Hi guys,

My pet hamster is following stb tek stb tek

He has made six jars of basified shredded root and when shaking them with his little hamster paws he noticed that one of them did not feel at all like it contained liquid. There is no sloshing sound and it feels closer to being a solid/paste.

He is considering splitting the jar and adding water, is this necessary or will it be ok when he puts the naptha in? im thining no but i just thought its worth an ask!


Thanks for ur help!

I think thick solutions can hold onto the naphtha and won’t separate as easily as is necessary. I would add more water.

i just finish my first round of experiments on STB. one of my findings was that making pulls over thick solutions works against spice extraction instead of helping. you are going to get no crystals. you want to go for a lighter solution, 1gm mimosa, 1gm lye, 15 ml of water.

that is the magic ratio imo.

Just to put another view out there--

My first extraction was STB with powdered MHRB and 1g/1g/6ml (Whatchamacallit tek). I was still able to get a good yeild (1.2% yeild yellow, 1.1% yeild recrystalized). I had to shake the sludgy stuff to get Naptha to mix in, which led to yellow crystals, but I planned on recrystalizing anyway.

IMHO (and I am only 1/2 step up from noob) 1g/1g/15ml is too generous with the water. I might go with something like 1g/1g/10ml in the future, but it may be overkill to put in more than that.

I have used 1/1/10 with 100g of bark and 1/1/15 with 50g's and there wasn't much difference. I think everyone should do an A/B if working with the shredded stuff. Only because it is easier to work with and you don't have to worry about the soup being too thick at any point after reducing the combines boils. It might seem like a lot more work compared to an STB when first looking at all teks out there, but i assure you it is easy as pie

Nitegazer/DoingKermit:

can you describe you pull technic? maybe that is where im failing.

Use an HDPE pipette

I don't even know how you did a successful extraction with 6ml water per gram of powdered bark. In my experience, you definitely want to use 15 for powder. Why do you use such a small amount of basified water? It seems the naphtha wouldn't even mix through the sludge well, and take forever to separate (or even create an emulsion?) The DMT leaves the bark and goes into the basified water. Having more water for the naptha to mix through makes the process inherently easier ime.

6ml/g just seems extremely low to me..

The Whatchamacallit tek calls for a bit more than 2/3 Gallon of water (~2.5 liters) to 1 pound powdered bark (454g), which works out to 1g/5.5ml. I put in a bit more, though.

If you have 1g lye to 1g bark, you can agitate the container quite a bit without fear of emulsion. It may just need 30 minutes or so to separate.

In terms of pull technique, I use lab grade HDPE 1 liter bottles with a narrow spout. The thickness of the mix actually helps me pour off the naptha cleanly. When it gets close to the basified solution, I change containers and pour into a twist-cap gatorade bottle that acts as a sep funnel. If your running several pulls, it's ok to leave some naptha behind in the first few pulls, because you will pick it up later.

ok pretty similar as what im doing. only thing is that my basified solution was way to thick (5gm mimosa 2gm lye 6 ml water). then i watered down but I lost every proportion. im going to try with a new solution today, thanks man