Hi Nexus,

I am doing my first extraction (STB with naphtha as solvent) and am tinkering with the procedure to get the best spice. A neat trick I found somewhere on this forum is to heat naphtha so that more DMT dissolves in it. For example, before cleaning by freeze precipitating or redissolving for slow evaporation, I heat my naphtha so that I can use less of it. It works great, not only because it can contain more DMT but also because it's easier to remove the dark goo.

Anyway, safety first, so I was wondering if I were correct in my thinking that as long as there are no sparks / flames nearby, hot naphtha (just under boiling) poses no real danger other than inhaling solvent? I heat it with a water bath.

Boil some water, turn the heat off. Put naphtha in glass, submerge bottom of glass in recently boiled water.

There's no need for the heat source to be on while this is happening. I def dont recommend anything electric being on (hotplates, doubleboilers, whatever), even though people have used it, a small spark is all thats needed for big accident (and firemen will quite possibly denounce you if they see extraction stuff once they come in to put the fire out).

As this is happening, there will be more naphtha vapors, so avoid breathing it (have a mask, good ventilation, etc)

Remember to keep your naphtha far away and in closed container from the stove when heating the water!

if your extracting in mason jars or something similar the best thing to do is keep the whole solution heated (the bark lye mixture and the naphtha), the easiest way to achieve this is by sitting each jar in a bucket filled with hot water,(for example roll 2 jars gently while 2 are sitting in the water and swap over repeating several times this way all jars stay warm) be careful not to have the water too hot as this will pressurize the jars and could either cause them to crack, or blow the seal. but the water has to be practically boiling for that too happen.. keeping jars heated this way minimises the chance of emulsification, maximises yields and maintains a high purity of the final product.