Hey, just wanna mention that I like the idea of using pickling lime instead of lye. I don't mind the longer waiting time. The thing that did bother me, lye usually came in little pellets while the lime was powder. More air-borne particles and misplaced particles in general. My only question is that since I managed to track lime up the side of the mixing bowl, is the lime soluble in naptha at all? I figured it might be able to contaminate the finished product when pouring the naptha off.

No, lime is not soluble in naptha. As long as you dont scrape any peices of lime off into the end product, all is well.

Hmm what did I do wrong? The first two pulls only freeze precipitated .7g oily crystals from 500g mhrb. Seems that I followed the tek to the T... cannot figure out what went wrong. Also the method of evaporating the naptha from the glass dish does not work so well. The crystals basically melted with condesation. I've figured out the better way to dry the dish in the refrigerator, however the low yield makes me want go back to using lye and non-freeze precipation. Anyone have any ideas?

My experience, for instance, was quite opposite - retrieved a poor, oily yield from a first STB extraction attempt using lye, and switching to Q21Q21 #2 delivered excellent results. The reasons, rather than technique, most likely had to do with the quality of the root bark.

Assuming that you did follow the tek to the letter, as you say, has the same root bark been used with decent yields before? Are you positive that your other ingredients (vinegar, lime, solvent) are good?

I have not used this particular rootbark before but it was recommended on the forum. The other ingredients I used were old, though I don't see why they shouldn't still be good. I'm somewhat suspecting the freezer wasn't cold enough, since I was using the ice section of a portable refrigerator. The naptha did still have a cloudiness to it when I poured it off. Maybe I should try fan drying to see how much is left in it ?

Well, it's simple if you break it down... If you used decent quality mhrb, and proper vinegar, and calcium hydroxide (not calcium carbonate, which is not the lime the tek refers to and there's been cases of confusions), and suitable naphtha, and followed the tek properly, barely a gram of oily alks from 500g of plant material in two pulls sounds way too low. Certainly the freezer might be not cold enough.



If you cannot use a better freezer, yeah, try that. If the solvent you're referring to is the one recovered after the disappointing FP, and your mix and tek are good, you might have a nice surprise.

If nothing significant comes out evapping, then go element by element and check the whole equation until you can figure out where's the weak link.

Good luck.

Okay, I will try that, thanks. I did a couple more pulls reusing the same solvent over a few days and still only precipitated a small amount. Also can you explain why freeze precip is preferable to evaporating? From what I've gathered, it saves solvent for reuse and there is less plant oils in the final product?

Thats basically it, DMT isn't very soluble in cold naphtha but decently in warm naphtha. You usually will get a little more out of the evap then just freeze precip, but from my experience its pretty minor yield and not worth the waste of Naphtha, atleast for a few pulls.

Actually using FP should not affect the total of your yield at all. You recover the solvent after each precipitated pull and reuse it for the next, and once the pulls are finished and the last flocks of product are recovered after the last FP, you evaporate the solvent you have left. No alkaloids have been lost in the process.

The point is that - as long as you use a solvent suitable for that, of course - FP is efficient and clean. Precipitation is a chemical way to separate one substance from another, so it does work as a purification process. You'll see how the last (and only) evaporation step often leaves somewhat "dirtier" crystals.

Well, I evaporated the remainder of the naptha which amounted to a bunch of orange oil. I did find with each pull I kept getting more from it, just not anything near what I expected. The only things I can think that could possibly of went wrong are

1. not enough lime used (was mixed to a oatmeal consistency)
2. the naptha wasn't warm enough during the pulls. (i soaked the pot in a deep pan of boiling hot water for 15 mins with occasional stirring)

It's beyond me ...