hi everybody. i am so very happy to announce that today i finished my first pull of my first extraction. i owe so much to the guys here that helped me along the way! i couldnt have done it without you. you know who you are <3 <3 <3
i am writing this post looking for suggestions on ways to improve. i also made notes along the way of the flaws i noticed in my process and things i needed to get to help me next time. i will list them in my steps and if you guys dont mind i would love some feedback on those too, whether my suspicions are correct etc?
here is my process:
1- i used 50g of MHRB. i found it shredded, but tore apart any big chunks that were remaining. (sorry should have took a picture).
2- i warmed 300ml of water, then added 50g of lye. i did this in 3rds. so i added ~15g, stirred, waited, then added more until it was all dissolved.
[later in the tek i realised the bark was not completely covered in lye solution, so next time i will try 400ml of water. most teks seem to ask for a lot more anyway. should i add a third of the lye too? keeping the ratio the same]?
3- added the lye solution to the bark and mixed very well for a while. then stored the jar in a safe place for 3 days with cling film over the top secured with an elastic band.
4- stirred the mix occasionally (approximately every 12 hours), over the 3 days that the lye solution did its work.
5- added 75ml of solvent.
[found out here that i did not have a glass measuring jug that could measure as little as 75ml, so i used a slightly flawed mathematical method, but was confident it was close to 75ml].
[this is also where i found out my bark was not completely covered (image below), so i added more solvent, to a total of 100ml, to make it easier to separate. next time i will use more lye solution as mentioned earlier].
6- stirred and swirled the mix carefully, but thoroughly. let it settle until the layers completely separated, then repeated for a total of 10 times (actually more because i lost count and played it safe)i waited an average of about 5 mins for the layers to separate each time.
[i found out too late that my jar was not ideal for this situation. i could have rolled the mix inside a properly sealable jar, but instead i had to stir and swirl].
7- decanted the solvent using a baster into a tall thin glass. moving any known, clean solvent straight into my precipitation dish, then finally allowing any contaminated solvent in my decanting glass to separate, before saving what i could and adding that to my precipitation dish.
[realised here that a baster is not ideal. the tip is too wide and everything pours out when the tip leaves the surface of the liquid. i will be buying a smaller pipette for a slower, more efficient decant].
[i also noticed here that some bark/lye mix was sticking to the inside of the baster (image below). at this point i stopped everything and cleaned the baster carefully]
7.5- i put my mix back into storage for next time at this point. i left it in the unsealed jar with a piece of cling film over it, secured with an elastic band (the same as while the base was working its magic). is it safe to seal the jar at this point? even if there is a small amount of solvent left (see the image below)?
8- allowed approximately 50% of the solvent to evaporate.
[i panicked here, so i think this might be where the worst of my flaws started.
i started by just blowing a fan on the solvent, but then, after realising it was taking a long time, remembered that i can speed it up using a warm water bath, so boiled some water, put it in a pan and put the dish in the water. i think the water was too hot. the solvent was gone very quickly but i think some steam might have made it into the solvent.
when about 50% was gone agitated the dish to see if it clouded. it did not cloud, but i moved forward anyway, losing a small amount of confidence in the process].
9- i wrapped my precipitation dish in cling film and placed it in the freezer (<-20C[-4F]). i propped up the dish on one end to keep everything in one place and help later with the final evap.
9.5- about 6 hours later i had a cheeky peek and saw the image below. this boosted my confidence and put me in a great mood for the rest of the day
10- about 12 hours after putting it in the freezer i poured off what i could back into a storage jar to re-use later. some of crystals were floating around. some of them went into the jar for next time, others missed and were lost
at this stage i tried to use the baster to remove the solvent, but that seemed to suck up crystals more than pouring it.
11- wrapped a net around the dish to help keep dust out (not an ideal net, but all i had this time. i plan to use tights next time), propped the dish in a window the opposite way to how it was propped in the freezer, then blew a fan on it from about 3 feet away on a medium setting.
12- left it there for about 1-2 hours (i forgot to check the time when i put it there). once it looked dry and did not smell of solvent i scraped my crystals and weighed them out.
[i found some pieces of dust in my dish here. i sat with a pair of tweezers and picked it all out, but it all had crystals stuck to it, so there was a loss there too]
the result was 53mg. average seems to be much higher, but i am happy with that for my first pull of my first extraction. i know where i lost some of it, it is just a matter of getting used to the process so i ready for problems before they arise. i lost a lot of crystals for stupid reasons. one time i even blew into the dish and watched a bunch of crystals fly out into oblivion
the colour was not completely white, but very close. i suspect that maybe some plant fats got through anyway? the colour was a yellow tint but only in certain spots (hard to tell from the pictures. although it was 53mg it looked like a lot more to me. is that something i should be concerned about?