SWIM has had a few goes and scored a few crystals using Acacias, but just as often got nothing, clear (but potent) oil, or seen the crystals turn to mush during the final drying / warming stage. SWIM wants to understand what happens and why during extraction so he can optimise...

Re grinding - yes teks say finer the grind the better the xtract, however SWIM is wondering is this really just a time saving thing. Surely spice is permeable to the plant cell wall membrane? Or are we really grinding the stuff up so that we are breaking up each individual cell wall ? (for max yeild). Is it a case that a course grind just requires a longer soak? Can you extract straight from non ground leaves, but let it soak/boil say - a week or so?

Re boiling - is there a time limit before spice starts to breakdown at 100 degrees, or can I boil away for days? Again jungle recipes suggest you can boil for days, but I wonder if they start with such potent stuff that even a moderate yeild does the job?

Anyone know any of the equations of how spice breaks down?
are there other things apart from spice oxide that spice turns into?

Why can't SWIM just boil off the solvent/shellite at the end - at a temperature above the solvent boiling point, but below that of spice?
This should leave oily / gunky spice for re - xtalisation, but
experiments suggest spice evaps off with the sovent, sometimes
re-xtalising on the side of the container.