I've always done STB extractions. I guess the reason is that it worked the first time, and I've always liked the product. I know there are a few alkaloids in there and some wax/oil, but compared to cleaner crystals, they tend to eat and smoke better for me with better effects. Oil/Wax Temperature and other alkaloids and whatnot.

Anyways, I've read so many times that STB always yields much more than a/b teks. Can anyone confirm this and maybe explain to me why that is?

Like, if I'm extracting some other ("other" kind of leaf or plant, I always soak in vinegar for like 5 days, filter, then basify and pull. But they yield is always OK.

I'm extracting from MHRB, as usual, and only have 114 grams to extract with, instead of the usual pound. So, instead of using my giant gallon or 2 gallon size walmart glass cookie-vat, I'm using a quart jar. I was gonna try to get it all in one or two pulls, since this stuff is flour-powdered and shouldn't take anything but basified or acidified hot water to eat through all of the material and pull the goods out.

Purity is no concern since I am eating it as I always do nowadays, but the comments on yield are of interest and concern to me. I guess I'm asking if I'd get the same mg alkaloid yield if I soaked the powdered bark for 5 to 7 days in 5% vinegar, then basify to 13.5 and pull after filtering the solids out, than if I just soaked it in 13.5 ph water for a few days, shaking often enough with solvent already in there?

Oh, and does anyone know of anything I can put under a metallic quart-jar lid so the lye will not eat the rubber or anything else? I have found lately with various leaf and whatnot, that shaking jars gently to moderately is less noisy than banging the glass with a metal spoon, that has cost me at least one glass jar full of material in the past. (Shaking np solvent into basified material.)

Your time reading this, thinking about it, and if you do, your reply to my questions will be appreciated. Thanks!

Frank

My reasoning for liking a/b's more than stbs is for a few different factors. The first being that i notice no difference in yields, when using stb vs. a/b, as long as you do a proper and well thought out tek, and take the time to do it right you should yield the same from both methods. A/B is easier to work with imo, because you can reduce the liquid you have to a much smaller amount than you can with a stb.

STB's always call for massive amounts of lye/water, and i just don't like to have that sitting around in glass containers for safety reasons, not to mention i think its kinda wasteful with the lye. I usually soak my mhrb in fumaric acid water, for 1-2 days per pull, heating initially to almost boiling in a microwave. Then let it sit and shake a few times a day. The bark falls to the bottom and you collect the water from the top, repeat 2-3 more times and your good.

After reducing the liquid down to ~ 200-400ml/100g of bark, and filtering it, you can do a defat if you want, which is not possible with a STB. I don't find it necessary with an a/b, but some do. Anyway, the main advantage i see with a/b over stb, is you can shake the hell out of the solvent/basic water layer, and as long as its sufficiently basified, it will separate cleanly. This makes for a much more efficient pulling of alkaloids compared to a rolling/soaking method that would be employed in a STB over the course of a few days. At least that is my experience with naptha and d-limo, no emulsions if you let it sit under gentle vibration, and have the ph high enough/your liquid was well filtered.

I have pulled well over 2% alkaloids from mhrb employing this method, and it was extremely clean on the first few fasw saltings from d-limo. No wax, just powdery off white, fumarates without much impurities. Granted, i measured out fumaric acid and added it according to my estimated yeilds, so not to over do it with the fumaric acid and have it end up in my end product and have to be acetone/iso washed out. IE, start out with 75-100ml distilled water and 300mg fumaric acid, salt heavily emulsifying several times and letting it sit for a day or so. Then weigh your end product and do the math, if its getting fully saturated with dmt and using all the fumaric acid, you should have 23% by weight fumaric acid, and 77% dmt/impurities. Do a wash and recrystallize to check again to see if its clean and weights out right.

Granted, this is not the method employed by most, i.e. doing an initial freeze precipitation out of naptha, but that seems wasteful to me. You have to evap lots of naptha, and it does not pull full spectrum. It only takes 10's of mls of bestine to freeze precipitate a gram of dmt in my experience, and you end up evaporating less than 10ml of besting vs. 100+ ml of naptha in most cases. The limo is reusable, and you can pull from your basified fumarate paste with dry acetone or iso to get the other alkaloids if you wish. This seems like slightly more work, but makes up for the extra effort several fold in increased yields, and a lot of monetary savings in naptha, base, etc.

As to your question about using canning jars and the problems with the lids, its a tricky problem. I notice the lids starting to leak due to the limo/naptha eating away at the seal. Not so much the metal, but usually after a few extractions i need new canning lids due to leaking. To prevent this from happening i have invested in an bomex 500ml extraction vessel with a ground glass stopper. Really any all glass container, or even an all glass sep funnel with an a/b would work, not to mention its prob safer than having some part of the seal from the lid dissolving in the solvent. My next extraction (a/b cactus) i will be using all glass, and hopefully will not be running into these issues.

Some might be reporting higher yields of a less pure overall product. Might be less potent by weight.