Hi guys,

I'm looking for a little advice as this is my first time extraction (well, second now!)
I'm normally loathe to ask questions without being an active contributor. But, i've tried to troubleshoot using other contributions and haven't been able to. So, thankyou for your generosity if you find the time to help!

My primary problem is that DMT will not freeze precipitate.
I have only a bar fridge with a freezer which I suspect does not go anywhere close to -20 degrees. I've left a jar of naphtha (shellite, in australia) untouched in the freezer for 24 hours and I get nothing.
I've also tried evaporation and crystals do not form even after a day (no visible naphtha left)

So i'll run through my process:

Materials:
- 100g powdered MHRB
- 100g sodium hydroxide
- 1500ml demineralized water

to 100g MHRB, I mixed 1500ml of basified water. I left this, stirring occasionally, for a period of 24-48 hours. then tried various methods of extraction.

My primary questions are:

1- Is a bar fridge freezer going to be cold enough? Will leaving for longer (2 days, 5 days, a week etc) cause more crystals to precipitate even where the freezer is not particularly cold?

2- How long is evaporation meant to take? eg, after all visible signs of naphtha are gone, will crystals still form? does this process take several days? in the lazymen tek it implies but does not state explicitly that the crystals are formed in several hours and evap complete.. but I guess it could just mean that the extraction process itself takes that long..

Thanking you all in advance.

When evaporating, if all of the solvent is gone and there is nothing left behind (crystals or waxy stuff or anything) then there was nothing in the solvent. Anything that is in the solvent will be clearly visible as soon as the solvent has evaporated. It may be true that the freezer isn't cold enough for freeze precipitating, but from what you've said this is not the issue since evaporating hasn't left anything. I'm not sure what is going wrong.

It depends on different factors, but it takes awhile. If all visible signs of naphtha are gone (ie. the jar is empty) then the crystals should be the only thing left. it might take a couple of days if sitting at room temperature, it depends on the amount of solvent you used. how much solvent are you putting into the freezer? if you did in fact evaporate down to a level where the solvent is cloudy at room temperature and still no crystals come out in the freezer then your freezer is not cold enough.

Thanks for your advice. As an example, see this image (attached - can you guys see it?)

This was evaporation method. The solvent has practically all evaporated but the crystals appear very 'wet' and soon (im betting) they will melt :/

it isn't dry yet, once the solvent smell is gone you are good to go

Oh... I misunderstood. I thought you meant there was nothing leftover when you evaporated. Just leave that until it dries and then scrape it off with a razor or something.

Well, first and foremost, I hope that you are not evaporating it IN the freezer. You want to keep it sealed up while in the freeze so it doesn't contaminate anything else that might be in there.

Next thing is for a freeze precipitation to work the solvent has to be completely saturated. If you blow on the naptha it should give little wisps. It's hard to put to words but when you see it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

If it doesn't give you the wisps, then it's definitely not saturated enough.

When you do each pull, you need to mix it thoroughly at least 4-5 times for each pull to really get it fully saturated.

If it does give you the wisps when you blow on it and the freeze precip isn't working after 24 hours, you can evaporate some of the naptha, seal it back up and put it back in the freeze and try again.

To evap fully, it's all about surface area, so if you put it in a baking dish it will take a lot less time than if you left it in a mason jar. If I evap naptha in the house, I'll open all the doors and windows and put it under a ceiling fan on high. It usually takes about 12 hours to evap under the fan and about another 12 hours for the goo to solidify a bit.

If you fully evap it, I usually redissolve it in a bit of ISO alcohol to get rid of any naptha traces. The idea is that the naptha will sit on top of the alcohol and evap first and leave the alcohol behind to evap cleanly.

Hope this helps and good luck on the rest of your extraction!


EDIT: Just saw you posted some more pics. Yeah, with that, let it finish drying out and then give it an alcohol bath as described above to get rid of any naptha traces. Looks good! Congrats!

Thanks for all your contributions. I really appreciate it.

For freezer precip (will, attempts anyway) I was using a jam jar (sealed)

at risk of laboring the point (I might just be misunderstanding) after another little period of evaping with a fan blowing over it, the partially formed crystals have melted (see attached). I don't understand how they will partially form and then melt :/ will they reform if I leave them to evap longer?
for clarity, this time I was only evapping, no freezer

they are just going back into the solvent they will come back out when it is completely dry

ok, thankyou all for your help I truly appreciate it

I think what I need more than anything is patience

hope to contribute myself if/when I gain some expertise in this area

Yeah, patience is key with most things you'll find on this site.

It seems like your heart is in the right place. Soak up as much info as you can and practice as much as possible and it will become like second nature eventually.

Welcome to the Nexus!