Hey guys, i started a mesc extarction yesterday using ron69's non-toxic tek, but used xylene instead of d limonene. I followed it all correctly but added an extra 100ml water because it was still quite a dry mixture. after waiting 12 hours the xylene still hasnt seperated and i cannot squeeze any of it out for the life of me. I even put it through a french coffee press and it still just spurts out mucus. It just wont release any moisture that its holding. I added an extra 15 or so grams of calcium hydroxide this morning because i read it breaks down mucus membranes well and also added more xylene but its sucked all that xylene up and wont release it either.

Can anyone offer any advice or any help?

Thanks

I never tried this tek but I remember reading that if you add sodium carbonate to the mix, it reacts with calcium hydroxide to form sodium hydroxide, and this stronger base helps the separation.

Also there was something about adding some more water to the whole mix to change consistency and help separation but this im not sure. If you run a search on the forum (with 'header' keywords like '69ron layers not separating' or '69ron limonene dissapear' or 'q21q21 layer separation' 'or whatever) im sure youll find other topics related to this.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

Thanks for the reply endlessness, tried a few searches but i didnt come up with antyhing useful.
Ive scoured the internet for hours trying to find whether this has happened to anyone else and it doesnt seem so. Its really annoying me now actually. I cant find any relevant info about what to do and all i see to have done is waste loads of money.

i had similar trouble with the dry tek, and ended up dumping everything into a larger container and adding generous amounts of lye and water. after a few days all the snot broke down and everything seperated into clean, distinct layers. The limonene finally came back out and was salted to retrieve mescaline.

ward quantic, nothing is loss and wasted until you throw it away, your alkaloids can always be recovered.

i've added extra calcium hydroxide to solution so its now a 1:1 ratio to cacti, so i'll let you know how that works out evil, but does CAOH do the same thing as lye? Thanks endlessness, i suppose you're right. Just got to find the right way to do it.

they both push the PH up, but CAOH is not very soluble in water. Lye is, and does a good job of breaking down all the cactus. do what you can with the CAOH, and if all fails on that front you can always dump into a bottle and let the lye do its thing.

thanks evil, i'll leave it be for a few days then and see what the CAOH can do. I'll let you all know how it goes.