Ok so I started with 100g powdered mhrb as my source.. so far, following noman's tek to the t..

First I mixed 100g lye with 1.5L of water..

Then mixed in my 100g of powdered rootbark. let it do its thing, then added 1ml of naptha per gram of root bark as instructed, for a total of 100ml to the dark brown mixture..

my question now is, being that I used a gallon milk jug to mix this, 100ml is a very thin layer compared to the 1500ml of the water/lye mixture.. it is maybe a discernible 1/3" layer on top of the mix.. that is pretty small..

Is there something else i should transfer this to or what would some recommend doing from here? i feel like id have to cut the top of the jug off or something and try and use a syringe to get all the naptha..

any advice would be stellar.. thank you so much!

Squeeze the jug and it will all raise to the top, which is a lot easier to remove. An extra set of hands really comes in handy for this as well. If an extra set of hands isn't available, you can tie something around the jug once you squeeze it real good.

You could also pour the mixture into a different container, but you'd have to move it again once it's time to do another pull.

Also, before you pull it out, make sure you mix it up several times and let it separate. I recommend at least 4-5.

Hope this helps

Use an eye dropper found in a tincture bottle. They are glass but they work great because they pull small amounts of liquid, so it's easy to leave the base behind. Takes patience.

thanks so much for your advice guys.. clever trick with squeezing the milk jug.. that is definitely an option. i will have to pick up an eye dropper as well house.. my syringes are a pain sometimes.. i also thought about going to buy a half gallon milk container, transfer the whole mix to there so it would bring the naptha a lot closer to the top and the layer in turn would be thicker..

tricky tricky.. i guess this is what a separatory funnel is for eh? lol

thanks for all of your help..

i'm not completely sure weather any of the chemicals used would be too harsh on plastic baggies, if milk jugs work they might too.

gallon size works great as a sep funnel though when you fill it, tilt it to one corner, snip it to let out slow leak, etc. you see how this can be convenient. you can hang the bags on nails or whatever if they still need separating

did the same on my first extraction, and ended up moving everything into a long neck wine bottle. The solvent will be easy to access in the long thin neck, while the base stays behind in the larger base of the bottle. I like to use a glass eye dropper (99c for a pair at CVS) for solvent removal.

Squeezing milk bottles full of volatile solvent and pH 14 sludge sounds like complete madness to me.

What you should try is to either syphon out (with syphone tube) or seperate out (with turkey baster) the Caustic Soda Aqeuous layer until you have nearly got it all out, and then transfer the remaining contents into a nice thin bottle or jar where the naphtha layer will be much thicker. This way, getting your naphtha out will be a piece of piss.

hey guys, funny u say that aspersion.. i thought of poking a hole in the bottom of the jug to drain the sludge but then wouldnt know how to stop it when i needed to lol. i dont have any gloves here.. im not sure what you meant to do with the baggies though..

i ended up transferring the mix to a half gallon sized milk jug and squeezed it to the top and used a nasal aspirator (booger sucker lol, it was clean obv) to get the naptha out.. the wine bottle isnt a bad idea either evil.. i bought a 2 liter of sprite to work with if the milk jug didnt work out also..

and yes, bob, i completely agree.. nothing a couple purchases off ebay cant solve.. maybe a sep funnel or as you said something long and skinny to work with.. like a graduated cylinder would be perfect..

thanks guys, im going to start a new thread to know what do do with my crystals in the freezer right now with pics.. if anyone has any advice thatd be great, again thanks..

i would love for someone more experienced to tell me if this is improper technique or not but what i meant was


you get a big sturdy thick ziplock baggie without any holes (besides the one you will create in a minute). one that is big enough to hold alll the mixture easily without it leaking.

get some latex/medical/dish cleaning gloves, or at the very least have someplace to wash your hands or any spills nearby.

pour your mixture into the baggie.

let it fully separate, until there are no emulsions, if the layers already separated in a jar previously you may still have to wait a bit since pouring the contents into the baggie will naturally mix it back up, depending on how precise and patient you are with pouring

when there are two distinct layers you carefully hold the bag at one top corner with one hand, and with another and some scissors you carefully snip a very tiny hole in the bottom angled corner and let it start to drain (of course, into whatever containers you want each layer to pour into)

you can make the hole bigger or smaller depending on how fast you want it to drain out, however, the tinier the hole the easier it will be
to make a precise separation.

at this point you have two different containers (normally two jars/flasks or one jar flask/one evaporating dish ((pyrex, usefully))
and you let the bottom layer pour into one and then quickly switch to the other letting a little bit of the top layer go with if necessary for a clean separation. if it helps you can use your gloved hands to pinch the tiny hole at the time when it gets close to the division (this helps especially in a little emulsion still needs to settle)

and well, there you go...

the only thing is i am unaware if there are any safety concerns for the use of plastic like this. because for example some solvents like acetone for example can dissolve certain plastics. (which you might know if you ever tried cleaning a plastic (not glass )waterpipe out with acetone instead of isopropyl or boiling water.

hope this helps.

to err on the side of safety glass is always the way to go if you can find something that might work. dmt polyplastic whatever won't do anyone any good

or you could use tweezers instead of your fingers so you can see the separation really clear when it gets down to the corner.

ok, i know this may seem like a dumb question, but one has been using ziplock for years doing dxm freebase extractions. this includes using ammonia and naphtha. one's never noticed any visual change in the integrity of the bags from being in contact with these chemicals, but there may be something going on at a smaller scale than one can notice.

obviously, the best option is to get a glass separatory funnel and never use plastic or metal anything (except stainless steel maybe? and i finally have already got one, but it still remains that iv'e used them for a long time and they may come in handy in a pinch in the future.... if i know the nature of the safety of the issue.

so it's really important to me to find out which chemicals will or will not be hazardous in such a circumstance.

any help or information would be greatly appreciated! thank you!