Hey so after a couple days of trial and error and just straight up stupidity, i finally got my first couple pulls into the freezer. when it was time to take it out i ran into some problems. at first my jar had a nice collection of snowballs all over the bottom, i poured the naptha and put back in the freezer upside down. after that they just never came back to what they looked like before. just by the look i could tell they were mostly ice. i managed to collect a tiny bit of spice after all was said and done. i have my second pull in the freezer now and dont want to botch this jar, any tips on freeze preciping properly, how to not get the crystals to turn to ice when you pour the naptha? thanks.

i must say though, this being my first extraction im pleased to see how easy the rest of the process is, got a lot of help from here so thanks everyone, ill be sticking around here for a while.

shit i just read about pouring the naptha into a coffee filter, probably should have done that. with my next jar do i just pour the naptha through it and then let the crystals sit out and dry? wont they just melt back into the filter? or do i put the wet filter back into the freezer? this makes no sense, someone help me out please i really dont want to fuck this one up too.

also, instead of a fan could i lay it down on one of my air conditioning vents and let that blow it dry? i still dont see how the crystals wont melt.

sorry for triple posting/bumping my own thread but i really need some help here. when taking out of the freezer should i try and scrape all the crystals and pour them all into a coffee filter and let it dry, or should i just pour the naptha and let the jar evap infront of a fan? ive been searching and googling for a while and cant quite find an answer. Ill be doing this in the morning if someone could reply by then, thanks.

The reason your crystals melt is because as the naptha warms up, the spice dissolves back into it.

What you want to do is...

1) Take the naptha out of the freezer and swish it around a little to get as many of the crystals unstuck as possible, as quickly as possible, taking care not to drop the jar because the ice/condensation will make it slippery.

2) Pour the naptha through a coffee filter and collect the filtered naptha for your next pull/future use.

3) Allow your crystals to dry in the filter, undisturbed. Your crystals will be really light and airy so a fan can blow them away. The naptha evaps pretty quickly so you shouldn't have to wait too long.

4) Collect your crystals and enjoy. You can Re-x them with some bestine if you want to try to grow prettier crystals.

Good luck

put the tray directly under a fan after you have poured off the naphtha, you won't fail.

What's the point in using coffee filter if you can do it more simple and then scrape them off from your original tray. Any loose crystals will stay in the tray if poured off carefully.

Never did get the coffee filter trick to work, xtals always ended up melting into it. Too much hassle to get them back out.

Just get the baster you used to suck off the naphtha from the bark to suck the naphtha out of your precip jar. Do it slowly and carefully without disturbing the xtals. Once you get almost all the naphtha out, use an eyedropper for the last of it (preferred) or carefully pour off what's remaining. If it looks like they're starting to melt while siphoning, close it back up and wait till they form again.

Once all naphtha is out let the xtals fully dry in the jar. Preferred method is thin ladies stockings over the lid (to prevent dust getting in or xtals blowing out) set in front of a fan (by a window of course). At this point they shouldn't really melt since there's not much solvent left. If they don't solidify after a while it could be a combination of low purity and or high temperature in the room. A re-x on the oil would be a possible solution.

GL

^^ I am not sure if i understand the purpose of using a baster to suck up the naphtha after the freeze precip. The crystals stick to the jar (when solvent is saturated enough) and so the naphtha can easily be poured into another container or back into the base soup. I usually pour the naphtha off and stick the jar with crystals back into the freezer upside down with the lid screwed on. After a few hours i take it out and unscrew the lid, keeping it upside down to not let the naphtha drip back onto the crystals. Stick in front of fan and vuala!

Did you use mimosa as your starting material? People say crystals melt when extracting from Acacia Confusa.

Coffee filter worked great for me. And I kept using the same one over and over. When I was finished with it, I stuck it back in a mason jar with some acetone and washed it. Evaporated the acetone and collected the dirty/waxy crystals off the evap dish. Then I cleaned the dirty x-tals with Activated Charcoal in a hot water bath.

Now I have pretty, white, fluffy crystals. Looks like magic pixie dust to me.

Another tip: Always pour off you naptha from jar to jar, on top of a pyrex/glass dish. That way at the end of all your pull/freeze/filter cycles, you can evap the spills and collect the crystals. We don't want to waste!!!

Just because they don't always stick to the glass, especially if the jar is moved at all. Most will stick, but there are always some fluffy little ones that get swept up.

Pouring from jar to jar can also get messy and there's less spillage/waste using the same baster.