SWIM recently attempted an extraction using 100g of MHRB. The extraction failed, and SWIM has several points that may have caused the failure. Please let me know if you think that any one of these was the specific cause of failure:
1. The MHRB came pre-ground, and was not the purple/pink color that SWIM has heard described.
2. SWIM is not sure if he shook the Naphtha throughout the container enough times per pull.
3. SWIM used large coffee filters (and the freezing precipitate method), but no crystals remained on the filters.

Does anyone have any suggestions or any more thorough guides that SWIM can use? SWIM looks forwards to hyperspace.

did the solution turn black when you basified?

SWIM added approx. 50 grams of lye to 750 mL water, and did an extraction of 50 grams of MHRB. The solution did turn black after addition of the bark powder.

okay if it turned black it should have been based high enough, just to be sure tho you can always add an extra pinch of lye and go ahead and try pulling again with fresh naptha.

I assume you are using a straight to base tek? which one exactly are you following and can you give a step by step rundown of everything you did? That will make it easier for us to spot where it might have failed.

I used the extraction technique from Erowid, which I will outline:
1. Combine 750 mL water and 50 g lye in container, add 50 g powdered root bark. Shake, and let sit for an hour.
2. Add 50 mL Naptha, turn jar end over end without splashing around for about one minute. When Naptha has settled to the top, repeat agitation 4 times per pull.
3. Using turkey baster, remove Naptha from mixing jar. Place in 8 oz. jar, cap, and freeze.
4. After freezing, pour Naptha through coffee filter. Let sit to dry.

This is exactly what I did, and I am most concerned that I may not have 'turned the jar end over end' vigorously enough. Should I attempt to create a full emulsion, which would allow more DMT to soak into the Naptha, but would take longer to settle? Was my freeze-precipitation method wrong?

okay so yes I would mix the naptha through the solution longer, you don't want emulsions but you do want to make sure it mixes through very well. mix for maybe 3 full minutes then let it sit and separate completely and repeat 3 times or so. Also adding a bit moar lye on each pull to heat things up and make sure the ph is high enough never hurts.

Before you put the jar of naptha in the freezer go ahead and evaporate it down to concentrate the spice in the solvent so it will crystallize and fall out of the super saturated solution easier. Just put the jar under a fan in a well ventilated area and evaporate off 1/2 to 2/3 of the naptha and the xtals should fall right out of the remaining 1/3-1/2 of the solvent when the temperature drops in the freezer.

You said adding lye heats things up, should the solution be hot during the pulls?

no its not necessary for it to be hot, but the little bit of extra heat created by adding another spoonful of lye (slowly) to the solution helps the solvent to pull a little moar efficiently

Thanks for the help man! I hope this works better.

sure ting.

much luck to you!

here's wishing you many happy journeys ahead.

Sounds like either the freezer wasn't cold enough or the naptha wasn't saturated enough.
I'd evaporate the naptha completely at this point and see if there was anything in there to precip.
Don't throw anything away.

Noman, how would you suggest properly saturating the naptha?
When evaporated on a plate, what was left was a few brown spots that I scraped up onto a razor blade and are ready to be smoked.

To make sure the naphtha is saturated enough for a freeze precipitation, you evaporate it until it clouds when you breathe on it.

To evaporate, should I just put it in an 8 oz glass jam container and let it sit, or is there a better alternative? Also, should the naptha have a color after being removed from the overall mixture, or should it be clear?

Think about what makes evaporation occur at a higher frequency.

Things like, air, heat.

Ideally you would want to put the solvent in something like a baking dish. This allows more airflow over your solvent, speeding up rate of evaporation.

Heat also increases rate of evaporation. If you have a hot plate you can stick it underneath your dish.

If you have a fan, use it to blow air over the dish. Use a screen to ensure no particles get stuck in the solvent.

Naptha changes colors when it is used to pull from the basified solution. It can turn cloudy, white, yellow. If it turns red or brown, you have microemulsions. This is tiny bubbles of lye and mimosa that get trapped in the naptha. This happens when the extractor does not use enough water in the process. Make sure when you suck off the naptha from the top that it is not red or brown. If it is, let it sit for a good long time until it turns at least yellow, and then pull from that.


After freeze precipitation, if you still have contams, you can recrystallize. A simple and fast process that can be found in the FAQ that helps ensure what you are putting into your body is pure. Judging by your trip report you wrote up, I would highly recommend this step. Some people forget this is their health they are dealing with. Their entire lifetime.

Looks like I spent too long whilst ۩ got onto it!

…

Naphtha can be clear, yellow, milky, light orange or even slightly brown, depending on the situation. If it’s saturated enough to do freeze precipation it will either cloud when you blow gently on it or it will be cloudy when it gets transferred to the precipation container.

If you are looking to evap fast get as much surface area exposed to the air to get it to happen quickly. If you want to retrieve the product by scraping you want it to be in a container you can get your hand into easily.

Is it better to evaporate partially and then freeze, or should I just evaporate it all? I have some in the freezer, and some evaporating in a baking dish. I plan to scrape what is left from the baking dish out with a razor blade as I did previously.

I do this evaporation step with a fan. But I feel like the fan is cooling the solution, that is, when I touch the sides it's kind of cold. And that makes it cloud easier? Because I really don't notice much evaporation of solvent during the 5-10 minutes of it being under a fan.
And when I put unsaturated solvent into the freezer, it also clouds quickly.

Thanks for the help guys. I put my jars of naptha under a fan for a day or so and then in the freezer. After filtering the naptha, I found tons of CRYSTALS!
I smoked them and tripped out nicely. In any case, thanks for all the help and input.