Hello,

I have been extracting for almost a Year now, always using Cybs with varied results and am wondering, What is the best method to catch as much spice as possible in my Nap? Sometimes I have used the EXACT same methods and ended up with pure white Crystals and other times I have pulled Lemon Yellow crystals despite no change in temperature or stirring strength. I am wondering, does the Spice float all around the base mix? or does it float to the top? should I be stirring slowly for Whiter product? Ommiting heat baths? shaking the vessel like fk to ensure as much of the nap touches the base mix? I'm currently using 16" inch stainless steel salad tongs to stir 50-75mg of nap into 100g extracts. I stir slowly sometimes and then think to myself 'I should be stirring this harder to create a Whirlpool effect' I am being advised not to use heat baths and gently stir by some, but the words 'Heated pulls draw more product' are always on my mind and I seem to have the belief that stirring vigorously will catch more of the Magic. I'm about to embark on another extract so any tips please? TIA.

I have no direct experience, but I've read that aggressive shaking can result in an emulsion that will make it very difficult to separate your NPS. That's why you can aggressively shake your acid treatment, but can't shake your NPS pull.

I am still prepping for my first extraction attempt, so again, I can't speak to actual experience.

Speaking to what fidus said, I gave one of my naptha / STB MHRB jars a mighty shake once and it made an emulsion that took a good two days to settle out. However, that jar gave me the best yield I've yet achieved: 1.96% in total. Could simply have been the bark, but maybe making that emulsion gave me a yield pop.

I don't know if anyone can corroborate this but I've noticed if shaken heavily when Amy A/B solution is warm resulted in heavy emulsion whereas future pulls after cooled were fine when vigorously shaken.

I've only ever had one emulsion and that was easily rectified by backsalting and adding more lye. I'm trying to find out if the Spice floats to the top of the base mix or if the nap has to travel right through the entire mix to catch as much as possible?

In my latest pull, I shook the hell out of basic soup + toluene for 30 seconds. Out of the 100 mL toluene, 50 mL has made it to the surface after 12 hours. Hopefully within a week most of it will be separated.

The reason for shaking is that I'm testing the hypothesis that maximum contact between NP and basic soup is very important to get a good yield. I imagine DMT freebase being trapped in the basic soup and shaking is the only way to ensure getting most of it. An emulsion is not a problem if it eventually separates. Probably a combination of known techniques (vibration, salt, NaOH, heat) gives the best result here.

New batch of bark, also first time using flasks and a magnetic stirrer, so a couple variables, but I’m having yield issues on this run.

I usually use mason jars, with a gentle roll/agitate regimen. On my last run of acacia I got about 1.5% full spec. Crystal and goop.
This one, first 2 pulls yielded 310mg white fluff and 200 mg of a tan wax. Next 3 jars in freezer aren’t very promising. 20 hours later, very light dusting on walls of jar. Doing a 6th pull with toluene. It’s been stirring for about 20 hours now no heat. This was a 250 g extraction. So as of now, I would say gentle roll over stirring. But I’m gonna take a variable out next time by going back to jars. I hope it’s not the case, as it’s been very nice to set it and forget it with my stirrer this run, and it’s a brand new gift from my wife, so I hope to get further use of it.

Emulsions will arise as a result of

1) the basic soup not being basic enough (the more lye the better, no such thing as too much only too much too quickly as heat will destroy dmt).

2) No salt present, salt helps dmt move in to nonpolar layer.

3) Acid solution not filtered enough before basifying, tiny particles will cause more emulsion, hence why some users use coffee filters and vacuum filter systems.

4) reducing acid solution too much, which causes increase in tannins,oils,microparticle to water ratio.

Adjusting emulsions is as easy as correcting any number of these above. A properly basified solution should be able to be shaken as many times as hard as you like and seperate within 30 seconds or less. Obviously this is hard to achieve, especially if you're using powdered material and not shredded.

The other day managed to seperate MHRB, NaOH and toluene emulsion with combination of:
- salt
- pouring from one container into another, followed by gently turning the container up and down
- heat
Salt had been added and the emulsion had been sitting for a few days. About half of the toluene had separated but there was no change for a couple of days. I suspected most of the remaining toluene bubbles to be too small and trapped in the basic soup to make it to the surface. Pouring from one container into another through a funnel, I could again see bubbles making it to the surface, slowly. Then I put the whole thing in a heat bath (80C or so) and it was like 10x speedup and about 80 percent of the toluene that was initially added seperated in 15 minutes.
Process was repeated with a small amount of added toluene to minimize losses.
So far backsalting titration predicts 1.5-1.6% yield from the first pull on MHRB rumored to be containing 2%.

I recently switched to Cyb's Salt tek, and the way he preconize to melt the NP is now to me the way to go:
- swirl GENTLY during 30 secondes (8 pattern) just for the NP to be in contact with every part of the basified solution, then wait until separate.
- Do this 4 time then pull.
- Perform a total of 5 pull
It results in no emulsion to deal with, and I found it to be less painful than the 10 minutes shaking I did previously. Yields are absolutely not affected, since I yield a nice 2%

The thing to remember that can be easily mistaken with Cybs Salt/Max Ion Teks is when it comes to the solvent stage the heat bath is ONLY for the NPS, not the base solution. I made the mistake of heat bathing both the base solution and NPS together in the main vessel on my first run, and the crystals came out a bit yellow because it pulled a bunch of plant oils and fats. Second run I heated only the Naptha and added it to a room temp base solution and the final product was almost pure white.

The difference in temp between the base solution and NPS during the pull stage is exactly why you only need to make 4-5 pulls. You want to maximize the amount of alkaloids being absorbed by the NPS, not the plant oils.

I had the same question today in the official extraction help thread( maybe it didn't belong there and i apologize for it). Wouldn't a system where the alkaline solution is slowly dripped into the warm nps be the best way to ensure maximum contact? (regardless of the time it'd take )

In theory if you used a magnetic stirrer hot plate that would work. The problem is the ratio of NPS to base solution is very small (50ml max) and mixing everything on a hot plate would inevitably heat up the base solution as well. In Cyb's Tek he says to transfer the hot NPS to the base solution quickly and mix it before the temp cools and equalizes. Heating the base solution at this stage is not the objective as that is what will facilitate the transfer of plant oils/fats into the NPS.

I had the same question about "shaking vs rolling vs stirring," and just had what I thought was an interesting experience. After my last extraction (160g ACRB powder), I split the resulting, reduced solution into two jars, and before basing them washed them with warm Naphtha. I shook both jars - really shook them. One jar formed a heavy emulsion. The other didn't even though they both contained solution from the same extraction, using the same amount of Naphtha. After basing them, neither jar had an emulsion.

For me, so far, shaking them works best. When I wash with Naphtha, shaking it like a wet dog getting dry, before adding base I get the most beautiful white crystals (with a single exception that's left me puzzled). Shaking after basing seems to have no deleterious effect on quality or yield. My tentative conclusion is that shaking (rather than rolling or stirring) before basing increases the quality, and shaking after basing increases the yield. Everything, start to finish, is done at heat (a water bath between 175F and 200F).

Two caveats... I don't use Cyb's Tek, preferring an A/B process with a Naphtha wash before basing so my experience may not be applicable to a STB like Cyb's. The other is that I have no hard data to back up my opinion, and haven't yet come up with a way to test it.