Good afternoon everyone,

I have been performing the HCl version of 69ron's tek and have performed it with success twice before (1g, then 1.2g from 90~g dry). I have been experimenting with freezing the cactus before dehydrating. I had two pachanoi cactus stem pieces.
From both, I removed the spines with my ingenious spine removing tool.

From the more pachy one, I just froze it with waxy skin on and spines removed.
When I defrosted this one, it just sent liquid everywhere. The cactus sagged, and the waxy skin was noticeably weakened (making it much harder than I had anticipated to remove - do NOT freeze before removing skin - it's WAY harder). I spent ages, collecting the liquid and scraping the flesh from the skin with a knife. Finally I had removed all the skin and had a pile of flesh and a cup of liquid (which I dehydrated to reduce the volume of). There was a small amount of fermentation before I managed to dehydrate the flesh. I hope this didn't kill too much product.

From the scoppier one, I sliced into sausages, then removed the wax and core, and froze as sausages in plastic bags (next time will use airtight bags to reduce ice formation). Then when I defrosted these, I again collected the copious amounts of liquid (which was taste tested to indeed be full of bitter alkaloids) which I reduced the volume of in a dehyrdrator. I also dehydrated the rest of the flesh into chips.

So then a few days later, I ground the chips (120g total from estimated wet weight 1.5kg+), mixed in about 32g CaOH (I used an excess to account for the liquid, which was a gluey consistency). Then I mixed lime and ground chips in a beaker, and poured over the cactus gloop (300mL worth) and stirred to a thick consistency. Now here's where I think I made my mistake. I estimated (poorly this time) 80mL (I probably was closer to 150mL) of water to add to the stock to reduce the lumpiness. I added it, and stirred vigorously. I then added the NP solvent. However, I have now noticed that this mixture's consistency is far too thin, and it's swallowing up NP solvent. I've been adding a gross excess of NP solvent to allow it to rise to the surface, and then drawing from there. I'd estimate at least 150-300mL of NP solvent are still trapped in the cactus gloop. Is there any way I can get most of it out? I do realize it is still possible to complete the extraction by using an excess of NP solvent, however, I'll have to probably do something like 6 NP washes of the cactus to account for the only half I'll be removing each time.

SO ESSENTIALLY: I added too much water, and now lots of NP solvent is stuck in the cactus gloop and only very little rises to the surface. Is there anything I can do?
And while I'm at it. Does using one of those coffee plungers increase yields?

Just add more caoh, a bird told me to use the same mass as ground material add another 80 gms or abouts mix it up good. The bird said he saw someone who has never bothered to remove the waxy skin when extracting, only when brewing tea to drink. Also improvements for next time are to low temp boil powder in a small amount of vinegar water instead of water+caoh, then let sit, then mix in caoh in excess to pre extract mesc acetate, then easier and more efficient to basify with caoh. Then mix and mix and mix and let almost sit a few days to basify fully(very important to up yeilds, cuz caoh is ineffiecient base for mesc)and dry sorta till it breaks into pellets. Then extract that with d-limo pref or xylene. Salt as U like.. Use 5l or 25lHDPE bottle or many, dep.on scale, hung on a ski rope, wound up and spun down to centrifuge and seperate your acid washes, repeat acid washes of solvent at least 2 times, spin up and down a few times (6 seems to be magic number here), place bottle up on a close counter, siphon off most of solvent in bottle each time (use a cheap hdpe fuel hand squeeze siphon from car spare place where U get your bulk properly distilled battery water) and still hanging as a pouring aid, pour into a large 5l hdpe funnel if large scale (cheap here at superstores) stuffed closed with cotton balls. This acts as the sep, the alk laden water drips into recieving container and emulsion and wet cotton stops limo from penetrating (never thought an emulsion would be your freind?), rinse cotton balls in funnel thru twice with clean warm water and pour off leftover limo back with previously siphoned limo to be reused in freebase pull. keep 2 lots of solvent going at a time, one soaking limecactuscement and one being acid washed. goes quick then. also, use a hdpe bucket to extract your pedrocement pellets, and carefully avoiding splashes mixing with a paint mixer attachment and drill ala bubblehash style. then when limo saturated, have lid of bucket clamped over a chem inert cloth with holes in the lid so U can just up end it into a slightly bigger bucket and just pour off solvent leaving pedrogunk behind.
This is well tried and tested the bird said on 1-15kg dry skin quantities but for 100kg and upwards new teks are needed..
Goodluck
Sorry for ramble..thats all the tips the warbler told me today..