Hi folks!
I'd like to share the results of a simple extraction I did, because I looked everywhere on the interwebz and couldn't find anyone who had done the same. My knowledge of chemistry is very limited and English is not my primary language so please be lenient.
So I have recently done a crude extraction of Trichocereus Pachanoi (150g dried and finely ground) with practically anhydrous isopropyl alcohol. The three pulls were left to evaporate and uncovered about 13 grams of green powdery material that looks pretty much like the cactus, not sticky/tary but very bitter and definitely active at 1g (I suspect between 5 and 10% mescaline).
Sooo long story short, I got bored and decided to try and clean 5 grams of this extract with the only other solvent I had handy... tap water. Now as I understand, most of the freebase mescaline should have formed the carbonate salt upon air contact. I couldn't find info about the solubility of mescaline carbonate anywhere but I thought it would dissolve in a cup of water, and I think it did. I added some citric acid to convert whatever freebase alks (if any) were left. Did 3 quick pulls, the first two came out really orange. Some green sludge/fat that strongly smells of cactus was filtered out.
The water extract was then evaporated at 80°C in an oven (couldn't do it lower but I trust it'll be ok) and the extract was scraped off the plates.
Has anyone ever tried this method? I think it worked so well because the cactus was thoroughly dried and I dried my 99% iso alcohol with epsom salts beforehand, so the resulting extract was powdery and already quite potent. I'm not sure it would work so well with the tary stuff everyone seems to get. So with a simple anhydrous alcohol (ethanol/methanol/IPA + magnesium sulfate) and water, anyone could potentially get a purer, full spectrum cactus extract, without the need for an A/B.
So what do you guys think? Now someone has to determine whether it's active... I suspect it will be. Bioassay next week probably :-)
Edit: last pull evaporated, here is the final weight from 5 grams of iso "tar" (the scale reads 1.488g). The resulting extract is an orange/brown powder that smells of mescaline with a hint of cactus. It is a bit gummy and sticky, like unrefined brown sugar, but one could probably purify it further with acetone, MEK or some other solvent.
