So I've been letting my mixture dry out for the past 4 days; I've had unsuccesful pulls with q21q21's tek #2 w/ naphtha. The first pull (200 ml of naphtha)I had the mixture way too dry, and the second pull (125 ml of naphtha) it was too moist. I believe it's nearly ready. Is this the consistency I should be looking for when ready to pull with q21q21's tek using naphtha?

I mixed it using a medium size glass cookie jar from walmart. I transferred it to this stainless steel bowl to increase the surface area so that the naphtha would evaporate out faster; the bowl was on top of my fridge in my kitchen with the windows open for ample ventilation.

1st pic: with desk light over bowl
2nd pic: without desk light

The pictures above were taken right after stirring the mix around a little bit with bamboo chopsticks. As you can see, there are a number of small ball crumbles but the consistency is very thin/fine. It doesn't feel that moist at all, but it's far too fine to be "crumbly like an apple crisp" (which is what q21q21's consistency #2 describes the consistency should be before pulling).

That looks strange to me. Looks like powder.

It should be more clumpy and have slight signs of moisture. I'm kind of confused how you got it to look like a powder.

Yeah, I don't know exactly how it's going to "harden up" more to become crumblier.

Nov 15th

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I got all the right materials and followed the tek to the detail. I used about 200-300 mL of vinegar (5% acidity) for my 123g of powdered bark, followed by near boiling distilled water. I waited 40 minutes then added 150g of lime (Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime).

About 30 minutes after adding the lime, I put it in the oven for 4 hours with the knob turned at WM (which is barely warming it at all, just keeps whatever is in the oven warm); halfway through I opened the oven the door just a crack in order to let the air and other evaporated water/vinegar to escape.

The mixture at this time seemed very hard but was very dark still (I don't remember how moist or dry the consistency was throughout the mix because it was so long ago); the mixture wasn't mixed at all during the 4 hour period, don't know why I didn't do so to help the mix evaporate more effectively.

I used a hot bath after but the mix just ate my solvent (140 mL). I freaked out at the time and tried a smaller amount right after, which only further confirmed my consistency failure (probably around 100 mL of solvent loss the second pull). I took pictures and people said that it looked too dry, which I think it was, but the very dark color (most of it was dark, lighter near the top) kinda contradicts that since it seems to me that the dryer the mix is, the lighter in color it is.

Nov 16th

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23 hours after, I decided to give it a go after being told solvent loss didn't matter, I didn't care about any solvent loss; I've already ordered a second container of naphtha so that I can have a successful second around at this tek AFTER I complete this one (hopefully). I used about 125 mL when the consistency still felt pretty moist (should've waited a day or two), all of which the mix ate up. I believe after the first two pulls on November 15th was when it first started to seem finer/loose/not crumbly, though it could've been after this pull that it started to take on that thin consistency.

Nov 19th

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About 67 hours later (3 days + 2-3 hrs), I tried another pull using another ~125 mL of solvent, though it was still kinda moist but I wouldn't be able to perform a pull for another week so I went for it- yet again, the solvent was consumed by the mix.

gualapa - 0, mix - 550 mL of solvent

Nov 20th

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Originally jar was right next to the screen with the kitchen window open (only well-ventilated room in house). Roommate accidently knocked jar off of counter, broke on kitchen floor. I salvaged about 80% of the mix (~100g), though just a few miniature glass shards remained in mix. The mix was placed in a huge stainless steel bowl (originally used for hot bath) and I spread the mix out so the naphtha was able to evaporate faster). After adding mix to bowl, came up with idea that setting the mix next to a window was not a good idea because of the moisture in the fresh winter air at night & in the morning, so I put the large bowl across the small kitchen on top of fridge so that it was high up where air tends to be warmer and I guess dryer.

November 25th

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Pictures taken. I bought a smaller glass jar but still have the mix drying in the stainless steel bowl.

I plan to do this tek again but wanted to be successful this first time around before I ordered another 100g of powdered bark (I received 123g when I ordered 100g).
Maybe I should try ordering bark from a different place? (though I wouldn't exactly like the idea of trying to find another place, out of all the searching this was the only domestic seller I found. The bark powder seemed like real mhrb to me).
Maybe the consistency is kinda messed up because of how much solvent the mix has consumed? or maybe it has something to do with the breaking of the jar? though I don't think the breaking of the jar had any real effect.

You actually want the dark top on it. You dried it out waaaaay too much. You have to see a little moisture atleast.

Ok, I see.

I'm thinking I should do this: Add some distilled water in, then add some lime to get it to thicken like it does originally when doing step 2 (basification); though I guess I might need to first add in vinegar (like step 1-acidification) as well since that contributes to the clumpiness, because my mix is currently back to the same consistency it was before the extraction, when it was just mhrb powder. So I'd basically be repeating the extraction.

does anyone else agree with this? or should I just throw it out... though I'd hate to throw it out, seems like such a terrible waste of precious natural substance.

I would just use lime and distilled water to bring it back to normal consistency. No need to redo the acidification step that I can see.

You want it kind of like a clay that can clump up. It will most likely form a dark color, upon mixing you will see a gray that then quickly turns into a dark reddish brown when not being mixed. Thats the PH test ability of MHRB (as far as I understand) and is normal.

Dont throw it out. It isnt contaminated, you just dehydrated it. As far as I understand its still basified, just lacking moisture.

Okay, thanks. I will try Monday.

Success!!!!! I added water & lime, then last minute I decided to try out consistency #1 (thick oatmeal-like consistency). 8 hours after pulling, there appears to be loads of crystals on the walls of the precip container. There's also about 5 or 6 dots of white film (not crystals), which the tek says might be either DMT-oxide or jungle spice. I will take a picture tomorrow.

After scraping up the crystals, should I leave them out at all or just put them straight into a baggie? (I'm putting them in a new, clean zip-loc bag and putting it inside of a jam jar in a cool, dark place)

For some reason, 1 of my jars always ends up having a white frost inside it. That was just DMT precipitating strangely. It scrapes up as nice yellowish DMT.

Gently pour the naphtha out of the precip container after pulling out of the freezer. If any crystals dislodge, just pour slower and they should stay inside the container. Once you have poured it all out, put a fan up and lay the container on its side.

I prefer to have the fan blowing AWAY from the container, that was it doesnt blow dust into it. I do this for about a day, just to make sure ALL residual solvent has evaporated and moisture that collects on the glass container has evapped as well.

After scraping up the DMT I weigh it, then I place it into a glass vial, leaving the lid off for another day to make sure it completely dry. I am sure I am going over board on this part, but I swore I still smelt some naphtha on some DMT from 1 of my pulls.

Glass vials, IMO, are a much better container than plastic bags. Easier to handle, and I can get basically every single spec.

When you do another pull you can take a vial that is empty and only has DMT dust and put some warm naphtha if your that anal... like me

Ok. I'm gonna go to Michael's and check for some.

It's been exactly 20 hours since I first put my pyrex glass baking tray (precip container) into the freezer. There's still white swirls in the naphtha, so I'm assuming dmt is still trying to precipitate out. I turned my freezer back to recommended settings (on a scale of 1-5, recommended is 3); I had it set on 5 but my whole precip container was frozen and there were icicles all over the outside, it just seemed like overkill. I also didn't put the lid fully back on; instead I put it on top but left a crack open in order to expose the container to fresher air.

I would put your freezer back on super cold. The colder it is te easier they crash out. Also I recommend leaving the lid on. I've heard it makes your freezer smell like solvent really bad. I would think you don't want moisture to enter into the container as well. Although its probably not a big deal.

Don't know where you live but head shops in my area have glass vials a plenty.

Okay I'll do that. I only did that because I thought it all should have precipitated out by now, since the tek says it to wait about 12 hours, and it's nearly been double that.

I do 24 hours atleast. Sometimes 48 cause my freezer get pretty cold but doesn't freeze ice cream hard. Which is basically the temp you wanna go for. Longer doesn't hurt btw.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to wait another 24 hours.

Here's what it looks like now (I put the container briefly over a toaster to warm the layer of ice off the glass, and it's on top of a marble desktop. I left the images large for detail so you'll need to use your arrow buttons to move around the pic to see everything): pic #1 pic #2

As you can see, not seeing much crystals. Every spec I keep thinking's a crystal ends up just being an icicle because it melts away after being out of the freezer for 5 min, so I'm hoping a majority of it's still in the naphtha, just don't understand why it's taking so long when 24 hours should easily be sufficient for most of it to precipitate out to begin with.

I'm wondering if there's anything making it hard for the dmt to precipitate out; maybe because my freezer shelf is kinda uneven, all the naphtha is in one corner, rather than spread out more evenly across the container? I don't know exactly

You gotta stop messing with stuff man. All these small little details that I keep pointing out to you that your doing are things you are adding yourself.

Drying the bark out for a long time

Opening lid on precip container

Turning freezer temp up

Pulling precip container out and heating.

These are all things you could have just left alone and followed the Tek. Think about it. Setting your precip container on a toaster to WARM it up enough to melt the ice. Don't you think that would be enough to melt the crystals in the now slightly heated naphtha?

Leave it alone. Put it I the freezer and leave it alone. Stop worrying about it. What would you do during this step anyways if there were no crystals precipitating? Do the steps correctly. At the end of each step if you don't get the desired results do the step again

And yes, I would make the bowls level. Your questions are all common sense, and you seem to know te answer. Believe in your judgement, don't second guess things that make sense so easily.

you're right, got it, gonna make sure the shelf's level and I'll report back after another 24 hours of straight freezing.

(btw, I didn't set it on the toaster, I only put it over the toaster for 3 seconds max to loosen the icicles off, nevertheless, I shouldn't be doing that, thanks)

Results?

Still letting it freeze. I've been checking it only once a day by popping off the lid, taking a quick 5-second peep, then putting the lid back on and in the freezer

Tuesday was the last day I posted so it's been 100 hours since then (4 days). There's still a swirl of white in the naphtha, but it's not as cloudy as it was earlier during the week, but it's hard to tell while the pyrex container is frozen because everything's white. The pictures I took with show the progress:

I took a picture today: 12/8/12
Looks a lot better compared to Tuesday: 12/4/12

note the first pic was taken today just after it was in the freezer while the second pic was after I pulled my dumb toaster stunt to melt away the frozen ice.


I'm going to wait till the last swirl is out of the naphtha, which I believe will take a few more days. Quick question: If for some reason not all of the dmt has precipitated out of the naphtha when it finally comes to taking the container out of the freezer, will the dmt be left behind as the naphtha it's in evaps over a 24-hr period? or does all the dmt need to precipitate out before taking it out of the freezer? I'm not planning on taking the container out before the naphtha is totally clear, just wondering.

Your never going to precipitate out all the DMT. You need to pull those out, pour off the solvent immediately into a container that can seal to save for later pulls.

Once you have poured off the solvent gently place the containers somewhere safe, away from open flames or things that can spark, and place a fan close and blowing away from the containers while they are on their side.

Do this for atleast a full day. Once you know all solvent has evaporated and all moisture as well, then you take a razor blade and scrape up whatever is in there. Just because you don't see anything now doesn't mean their isn't anything.

Then you do more pulls.

Once your pulls are so small that the effort out into doing that step isn't worth what you are getting out of the bark, then you can take your solvent that's been used to make pulls and fully evap it down to nothing and scrape up what you get from that. This last step will usually result in very oily yellow or brown/orange stuff that should be fairly active.

But you need to pull your precip container out and pour off the solvent in order to see if everything worked. If you don't get very much DMT at all then we go from there.

Also, I'm confused when looking at the pics. How much naphtha is in the precip containers. The pics look like you already poured out the naphtha.