The first pull didn't yield much of anything, but that seems to be due to a lack of proper vortexing of the limo/vinegar. Luckily, all the limonene was saved for just such an eventuality.

if one were to run it through a few more times than suggested and cleaned up a little bit more, could this method be used as quantitative extraction?

Evaporating the vinegar:
-Has it ever been determined at what temperature mescaline acetate is destroyed or made inactive? Vinegar boils at just a touch above 100*C.


Limonene conservation:
-Could used limonene be distilled in a normal pot still and used again? Is there any loss of effectiveness possible, perhaps by distillable contaminants?

I prefer not to use too much heat at all when evapping vinegar pulls. Comparative assays on the same batch of cactus have shown that the heated pull was less effective.

Distilling limonene can ve very useful. As you can easily distil it using just hot water as a heat source it's very unlikley that anything else in the limonene will be ditsilled over as well. Limonene is slightly vollatile and to the best of my knowledge, the impurities in cactus are not.

Thanks for the info, soulfood. This is crazy frustrating, hearing from SWIM about a plate of goo that won't dry out. He's tempted to just toss some 5-htp in there for texture and toss it in gel caps and just be done with it.

Don't get impatient. I passively dry my vinegar with heat, by placing it on top of a toaster oven. On the lowest settings it cycles on for 30sec-1min every few minutes. I actually turn the heat way up during the beginning, and then lower it once the vinegar starts getting thicker. My evap plates are usually dry withing 12 hours.

Now as to potential potency loss I can't attest either way. I feel that my mescaline is of average potency as 300mgs of acetates was a full psychedelic experience, and after purifying my acetates I'd estimate that the 300mgs was more like 200mgs HCl. I don't know why heat would be a big issue since mescaline hcl is pretty heat stable, and acetic acid evaporates along with the water preventing too much "acid burn." But that's just my thoughts, experiment for yourself and add to our data!

I guess it wouldn't be too much for some brave soul to dissolve 400mg in vinegar, and slow-evap half while boiling down the other half. Take the doses a few days apart and compare effects.

Im sure this has been asked before, but can I use baking soda to freebase?

Nope. Look for Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime. In the canning section, if you can find a store that has it.

Yes if you make soda ash from it.

While this is true, pickling lime (CaOH) is much more effective because it breaks down the cactus tissue way more efficently than Calcium carbonate.

Elaboration on this method perhaps? Thank you much.

thanks guys, I will look for that pickling lime

my local kroger has it for 3.79 +tax

swim has just done his first extract using this tek. His final product has come out in a slightly tan, kinda clumpy powder. There was no crystal formation on the evap dish. J/w if this is actually mesc acetate? It smells like vinegar. Will ingesting this produce the desired effects? thanks.. Matt

So Matt what are the desired effects?

IT'S MESCALINE! :]

Gobble it down and have a wonderful day!

lol thanks, see you in the other dimension!

update: so last night swim took 300mg of the tan powder, and got nothing except a slight body buzz. No visual effects were noticed. Is the final product not pure enough? Does hot sauce react with mesc acetate? Swim ate taco bell about 20 mins before ingesting the mesc. JW why the final product did not produce the desired effects. Should swim try to re-xtal the tan powder in vinegar?

If it was clumpy and smelled like vinegar, it may not have been dry. SWIM noticed that a little bit of heat (hairdryer) made the tar-like stuff a little more gooey or liquid, and after stirring it around it was drier when it returned to room temp. No idea if the heat affects potency though

it was processed in a food dehydrator. it is a fine powder after you break up the clumps. idk maybe he justs need a higher dose. Swim usually eats about 4-5g of mushrooms or 3-4 hits of lsd to get where he wants to be.