So I followed EW's 100g ACRB tek to what I thought was a T, but apparently something has gone severely wrong. I think I goofed somewhere during the first pull or during defat. The NPS to be discarded during defat looks somewhat cloudy. This is being evaporated now. When the base was added to the acidic solution during step 4 of clean up, the mix didn't turn very milky. Pulls from this solution yielded almost nothing, like 10mg at the most. Yes 10.

I may have failed to allow the basic soup to cool enough as well. I still have the soup. Is there anything I can do to salvage what's left, or should I just start over completely? I really thought I followed everything pretty closely, I'm surprised it turned out this bad

If you followed everything correctly
the only unknown variable is your bark.

It sounds like it is either, not ACRB or is extremely low in alkaloid.

Well if you indeed followed the tek to a T then most likely your bark is bunk... sadly it happens frequently

It is normal for your nps to be cloudy after the backsalt and I have done the same tek like 10-15 times now and have never left my basic soup to cool at all

To me this sounds like you did not mix the nps with the acidic water solution for enuogh time.IME whenever i do this it takes a good 20min of continuous stirring,the nps begins to look cloudy,but actually after this heavy stirring,as the molecules get transferred from the nps in the acid solution (to their salt form),the nps remains about 85% clear,giving you notice that it no longer holds alks suspended..so it shouldn't be cloudy at all when you siphon it off.

Usually if you follow the reactions with patience it is impossible not to figure out quite easy what's happening in there.

Another thing that you said is that upon basing the acidic water of the defat stage it did not turn milky..well,to my knowledge that means again that maybe you haven't migrated all of the actives from the nps in the acidic soln...this,which i find the most common mistake that people make in the process of the mini a/b(it takes patience and some degree of attention)..or your starting material is bunk.

I'd be tempted to go for a STB extraction to start with - much easier and, if done carefully, gives high yield with crystals as pure as any A/B.

Out of interest I've ended up with 150mg from 250g of ACRB before now i.e. 0.06% yield.
I can usually guarantee >1.2% yield from MHRB.

I have a feeling that my bark is ACRB. Can't be sure about alkaloid content, but when I opened one of the bags, it had that familiar, hard to place, faint deem smell. Also, when doing pulls from the basic soup mix I noticed the pulls were quite clear. Very little color to them. Is this normal? The acidic soup was very red, and turned pretty black with the addition of a base. I might have just been impatient in how well I mixed the nps before pulling?



I'm hoping this was the problem. Should I mix nps and basic soup until nps starts to show some hue to it?

Also, I still have the basic soup, is there anything that can be salvaged from this?

Thank you for the replies.

First extraction? If you've learned something from it, it's never a complete failure!

^^^

True I've learned something, but haven't decided what exactly to draw from it yet.

Personal experience is priceless imo.This is how we all learn!

Somewhat of a clear oil was retrieved, which slightly smelled of deem, but was discarded because it was such a small amount and was sitting in a dirty container. I thought it would be discarded anyway, so I didn't consider cleanliness an important factor for this container.

I have a feeling there are some alkaloids still in the soup because nothing seemed to be pulled initially.

Going to try a few pulls again. Will report back.

Finally pulling some alks! First round of pulls yielded 500mg of an off-white wax, second round is freezing right now. For a while I wondered if the low yield was due to old vinegar/lye, but I think I just didn't employ enough patience when doing the initial pull from the basic soup.

I'm going to try another batch here soon, so we will see how it goes. I might just collect pulls from a couple of batches, then perform a mini A/B, or just evap then rXtl. Haven't decided yet.

Thank you for the new knowledge Nexus! This will be a rewarding adventure!

Good times