I am probably in the process of bolloxing up my first DMT extraction thanks to a p.o.s pH meter. Instead of acid cooking I have been 'water with a capful of vinegar' cooking. For my 3rd cook, I just guessed and chucked in a big load of vinegar after figuring out that my pH meter was telling me porkies.

Soon, will be time to basify the collected liquids. I am following the LexTek and it mentions something about temperature being crucially important in obtaining high yields, but doesn't actually tell what a good temperature is.

I am up to my eyeballs with various different infos pulled from various teks, could anyone (who knows) kindly tell me exactly what I should be doing with regarding correct temperature for basifying. My intention is (was) to simply add a bit of base solution (water and NaOH) to the 'acid cooked solution'.

Thanks.

..probably best room temperature..NaOH>acidic solution can generate heat (especially if added rapidly)..

too much heat will destroy the dmt so be careful , how much heat it takes though i'm not sure but I do know that the chemical reaction between water and lye mixed together too fast will be enough to screw up your extraction. I'm sure someone else will be here to help you soon.

Room temperature, but let it react for as long as you wish. Heat would speed up the reaction but damage and oxidize the dmt, so a incomplete reaction would be a lesser yield, using heat to speed up a reaction but still only giving in an 15 minutes, etc, would increase the yield vs not using heat for 15 minutes. That make sense?

Room tempreture for basifying.

Because you will need to add as much NaOH solultion to take the pH up, therefore you could end up doubling your volume size. Mix small volumed of high pH water add that in SMALL quantities.

Use warmish water bath to seperate layers. Some warmth does help migration of goodies, but the longer it is left to mix is critical ime.