I have two questions:
First I noticed that lazyman's tek said that you need to mash up the plant material "after" it is in the basified water. That sounds dangerous and messy... What does it mean?

I was wondering why Lye (Does Sodium Hydroxide do the same thing) breaks glass? And how does it break the glass(cracks, warping, dissolving), is there any warning?

No need to 'mash' plant material after its in basified water, that sounds dangerous. I suggest rather reading Noman's tek for STB instead. Powder your bark before putting in water and then youre fine to pull as soon as its basified and mixed

There are some stories of glass cracking and accidentally breaking when people moved the pot around. I suspect most of these cases are because of sudden temperature changes when adding lye, and not because of lye actually etching the glass (though that can happen with longer time).. So when you add lye, be sure to keep mixing so that the temperature change isnt concentrated in one spot but is more gradual and over the whole solution. Also its recommended if possible, just in case, to have your container in an easy-to-clean place in case something happens, and be sure to wear safety equipment.

Theoretically good glass (borosilicate) should store very strong lye solutions for months/years without a problem, but after a long time lye can react with glass (according to benz, forming some kind of sodium-silicate complex). Though personally in my experience even using cheaper glass containers, just making sure there is no sudden temperature change when mixing, I never had any problem (yet?), no cracking no nothing, specially if just storing the lye for a couple of days for an extraction. Maybe others that did have problems can chime in and share what happened with them. In any case just work carefuly and dont forget safety equip, avoid storing the lye solutions for too long and try to use quality glass, maybe changing container after a few extractions.

The idea here is that NaOH (lye/sodium hydroxide) will soften the root bark pieces and make it easier to break them up. If you are using shredded or powdered material, it doesn't need to break down (it is already). I have never used whole pieces, but I agree that it sounds a bit dangerous. Personally, I don't want to splash around in corrosive liquids.

imo, you would be better off doing an acid extraction on powdered or finely shredded material so you can get the solids out of the way before working with your nonpolar solvent.



NaOH is highly corrosive and will eventually dissolve glass. I am not 100% on this, but I think that the amount of time your extraction is taking place will not be long enough to create a risk of damage. However, I don't recommend letting NaOH linger around in expensive glassware for longer than necessary, especially something with a ground glass joint (sep funnel, for example).

<paces nervously>