SWIM is about to undergo their second ever extraction, and wanted some information about coffee filters and evaporation. SWIM is following noman's tek.

SWIM's limited experience has them wary of using coffee filters, as the first time around they noticed no crystals whatsoever floating or otherwise loose in the solvent after a freeze precip. Everything that had precipitated had to be scraped from the collection jar, after pouring the naphtha off to be reused. Is it really necessary to use coffee filters?

This is where SWIM is unsure of themselves. SWIM is using room temperature naphtha to do the pulls, and wants to reuse it for later extractions, or if that's not a great idea, for fire twirling fuel. SWIM also isn't sure exactly how much solvent should be evaporated. Should the evap be used just to dry out the product after it has been scraped from the collection jar, or should SWIM be letting it evaporate?

SWIM thanks you.

That is exactly my friend's experience. She never filters naphta, just decants it carefully. Even if there are some loose spice crystals, they fall to the bottom and remain there.




My friend prefers to use fresh solvent for every pull. She collects used solvent for future distillation. This is because she suspects that the solvent may contain some useless plant oils.



The solvent should be evaporated to the point when it becomes cloudy, i.e. supersaturated. My friend evaporates it to 1/5th or less of the original volume. Otherwise some spice will not crash out during freeze-precipitation. She is careful not to overheat her naphta or some spice may evaporate as well. Usually she keeps the solvent temp below 60C.

Ok, this is solid advice. SWIM thanks your friend =)

alternatively, you can use a small amount of warm solvent each pull, and make more pulls, so that you can stick it straight in the freezer without having to pre-evaporate much (or at all). For example for, say, 150g mimosa, one can make 50ml warm pulls. Depending on your technique, though, separating small pulls may be more troublesome. So you'll have to measure all the advantages and disadvantages for your own case and decide how to proceed.

as for the coffee filter, indeed its common that all or great majority of dmt is stuck to the container and not floating. You can pour it through a coffee filter just in case if you want, or just reuse the naphtha.

good luck!

I always do a slow cooling process before the freeze precip so I can get large crystal clusters the first time round. This way I can just carefully pour off the solvent and gently poke the crystals free with a pencil. There's nothing I hate more than smearing good spice all round a jar.

If I find myself in a state of having to do a lot of scraping I dissolve the goods and start over

good tip ^

Cool as. I think I'll go for slow cooling after warm pulls. If I was to fill a container with hot water from the tap, and put my solvent container in that, would the solvent get warm enough. That is, is tap water going to get the solvent hot enough?

good question, just about to do my first extra and was planning kettle water.

Did you find the answer to your question?

H

I dont know how hot your tap water gets, if you want to heat solvent you can always boil some water, then turn fire off, and do a water bath with the solvent inside some glass there.. This will make sure its plenty warm

SWIM always shakes the jar in the fridge so the crystals will fall and float in the solvent, and then filter with a funnel and a coffee filter. He just hates scraping the spice out of the jar with a spoon