hello nexus,
ive been frequenting this forum for a long time looking up useful info and reading many discussions as well but havent posted before. a few weeks back i ran into an area filled with acacia confusa, i wont mention where im from but there is no information on the internet or anywhere about ac growing here and nobody i met ever knew about it. the oldest trees (ac) are around the area i found and i found many younger ones growing all around the place even in other towns around.
i used this image for identification
also they start as one trunk then separate into two trunks or two bodies, i dont know the english terminology for this, but it seems like another sign they are acacia confusa
anyways i decided to make an extraction. i looked up about optimal conditions for harvesting but only found
this thread and another one here whicih says its best to harvest when there hasn't been rain for some time. also i read that its better to harvest when its not flowering or seeding, so all these conditions met well with mine. all the bark i get i get from lower trunk lowest as possible and they are bloody red and very sticky so they seem very active but i dont know if this has anything to do with it. also after harvesting i cover the open wound with aloe vera as i know this heals broken cannabis stems. i also try to use a knife as sterile as possible. does anyone have any idea about best way to harvest trunk bark without hurting the tree much, if there is any, and any solid informaiton about optimal harvesting conditions would be great.
so i went ahead and got about 200g trunk bark. i only every had experience before with STB tek using mimosa hostilis. also i didnt have a blender at this time. so this is my first attempt at A/B extraction, and without a blender.
i did the freeze and thaw 3 times, chopped it into pieces as fine as possible i could (which wasn't enough) acid/water wash 3 times, add naoh then extract with naptha and freeze precipitate, pour off the remainings and let evaporize. i only had a very small, yellow gooey yield. it was enough for one dose and it was certainly active.
i saved the remainings for later use with a blender.
next after i was sure this bark was active and extractable, i did much more research and decided to do a different tek to maximize my yield and minimize my effort. this is what im currently working on and have questions about.
i took about 250-300g fresh bark, freeze and thaw 3 times. destroyed it with a blender and made fine fine powder. next i add %5 vinegar and make a paste. let it dry overnight infront of a heater. covered it with ethanol and made it sit for 3-4 days.
the idea here was acidifying the alkaloids with vinegar so they are absorbed by the ethanol at a much greater rate than just letting it sit in ethanol. also i thought ethanol would be able to pull more just by sitting in a dark corner than boiling water vinegar extraction. i dont have any info to support these claims but it seemed natural.
next i ran the alcohol through a coffee filter. saved the bark for more alcohol sitting and evaporated the alcohol. i took the blood red sticky alkaloid glue left behind and put it in about half liter water. i than added 100g sodium hydroxide to half more liter water. i am using pure water h2o purified by the way. so now i have one 500ml transparent-red water/alkaloid mix and one 500ml water/500g sodium hydroxide mix which is transparent. i mix the two and the solution turns black. i then used warm toluene to perform a pull. the toluene turned yellow after shaking the mixture a lot.
this is where my question comes in
i let the toluene sit overnight to evaporate but nothing happened. i marked the cup to see how much would evaporate and it was 0 it was not evaporated at all. then i put it in the fridge and in just 1 hour half of it evaporated? also lots of crystals and yellow and white goo started forming inside. it says here on the nexus that toluene doesnt freeze precipitate? the toluene is covered up tight but it seems to evaporate while its covered up in the freezer? also crystals are forming? i dont want to blow up my freezer so i took it out just in case its sucking the toluene evap or something.
im tired of writing i will edit this post