to dry any further. it felt like the mix could dry some more but it could be just the appearance. during the drying, i was pleasantly surprised by faint freebase DMT floral smells which i think further confirms the conversion. today after 24 hours of storing in a tight jar, the mix sill seems as dry.
starting with 50 seeds, i got 7.44 g of dehulled seed powder which i then mixed with 0.75 g calcium hydroxide and roughly 0.5 g water. i ended up with 7.35 g Yopo snuff after drying. i do not know if during the reaction there is some gas exchange or whether the seeds were fully dry after the first step so i cannot tell whether the numbers add up accurately but i feel ending up with a bit less than i started with is a good sign. finally, based on the total mass, 150 mg of the snuff is equivalent to 1 seed.
first experience:
initially i wanted to try the equivalent of 3 seeds but 450 mg seemed like a lot to sniff since i am not used to this ROA so i tried 300 mg or 2 seeds.
i took it in my bedroom at night with a dim light and icaros playing in the background on low volume. it seemed appropriate to use a prehistoric knife that had a little bowl formed into it as a the administration tool and it worked perfectly. i divided the dose into 3 piles and took them consecutively. i had only ate a little bit of food in the morning and drank a light Caapi tea (first time trying it) and had a ginger/lemon tea just before the experience. i don't think the Caapi played a significant role in this experience as it was light and about 12 hours had passed.
the first feeling is the sting/burn from the mix entering the nasal cavity but this did not feel too uncomfortable, merely an inconvenience, and it subsided quickly in less than 30 secs. then a feeling of warmth and pressure started building up in my head and chest and all the typical tryptamine effects started coming on. after 2 mins i started to have CEVs and OEVs of basic geometric gridded patterns and colors, the visuals were moving fast and thoughts started rushing in my head. unfortunately, i was having negative thoughts of everything that is wrong/unpleasant in my life and everything that could go wrong, and that i cannot figure out how to make it better and stop the suffering. after about 5 mins i was feeling pretty bad and very lonely and while i wasn't feeling much nausea it suddenly ramped up and i felt an urge to puke so i went to the bathroom and did that. from then on things felt better, the visuals were still going but their speed slowed down as well as the rushing thoughts and feelings. after few mins i started coming down and i spent the following 30 mins reflecting, i came to the realization that i don't have control over the things i am suffering from and there is nothing that i can do or change that will magically solve everything and that the fundamental problem is that i am a prisoner to my own mind. other than that the experience felt good and physically refreshing, little to no nausea and no headache or any bad physical feelings the next day.
in general i would say it was a light to medium experience and i am pleased with the results and surprised by the power of Yopo, throughout the trip i was still completely aware of my self and my physical reality but i am sure there's still a long way to go and a lot more to experience with Yopo. in no way do i blame the negative experience on the Yopo since this has been the case for me with all psychedelics and why i have been reluctant to dive deep since many years. things felt a bit better now and i was able to somewhat tame the negative thoughts and not fall into guilt and paranoia spirals. I do not know if I will feel like taking a higher dose and going deeper but i think the Yopo snuff would be great to do in nature, during camping or taking a small bump on a hiking break.
there are some experiments i would like to do in the coming days and weeks and i will report them back here.
- adding harmala freebase to the mix
- trying it sublingually
- concentrating the snuff using alcohol
below i included some pictures, first one is from step 4 and you can see the black specs from the hulls that slipped through and did not grind well, second one is from step 5, third one is the final product, and last one is my little setup
.
