Hi everyone, don't know if that's the right place to post this, but seems like I can't post anywhere else. Anyways, I recently got a 100g of dried san pedro from a local headshop. The guy said to boil about 25g of the san pedro chips for at least 8 hours and then drink the resulting liquid, but after doing some research I found that most would suggest turning the chips into powder and then encapsulating it for ingestion without any other preparation (that's what I understood anyway). What method do you think would work best if both are actually legit? 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For a *hypothetical* cactus initiation experience I would recommend tea. It is simple, easy to prepare, and forces one to sit there stirring and think about what exactly they are doing before taking the plunge. I suspect the more nasty juice sessions one has the harder it is to put down so for the first few tries it should be ok. The pet snake has never made tea from dried out mystery headshop chips, but assuming they are quality, 25 grams is sound. Maybe prepare all of it and then drink 1/4 to allow for boost doses or simply to know how potent the remaining juice is for future adventures. Perhaps try:
gently boil chips in 1/4-1/2 litre water for 1h. use common sense for the amount of water/chips. remove water to container.
boil chips again for 2 hours. remove water.
repeat until you are satisfied that the chips are depleted. (try tasting one?)
put all the removed water in the fridge overnight and decant juice off any sediment that drops out before reducing to a drinkable amount. It would be fine to do some or all the reduction before fridge settling.
There are many many variations on this idea that are all legit (acidifying, reducing to resin, keeping the temp super low, etc), but I believe when learning anything a little experimentation, observation, and starting simple go much much farther than reading. It took the pet snake quite a few false starts (mostly bad plant material) before getting the swing of things, but now he moves with confidence. btw, I've heard aluminum is all bad for boiling any type of alkaloid so maybe stick with stainless/ceramic. Once one has some success they can experiment with control and confidence.
EDITed in *hypothetical*.
|
|
|
ouro wrote:For a *hypothetical* cactus initiation experience I would recommend tea. It is simple, easy to prepare, and forces one to sit there stirring and think about what exactly they are doing before taking the plunge. I suspect the more nasty juice sessions one has the harder it is to put down so for the first few tries it should be ok. The pet snake has never made tea from dried out mystery headshop chips, but assuming they are quality, 25 grams is sound. Maybe prepare all of it and then drink 1/4 to allow for boost doses or simply to know how potent the remaining juice is for future adventures. Perhaps try:
gently boil chips in 1/4-1/2 litre water for 1h. use common sense for the amount of water/chips. remove water to container.
boil chips again for 2 hours. remove water.
repeat until you are satisfied that the chips are depleted. (try tasting one?)
put all the removed water in the fridge overnight and decant juice off any sediment that drops out before reducing to a drinkable amount. It would be fine to do some or all the reduction before fridge settling.
There are many many variations on this idea that are all legit (acidifying, reducing to resin, keeping the temp super low, etc), but I believe when learning anything a little experimentation, observation, and starting simple go much much farther than reading. It took the pet snake quite a few false starts (mostly bad plant material) before getting the swing of things, but now he moves with confidence. btw, I've heard aluminum is all bad for boiling any type of alkaloid so maybe stick with stainless/ceramic. Once one has some success they can experiment with control and confidence.
EDITed in *hypothetical*. very nice, intellegent reply! kuddos OP, they look fine, but remove any woody core chunks 
|
|
|
Indeed! Only I'd go down to the resin I guess the good thing with a tea is that it's a much stronger gauge for how potent your cacti is before you swallow the whole lot. But then again that kind of sensitivity only comes with experience.
|
|
|
ouro wrote:For a *hypothetical* cactus initiation experience I would recommend tea. It is simple, easy to prepare, and forces one to sit there stirring and think about what exactly they are doing before taking the plunge. I suspect the more nasty juice sessions one has the harder it is to put down so for the first few tries it should be ok. The pet snake has never made tea from dried out mystery headshop chips, but assuming they are quality, 25 grams is sound. Maybe prepare all of it and then drink 1/4 to allow for boost doses or simply to know how potent the remaining juice is for future adventures. Perhaps try:
gently boil chips in 1/4-1/2 litre water for 1h. use common sense for the amount of water/chips. remove water to container.
boil chips again for 2 hours. remove water.
repeat until you are satisfied that the chips are depleted. (try tasting one?)
put all the removed water in the fridge overnight and decant juice off any sediment that drops out before reducing to a drinkable amount. It would be fine to do some or all the reduction before fridge settling.
There are many many variations on this idea that are all legit (acidifying, reducing to resin, keeping the temp super low, etc), but I believe when learning anything a little experimentation, observation, and starting simple go much much farther than reading. It took the pet snake quite a few false starts (mostly bad plant material) before getting the swing of things, but now he moves with confidence. btw, I've heard aluminum is all bad for boiling any type of alkaloid so maybe stick with stainless/ceramic. Once one has some success they can experiment with control and confidence.
EDITed in *hypothetical*. Perfect, I'll try that when I get some time off and I'll tell you guys how it went. Thanks!
|