I'm planning for my (first) 100g MHRB extraction and getting everything together so i can get started as soon as my bark gets here in a few days. I read in the Poor Man's Tek thread that you can convert baking soda to sodium carbonate by putting it in hot water and waiting until no more bubbles come out.



Sounds good, but does anyone have have any more knowledge to share with me on this technique? Specifically how hot does the water need to be? I'm currently in a dorm situation so I want to avoid using the oven in the kitchen for something that could possibly be viewed as suspicious like just straight up heating baking soda, which is how I did it for my phalaris extraction. I'm feeling that I might just make a saturated sodium carbonate solution and nuke that in my microwave or heat water in the microwave and then put baking soda in that. I would then pour that solution over my vinegar/bark.

I'm not actually using the Poor Mans Tek, I'm using naptha. But given the circumstances I feel like this would be a good method of freebasing all my little dmts after salting them.

Thanks

Don't extract in dorms. Period. Its extremely risky, and there's lots of news stories about people getting caught "manufacturing drugs" for extracting in their dorms. Find another place to do the risky business or IMHO, don't do it at all, its not worth the risk.

Yeah its probably not a good idea to extract in dorms, on the other hand if you can find a safe place to extract somewhere else you can buy sodium carbonate sold as 'washing soda' in the laundry section at your local grocery store. it'll take this whole step out and you'll be sure you have sodium carbonate.

safe place! remember.

Thanks guys. I wasn't planning on doing the extraction itself in my dorm room, I was planning on going into the mountains for that. I'm just trying to get everything together before I go. Anyway, I can't find washing soda at any of the local grocery stores (they're all more like convenience stores), but I just remembered I brought my foreman grill-esque quesedilla maker with me. I will wrap up some baking soda in tin foil and sandwich that in the quesedilla maker for a couple of hours. Honestly I have all the privacy I could possibly want in my room, but I agree that it's best to be safe, especially with the incriminating bits.

I know there are a few VERY tempting looking teks mentioning the use of sodium carbonate as the main base. Very tempting.

But take a step back and think. Logic would dictate that if those teks were anywhere at all as good/high-yielding/easy/reliable/efficient compared to the lye and lime teks then EVERYONE would be doing them and using lye for DMT would be the stupidity of the past.

Personally I've tried 4 times to extract DMT using sodium carbonate as a base.
The first time I got: 0.000% yield
The second time I got: 0.000% yield
The third time I got: 0.000% yield
The fourth time I got: 0.000% yield

With lye it was something like (all STB):
1st: 0.11% yield
2nd: 0.45% yield
3rd-6th: 0.40-0.65% yields

With lime:
1st: 0.55% yield (STB)
2nd: 0.57% yield (STB)
3rd: 0.95% yield (A/B)
4th-10th: 0.85%-1.55% (A/B)

The first 2 sodium carbonate teks were done while I was first learning, but only the first 2.
The 3rd was done after I had gotten yields with lye and the 4th was before the 8th lime tek.

Sodium carbonate DOES work to convert DMT fumerate to DMT freebase very well. But from what I've read using it to freebase the DMT in MHRB requires either diethyl either or DCM as a solvent to work. Naptha or xylene or d-limonene never worked for me.


My advice:
Get some pickling lime and do Q21Q21's tek 2 in a friend's house who doesn't live with their folks. It takes 2 days and is super easy and reliable.

This is so sad, i just finished with my third extraction with sodium carbonate and nothing. it would have saved so much plant material if i had just gone with the lime.. my advice to anyone who is thinking about using sodium carb, don't do it isn't worth it. invest in the better stuff, set some money aside do it all at once with all the right material.

Thank you q21q21, lime is on my list

Ahhh but then what am I supposed to do with all of this baking soda??? You've got me convinced though. I'll look around for pickling lime, but I'll have to find a legitimate grocery store that I can get to. Would Whole Foods have it, do you think?

If you're not in the US you're best bet would be ordering pickling lime online (It isn't watched like Lye ). Though I hear Mrs. wages pickling lime is in almost any Wal-mart in the US, I was shocked when I found lime locally after searching about 2 dozen stores (in Vancouver) and I have made a point to ask at most stores I go to an not a single other store seems to carry it in my city.
Edit: oh ya, I forgot about this one that was posted not too long ago though link

If you want to get crafty acquiring your base, there's some teks out there to get koh from hardwood ash. I've heard its as simple as boiling the ash in water, filtering and evaporating. Also, its almost free except gas/electricity for the stove and some hardwood to make ash.

http://www.lifeunplugged...e-lye-from-wood-ash.aspx

But know, lye is extremely dangerous when not handled properly, only do this ^ if you think you can and will handle the risks involved.

Edit- my bad, it seems you get potassium carbonate from boiling woodash. But with that and slacked lime you can get koh. this is from wiki-

Historically KOH was made by boiling a solution of potassium carbonate (potash) with calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), leading to a metathesis reaction which caused calcium carbonate to precipitate, leaving potassium hydroxide in solution:

Ca(OH)2 + K2CO3 → CaCO3 + 2 KOH

Filtering off the precipitated calcium carbonate and boiling down the solution gives potassium hydroxide ("calcinated or caustic potash". This method used potash extracted from wood ashes using slaked lime. It was the most important method of producing potassium hydroxide until the late 19th century.

I'd be willing to be you could replace sodium carbonate with potassium carbonate to get sodium hydroxide as well.