Hi everyone, this is my first time trying a tek. Thank you in advance for any help, I know newbies and their newbie questions are frustrating.
The tek I used can be found here:
http://www.psychonaut.co...-easy-low-cost-way.html
I know there's a lot better teks with pictures and more detailed instructions found here on the nexus. I decided to go with this one because it looked very simple and is made specifically for Acacia Confusa which is what I'm using. Here's the first part of the tek which just includes up to defat steps:
Quote:1.Take your glass vinegar bottle and make shure it is washed thoroughly throughout.
2.Now Measure 200ml of water in your glass measuring jug and pour this into your vinegar bottle with one of your filters.
3 If you have a strong blender, powder down the Acacia Confusa bark so it has a wider surface area. I use a 600w philips blender which does the job! (dont worry if you don't own a blender you can get away with using just shreeded bark)
4.Filter in approximately 20g of (powdered or shreeded) Acacia Confusa Bark into your bottle, and give a vigourous shake to strip down the bark (it should look like slightly red)
5.Now store this solution in a dark, undisturbed part of your working area at room temperature overnight! (I use my bedroom cabinet and would store for 24hours, shaking every now 4-6hours)
6.Once 24 hours has passed will now need to perform a defat
7.Measure out 50ml of Naphtha with your measuring Jug and then continue to add this to your vinegar bottle using one of your small filters
8.Start shaking your solution for around 4-6 minutes (from what i have learnt the defat removes the unwanted alkaloids, so be sure to give it a ruddy good shake)
9.Start running a hot water bath @ 60c (You may be limited to your resources! So SWIM used a sink with the hot water tap which was filled up to the top with the hottest water it could produce. This came out to around 45c – 51c which is satisfactory)
10.Place your solution in the hot water bath (this does help speed up the process of the defat, after around 30 - 60 mins, both layers will have sperated)
11.Using your pipette python out the top layer of naphtha and store in one of your plastic pill bottle (make sure to name it something like ''defat bottle'' and eventually dispose ofit in the right way!)
12.Repeat steps 7 to 11 one more time
So my first question is related to steps 1-5. When it says to "filter" in the powder into the water, how do you go about filtering it? or by filtering does it just mean add? I've read a few detailed teks with pictures that use funnels with cotton balls, coffee filters, etc. but they were all using different methods. When I did it, I didn't use any kind of filter I just added the 20g of Acacia Confusa root bark powder into an empty bottle, then added the 200ml of water. I let it sit in my cabinet for a full 24 hours, shaking it every four hours. After I shook it, it became one red/brownish solution, but after a few hours had passed the layers became completely separated again and there was some frothy stuff at the top.
Before adding naphtha, this is what it looked like after sitting for 24 hours and not being shaken for 4 hours:
is the top layer of crap "emulsions"? I've seen the word emulsions used on a few different teks. If these are emulsions, are they because I shook the bottle too hard?
I shook the bottle again before adding the naphtha in step 7. I then added the naphtha, again the word "filter" is thrown out there and I wasn't sure what was mean't by this. I just added the naphtha using my turkey baster. I shook it hard for 5 minutes. Then I completely submerged the bottle in a bucket with hot water (120 degrees Fahrenheit). After one hour here's what it looked like:
As you can see, the naphtha didn't rise to the top into one distinct layer like it is supposed to and I still have this layer of crap on the top which can't be separated.
So what am I doing wrong here?
Thanks again