Hey Guys,

I'm having some problems with my extraction. I'm using Whatcha's Tek. I have a 5-litre HDPE tub with about 3.7 litres of water and about 500g of lye. I put around 400ml of recycled solvent (ronson lighter fluid used in my last extraction - it was yellow from the oils).

I kept getting very dark pulls. I read on a previous thread to add more lye, so I added more lye and some more water. I can't add anything more in the current tub. My pulls are now like milk chocolate.

Do I need to add more lye/water? Should I use fresh solvent?

Any help appreciated as this is very frustrating.

Cheers

Hey Zed

Did you go for the big one and drop the whole pound in there?
I havn't done such a big xtract so probably won't be of much use...But I had loads of left over yellow Nap and was wondering how to clear it...so I stuck it in the freezer undisturbed for 4 days and it dropped a lot of the oil/gunk to the bottom and cleared quite a bit.

Maybe just pull and freeze it and see what happens..you can always put it back in later.

Good luck mate

Hey cyb,

Yeah I dumped the whole 1lb in. I had a great success on my first extraction using the full pound so I was confident this time.

I'm pretty sure my lye/water ratio is what's causing the problem. My PH meter says the solution is 12.
I'll mess around with the ratios although my tub hasn't got room for much more to be added.

Thanks for the tip about the yellow naptha!

Added a bit more lye and used fresh lighter fluid. Now my pulls are a dark piss colour. Like when you've been out drinking the day before. So much better. I haven't got any lye left so I'll have to just precip the piss. Hopefully a sodium carbonate wash will remove some of the oils.

EDIT: Notice the separated layer in the pic, it has a black oily membrane. Not quite sure what this is.

Not sure if anyone is following this but I found something strange...

I pulled about 300-400ml of milk chocolate. Definitely didn't look like viable solvent, but out of curiosity I put it in a jar in the freezer. I have a very cold freezer and after about 2 hours I checked it. The solvent was pale yellow and translucent, and I had quite a bit of white looking spice in the jar.

So, result.

have had the chocolate milk sludge (=emulsion).

I pulled it off (with the naptha)
Added quite a bit more lye AND water.
Put the emulsion back in.
Separated wonderfully!

Also had the piss-yellow Naptha pulls.
Did almost 6 sodium carb washes
followed by 3 dH20 washes.

Helped a lot.

Re-x will help too.

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...2FDark.2C_what_to_do_.3F

In that sludge there will be spice too appart from all the mimosa stuff that came across in the dark naphtha. Re-a/b it or at least recrystallize, which might work but might not clean up well too, you'll have to try either way.

The stuff that came from the sludge jar.

How many grams of bark did you start with?

And i was just reminded why I spent the whole day in my kitchen.

Probably the funniest breakthrough yet. I'm having alien breakthroughs, but a very different kind from that i've read about. I can't describe it. It's hilarious.

Weareepeople: That amount was from a jar of sludge. about erm, 300ml.

YAY!