I am on my second extraction, however I do not think that I am getting as much spice out of the tek as I am supposed to. The first extraction I tried was Norman's tek, however I only got a very small amount out of it, not even enough to breakthrough. I think it was due to weak bark. The tek I am doing now is Marsofold's. I did a whole pound extraction. I did my first pull of 150 ml's and froze that. Ended up with about 200 mg's. A decent amount, much improved over my last try. I did my second and third pull and they are evaporating as I type this. However, they have been evaporating overnight in my basement and I see no change in the solvent. Is there any dmt left in this solvent? It is not cloudy whatsoever when I blow on it.

Lots to troubleshoot - continue to read widely on the Nexus and note what is relevant.
She always visualizes the steps and the chem before hand...

Confirmed reports of bunk bark are scarce in her experience - where's it from?
MHRB yields are typically ~2%
Using naphtha/bestine (heptane)? Other non-polar solvents won't freeze precip.
Bark mix at pH ~13? If so, she says shake the shit out of it and let it separate - no fear of emulsions.
Try 200+ ml solvent?
No need to evap - pull 4-5 times from warm (water bath) basic MHRB solution, combine, freeze 24+ hours, decant, voila.
Don't throw anything away - after you fp, do one more big pull with the decanted solvent, and freeze for a week (don't peek!) - likely you will be pleasantly surprised!
Best,
L

Thanks for responding. I am using naptha for the extraction. I used powdered mimosa for Marsofold's tek, and when I cooked it I had to strain it through a cheesecloth because the liquid was so thick, like mud. Could the cheesecloth absorb some of the dmt? Maybe next time I will use shredded bark like the tek calls for.

I am going to get some ph papers to test the ph of the solution, then I'll do another extraction like you said.

regardless of whether you bought your bark shredded/pieces or powdered, you should definitely try to powder it as much as possible before extracting.

Regarding straining, hopefully you did more than 1 boil? 3x or 4x is ideal..

Personally I would not recommend as Ljosalfar said of shaking.. Stiring well for a minute or so and letting stand and repeating the cycle a few times before pulling is definitely enough mix, and prevents any possible emulsions or lenghty separation.

As for pH, no need to worry about it, specially ph papers will be useless since you cant read them with the dark acqueous paint. What color is your mix? It should be jet black, and then add a bit more lye just for the sake of it, and your pH should be high enough

Also I would say keep insisting on smaller pulls, better for freezing. After you freeze, you can reuse the naphtha or evap it down to small amount and freeze again to see if more comes out. Tell us how many mgs come out of the next pulls

Where is your bark from, if you can say?

pH papers work for her - the liquid seeps up and the color change is clearly visible.

Why the emphasis on small pulls? With patience, spice crashes out. Example: a full liter of previously fp'd naphtha was frozen for 2 weeks+ and a trio of canary crystal clusters formed, .5g!
L

You could get an empty milk jug and warm up both the naphta and the basified solution separatedly, then mix the naphta and some of the warm tea inside the milk jug and roll over with intensity, adding more basified solution after a few shakes. Then let it sit overnight and separate layers. In swim's experience when both are warm, emulsions are unlikely to form and he's was getting better yields using this method.

SWIM always had a hard time filtering and separating layers of naphta and basified tea and always low yields of yellow white spice. Working with basified bark soup is a bitch in general He just recently tried q21q21's vinegar/lime drytek and couldn't be more pleased with the results. He strongly suggests using this one, on a test try he got 250mg of white product out of 30gms of powdered bark (0.83%)... in less than 12 hours of freeze precipitation. He swears he will never go back, for him it's the way of extracting spice

I got my mimosa from heavenly products. I got the best quality they had. I evaporated the solvent today by leaving on my car outside. Soon enough I could see crystals falling out of the solution, so I assumed it was concentrated enough and I stuck it in the freezer. Nothing has frozen out of it yet, but I am going to wait a few more days and see what I can get out of it.

I used HP for all my herbal needs, I knew someone who did their first extraction and yielded 7.05 grams of yellow crystal from 1 pound of shredded bark. The bark was left shredded, and they did a customized version of an STB tek with knowledge gained from the nexus. 1 pound of lye and 4 liters of water, along with the bark, were mixed together and let sit for a while. There was some trouble with emulsion forming, but the emulsion layer was pulled out and put in a separate jar. Sea salt was added along with more lye, and viola. It was all just evaporated though, a small amount was re-crystallized to get purer stuff, and the rest was left yellow.

pH papers didnt work for me, but if you can make them work, awesome Personally I see no need though, what pH papers do is through color changes tell you the pH, which is basically the same as mimosa by itself is doing, when its jet black it means pH is 13 or so.

Regarding small pulls, because freeze precipitation success is related to solvent saturation and temperatures. At typical home freezer temperatures, if you made a too small pull, not all or not much of your crystals will crash out. I kind of tried to explain the reasoning here . Im glad it worked for you to re-freeze, it can work, but its hard to talk about that without knowing all the variables (how many grams of mimosa it was per how much ml each pull, temperature of pull, how well it was mixed, what was the yield of the first freeze, how cold was your temperature and specially, did you evap that liter afterwards to see if you could retrieve more? )

Anaru, heavenly should be very good bark. Yeah if you could see crystals, then its saturated enough for freezing for sure! Good luck, hope it goes wel! Is your freeze on coldest setting?

Okay so I tried evaping my remaining solvent all the way down and I'm left with a brownish goo. Did I screw up? Where did all my crystals go? Is there anything I can do about this goo?

I think my problem might just be not a cold enough freezer. My freezer is very old so it probably doesn't get to the -20 degrees that people say is critical. Would evaping the solvent to a more concentrated solution help? Also, are there any teks out there that work good for evaping, and not just freezing?

Anaru,
Did you try the freeze precip? -20 deg would be nice but it's not necessary. If the solvent has a fair quantity of spice in it, crystals/preciped "slush" will form with patience .
IMHO, evapping is smelly, toxic, wasteful (no recycling) and generally avoided.
Your goo can be recrystallized - check the Wiki for instructions.
If you're confident the goo is solvent-free, coating some mint and mullein can provide a nice smoke - be sure to weigh your dose.
The goo should have a slightly floral/warm straw aroma - this is the smell of the indole alkaloids!
Best,
L

Yes as Ljosalfar said, recrystallize, you'll probably get some crystals that way. FAQ has instructions.

Good luck!

I'm about to partake in yet another attempt. I'm sticking with the Marsofold tek because at least I got some yield last time, so I think I can do better this time. I have a question though, does the size of the crock pot matter? I have a 7 quart crock pot but the tek calls for a 3 quart one. Would the size difference cook the bark differently?