I'm sure I'm just "flogging a dead horse" here as it's been covered before but thought I would share what worked for me in the hope others may benefit.

Decided to try both Ron69's and Kash's extraction with a few tweaks.

As always for those who can't be bothered reading the whole post Kash's extraction came out on top by a mile (and yes I understand many people have success with 69Ron's method and I'm not trying to undermine it but in my experience it didn't work well at all). Take away point utilization of a microwave was very successful and saved a lot of time.


Material used: Bridgesii 50g (1.76oz)(each extraction)

Dried green skin only was used, dehydrated at 150f (65c)and powderized ('wax' layer, spines and white inner flesh was removed). This was 50g for each extraction using the same plant. (Freshly harvested, Autumn, plant aged estimated 8+ years given by a friend who collects cacti).

69Ron's method:
Extraction was followed to the 'T' however due to testing only 50g (1.76oz)other materials were scaled down.

French press did not help at all, excess D-Limonene (100%) was used to help pull out the solvent from the gunk. This was not successful. Although this seems like a quicker and more food safe approach I found it messier. End product 50mg of tan Mescaline acetate after one wash with dry MEK (for memory). Magnesium Sulfate was air dried with heat and then used to dry the MEK (which was already 100% MEK anyway).
Believe the problem was that the material had soaked in the D-Limonene and it did not want to separate.

Kash's extraction:
Microwave was utilized for the acid cook with water and vinegar (acetic acid 8%). Excess vinegar was used. This was not accurately measured note 8% vinegar was used in higher quantities than original method).

Microwave setting: 1000watt setting was selected. A microwaves safe glass jug 35oz or 1l was used. 50g (1.76oz) of dried powderized Bridgesii skin was placed with approximately 700ml (24oz) of vinegar/ water mix for 5 minutes. At the 4 minute mark the water had heated up enough that the powderized cacti sediment was 'jumping' around the water mix.

4x 5 minute acid cooks where preformed. By the 4th cook the water was almost clear (slightest yellow tint). After each cook the water was filtered through cloth with use of a vacuum pump filter (the cloth was hard to get a seal on but worked fine, the hotter the cook from the microwave the easier it all flowed through. This was significantly faster then letting the water cool a bit, the plant material was also clumped together better making it less messy when hot. The acid water was put into a pot and reduced.


After the pot was reduced this was again filtered through a vacuum pump filter this time with lab filters. This was tedious, however I believe it helped greatly with a cleaner end result.

The filtered acid water was then placed in a jar and based with 100ml of cool lye. (No PH was done due to being out) so excess lye was used.

Xylene was then placed in the jar for 2x pulls (each at approx 100-150ml for 15mins). Jar was thoroughly shaken. Lots of emulsion formed! However, xylene has always been great in settling emulsion over time or can be separated faster a nice hot bath in the sink.

Xylene was separated and mixed with 100ml of water containing 2ml of (98%) HCL this was conducted once and separated in a dish.

For the second pull 50ml of 8% vinegar was mixed in with the Xylene.

100ml HCL water was placed in a dish for evaporation with a heater fan.

50ml Acetate water was placed in another dish for evaporation.

Acetate was scraped and cleaned with dry MEK x 2

HCL was scraped and cleaned with dry IPA and dry Acetone (1:1) ratio. Before the clean the HCL was very clean barely any tan color, mostly clear and white, I believe the lab filtering may have helped with this especially since the ph of the acid and base weren't accurately taken during the extraction.

Acetate came out at 200mg after 2x cleans with a tan-ish colour.

HCL came out at 750mg with a close to pure white (a slightly off white color).

Estimating 85% purity per se, 765mg pure mescaline was obtained from 50g. Approx 1.5% overall. Not bad from a Bridgesii.


Bottom line microwave lysing seems to work well. Extra filtering may have facilitated a cleaner end result and unfortunately 69Ron's method did not yield well at all.

Update:

Microwave method using Kash's Extraction was performed a second time with the same cacti material (same plant) powdered Bridgesii 115g and 55g of San Pedro (non PC variety).

This time however it was scaled up to 170g, end result yielded only .7% of the original. After extra washes a greyer slightly tan color crystal formed it did not appear as clean as the original cook. Pedro may have had something to do with crystal color.

The drop in yield could have been one of two things the Pedro was extremely weak in potency (although it was bought through a reputable backyard nursery). If this was the case this would give me a closer yield percentage to the original Bridgesii cook.

However, more than likely scaling up the cook using more water and more material in the jug for the microwave cook, more than likely threw out the final yield. As the material would have been more inconsistently cooked. Therefore my advice for anyone utilizing the microwave to speed up your cook is to stick with 50g cooks x4.

This second cook attempt yield only .55% I tried to do additional microwave cooks the following day with the left over plant material. I also tried to salt out more product from the Xylene and the yield improved slightly to .7% overall from 170grams of powdered material.