So I recently had to switch to acacia confuse root bark and I tried to use my normal stb tek on it, to very little success. Only got about 2 normal dosages from stb. I am now planning to try an A/B tek on it but am a little confused. how my old stb tek worked and what I tried on acacia bark was I dumped 50ml of lye into 600ml of water and then dumped 50g of shredded bark into it. couple of good shakes and then let it sit for 6 hours with a couple of shakes in between. I then would add 50ml of naptha and stir and then suck it off and put into freezer. I don't exactly get how the A/B teks work. What can I add to my old way of doing it to make it an A/B tek? I have tried to look up every A/B tek to try and understand what acidfy to base really means and what I have to change but its a bit confusing to me. I know this is a boring and repetitive question but its killing me! I cant seem to find a right way I can pull it of. thanks

i would look up thick-light's tek. it boils out the goodies into an acid/salt solution then you can discard the bark after 3-5 soaks, basify and then add naphtha or other solvent of choice. very easy to work with. great results.

you just want to add some acid (enough to cover the bark, but not too much to require an unnecessarily high about of base), and cook it into the material (you can toss it in the oven, or on the stove).


you really just want to lyse the cells (rupture the cell walls), allowing the goodies contained within to flow out.


after that you add enough extra base to negate any prior acidity, and carry on as normal.

thanks ill give it a try.