So i have 4 pounds of kava root from vanuatu coming my way that i plan making a kava extract with. I know kavalectones are soluble in acetone co2 ethanol and a few other solvents, which solvent do you think would extract the most kavalectones? I was Thinking of taking the kava sticking it in a jar with the solvent and letting it sit for several months and then evaporating the solvent do you think this is an effective method to make a kava extract?

I tried this with a small amount of kava. I soaked in ethanol for like a week, then evapped. It basically left a super sticky thick yellow resin. Very hard to work with imo.

soaking in ethanol for a week worked well for me - as did acetone.
if i were to do it again id use methanol.
the final product is like super numbing - almost like a local anesthetic.

How concentrated would you say it is? 10x? 20x?

I was doing a little reading on methanol and wikipedia says 10 ml of it will make you go blind do you think all the methanol will evaporate will it leave any residue?

For that reason alone I would not use methanol.

oh come on.

who's gona drink methanol - and always after using it there is a cleanup step.
methanol is my best alcahol - just as dcm is my best non polar solvent (damn nasty stuff tho)
consume the product not the tools (when eating supper you dont eat the fork do u ?)

I've used IPA with great success. 2.5 hours in CSLE extractor was all it took. Plus an hour to distill IPA. Plus ~3 hr to evap remaining IPA from the final product.

phlux what exactly is the cleanup step when using methanol? Are u positive all the methanol will evaporate and not leave any trace amounts? Trickster what Is a csle extractor?

Methanol is a great solvent for certain things, I agree on that, but you need to know what you’re doing. An amateur can get themselves into a lot of trouble with it. You need to make absolute sure there’s none left in the final product.



This is the problem. If there are trace amounts left, it’s not good for you. Sure trace amounts won’t make you blind, but it’s still not good for you. As long as it’s all removed in the final product you have no worries. Acetone or IPA are safer than methanol. Acetone evaporates real easily and fast so there are far less chances of there being any residue left in the final product, and even there was, acetone is a normal part of the human metabolism. IPA doesn’t evaporate so fast, but IPA residue is much safer than methanol residue.

But methanol is a great solvent, one of the best actually. Methanol and DCM are super powerful solvents, but both very toxic, so if you use them, make sure there’s none left in your final product, and you should be fine.

It's here.