Get this - SWIM was good on his way on his 1st extraction with MHRB basified in lye solution inside a sep funnel. SWIM added petroleum ether to that, watched how it got seperated, but when SWIM wanted to actually seperate it he realized that the sep funnel hole is very, v e r y small so the bottom layer got stuck, causing a traffic jam in the funnel.
What swim did in this point is to spill the base+solvent from the other side of the funnel back to the bark jar, collect the solvent with a pipate, (almost completly clean, althouh some of the dark layer dots got in) and put it to freeze(was planning on sodium carbonate wash but without the sep funnel swim not sure he'll be able to seperate properly because layers are much less distinguish, correct swim if he's wrong..)
So, quastion is, is there any problem with keepeing the lye+MHRB solution for a day or two untill Swim get his ass to get a new funnel (or some other solution)?
must say, untill that point it was all going so well..
oh another quastion - how fine does the mhrb should be grinded? Swim grinded it to a very fine powder but got also some fibers left (wasnt even the cause for the funnel jam, just want to know...)
anyway, thnx for all answers and goood night..

I take it you're doing a STB tek.
A sep funnel should only be used to separate two liquids like in an A/B or your sodium carb wash.

Do not put root bark in your sep funnel!

yes im doing stb, pretty much according to nomans tek, and i used the sep funnel for liquids only, but i guess i had some small bark fibers or not-so-finely-cut lumps of bark in my basic liquid.. actually im now going to get a new funnel, but still want to know if the extra hours soaking bark+lye could done any harm to the process?

oh btw, i just looked at the jar in the freeze (the one i seperated with the pipate) and its crystalizing beautyfully, so at least that... hopefully ill have some camera soon :-)

The extra time sitting is fine, it can sit for months even. As noted though a separatory funnel is not the tool for STB extractions, you will encounter clogging.