Hi. I am plannin on doing an extraction

100g milosa, 500ml water pH 4. Step at 55 C for 1h filtered and filtrate collected, root bark redisolved x 4

2L of mimosa water, reduce back to 500ml

Would that give problems? I will add NaOh in solution

Some possible problems when reducing include:-

*The amount of water vapour produced by evaporating 1.5L of water could lead to terrible condensation in your kitchen if your fume extraction system isn't up to the job. (This happened to me once when, unbeknownst to me, the outlet pipe of my cooker hood became detached so the fan only recirculated the air in the room. I had to wipe down the walls but, to be honest, they needed a clean anyhow.)

*You get bored/stoned and fall asleep/wander off somewhere, waking up/returning only when you smell smoke after accidentally evaporating 1.96L of your 2L brew. (I also did this one, fortunately only with lentil soup.)

*Your evaporating liquid forms a thin crust on top, leading to the pan erupting purple dye all over your kitchen. (If this or something similar turns out to be a problem, it may be helpful to know that putting a succession of fresh, cold lids on your pan and periodically wiping off the condensation has proven to be surprisingly effective if somewhat time consuming. However, it does effectively prevent the preceding two difficulties as well. If you're particularly careful, you may be able to gather about a liter of distilled water as a bonus.)

No problem with reduction. If you have them, it works best to start with a large pot and transfer to successively smaller pots (or beakers), for efficient heat transfer.

Keep in mind that losing a few drops from 2L is no big deal. Losing drops from highly concentrated extract hurts your yields. If you reduce to 100mL, and leave 1mL behind after a transfer, you just lost 1% of your yield.

Some further thoughts: Smoker root, you talk about acidification. If you're using a volatile acid, like acetic or hydrochloric, this will be carried off in the steam. Particularly in the case of the latter, it is important to have a suitable fume extraction system and even acetic acid fumes are best kept to a minimum. Keeping your level of acidification to an absolute minimum helps with this - as well as reducing the amount of materials you use.

Considering the root bark typically gives a fairly acidic solution by itself - particularly if you use distilled/deionised water - you might want to measure the pH of the bark tea without acidification before proceeding further.


PP makes a good point. When transferring, I would (obsessively ) wash out the last drops of a concentrate from its former container by using a mist sprayer - paying due attention to the dilution this causes.

What DF0 tells is the biggest thing to consider in my opinion:

If the soup is very concentrated, then a thin skin will form on top of it and prevent most of the evaporation from this point - or at least slow it down significantly.

But just destroy it with a spoon - sadly it forms fast so you would have to come back every few minutes.

The fastest way to evaporate much water:

Put if in a pan on the stove and when it is boiling, place a fan at the side of the pan and start blowing at the highest setting.
You should verify that it still boils at this point, otherwise either increase heater setting or reduce the fan setting. Evaporation is by far the fastest at 90 - 100 °C.
Also pay attention to not place the fan on a hot surface -the area around the pan will also heat up, so a plastic fan may melt if you dont put any wood below it.
Open the window to ensure the exit of all the water - the regular hood of the stove will not work, as you are blowing from the side.

This way you can evaporate 1,5 L in 30 mins.

My thought was to use a 4L beaker for the acid cooks and change back to a 2L once it is at 1.5l with a watch glass and a thermometer. Heat (55C, since I heard above would damage the plant) and stirr magnetically(would this break the surface gunk?) for 2h filter repeat. Reduce the filtrate.

For the acids being let of, i belive being outside is the best or doing it under a kitchen fume hood

BTW: I work in a kinda dangerous job so I am not used to fall asleep while working hahaha

Dont worry - you can heat the plant in your soup to 100 °C without any problems. The native tribes in youth america heat their plant material for hours or even days on an open fire. These are generally other plants, but also Mimosa can be heaten up as high as water would go - for hours. The molecule inside is in its salt form - this prevents it from reacting with its most reactive part - the Nitrogen atom.

I would even suggest doing it 70 °C+ as any °C higher will reduce the time needed to extract everything.

Besides when reducing you dont need to place it outside - when using vinegar it would just not smell sooo nice, this acid will boil off with water as its boiling point is also somewhere about ~ 100 °C. But that is not a problem regarding health, as the concentration will always be minimal in air. Just smelly ...

Using citric acid would completely eradicate the smell - also while cooking. It will never evaporate when reducing volume. Also you could use hydrochloric acid. It will also never evaporate and always stay in solution, as long as there is a tiny bit of water left.

And magnetical stirrer would be perfect to destroy a thin solid surface layer! But then you would have to use it with the beaker + hot plate and this would be way slower than a pan and a fan, but you may try any way you like

At low concentrations maybe it isn't relevant or problematic (I don't know), but saying that hydrochloric acid doesn't evaporate (or produce fumes in general) seems a little strange to me.

Yes, some kind of cognitive flatulence, surely! Phosphoric and sulphuric are common non-volatile mineral acids. Non-volatile organic acids include fumaric, succinic, malic and tartaric.