I did my first A/B extraction on 40g Acacia Confusa and in the end after I evaporated the tray of Naptha I was left with less than a grain of rice sized wad of yellow goo with a few brown specs. I didn't weigh it but I don't think it's DMT anyway. I was hoping for maybe 200+mg from 40g bark. Oddly, before scraping I smelled the plastic/mothball smell which smelled exactly like the DMT I came across before (not extracted be me).

I followed it pretty much straight to the guide except for a few things:

- I wasn't wary of temperatures when using H20. I don't imagine that being a problem with the acid cook step however it was an issue with the soda wash. The first attempt I got a cloudy white top layer...I then gave it a warm water bath and re-shook the jar. Upon settling, the cloudy layer was on the bottom. I should add that the H20 and Soda mix was cloudy before mixing and the Naptha was crystal clear.

- During the soda wash, I used sodium bicarbonate rather than sodium carbonate. I followed a different guide and they said to use Baking Soda.

- I used an abundance of Naptha...100 ml per pull on 3 pulls. That seems more than enough for 40g of root bark. I evaporated it overnight with a fan and when I woke up it was already mostly evaporated so I didn't put it in the freezer.

- The pyrex dish I put the Naptha pulls in is rather large, the Naptha layer was only about 1/4 inch deep. I'm not sure if that matters.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I saved the solutions from each step in separate jars in case something like this happened. If anyone has an idea as to where the DMT is...

I'm also going to start a new batch, luckily I started small. This time I'll use one of the guides on these forums

Describe your exact procedure, and maybe we can help.

Sure

I took 40g Root bark, added 1:1 solution of white vinegar to water. pH was "around" 4 as my test only does 2,4,6,8,10. I ordered a digital pH meter...
Simmered that on low for about an hour, then poured it all off (about 1L) into a jar.

I did 3 cooks using that process. Each cook was poured through a funnel containing aquarium fiber as a filter. It's similar to pillow stuffing material. The volume at this point was about 3L. That was reduced on low to 1L over about 6 hours.

Defat stage: I poured in 100 ml Naptha and stirred for about 5 minutes, then let it sit for another 5 minutes. At this point there was a distinct separation of a clear top layer and dark red/brown bottom layer. I pulled the top layer off, then repeated this defat stage 2 more times. The collected Naptha was saved and almost perfectly clear except for a slight brown tint. I figured I could use this Naptha again later possibly.

Basify stage: I added 5 teaspoons of lye to 250 ml h2o. The water was cold from the fridge which could have been an issue. The resulting mixture tested at a pH of 10, but that is the highest it will read. The guide said this should be around 13.5 pH. I very slowly added the basified water to the solution while stirring. The mixture at this point was a very dark brown, or black.

Pulls: I added 100ml Naptha to the solution again as in the Defatting stage. I turned the jar end-over-end and was gentle. 5 minutes of mixing to 10 minutes of settling left me with good separate layers. The Naptha was pulled and put into a fresh clean jar. This left me with 300 ml of *in theory* Naptha/DMT

Wash: Here's where things get weird. I added baking soda to H20 (again using cold water ) until it read a pH of 8. Approximately 300ml of this solution was added to the 300ml of Naptha/DMT solution. This was shaken and stirred for 5 minutes, then allowed to settle. Note the following change. BEFORE - Naptha/"DMT" = Crystal Clear. H20/Baking Soda = cloudy white. AFTER - Top layer (Naptha/"DMT"= Cloudy White and Bottom Layer (H20) = Crystal clear.

At this point I did some searching and realized two mistakes. 1 being cold water, and 2 being sodium bicarbonate rather than sodium carbonate. I gave it a hot water bath and re-shook the container. It then separated into a clear top layer and cloudy white bottom layer. I was happy at this point and thought that it "must have worked" so I pulled off the top clear layer of Naptha and poured it onto a Pyrex dish. The Pyrex dish was placed on a level surface in the dark with a fan blowing over it at about 6AM.

At 12 the next day I ran in to check on it, and most of the Naptha was already evaporated. I waited another 6 hours, 12 total, and the plate seemed dry. There was no Naptha odor, just the mothball/plastic smell. I didn't see anything on the pyrex but decided to scrape it anyway. I got some yellow goo with a few specs of brown. In total, about 1/2 of a grain of rice worth of goo.

That is alittle odd, but honestly I think that the problem is that you did not mix the basic solution well enough with your naptha and it failed to pull spice.

There could possibly be some issue with you not making a concentrated enough sodium bicarb solution and that pulled some spice, but I doubt it.

Or of course, you could have bunk starting material.

Thanks for the advice!

The site I ordered from, botanicalspirit.com claims there's no bunk material.
"He takes a great deal of time and care removing all the "bunk" non useful material from the roots so that we can offer a truly Premium Grade A+ product that we can say without a shred of unsurity is the purest, freshest Acacia confusa in the world, we guarantee it! "

So you're probably right about the basic solution. I saved that jar just in case...so I'll try to do some pulls off that. Last time the basic solution was cold when I mixed the layers due to the water coming from the fridge. I'm hoping if I add Naptha and heat it up a bit while mixing, maybe it will pull the missing spice out As I saw with the baking soda, mixing hot vs cold can have different outcomes.

I'll post an update when I see how it goes.

Next time I'm just going to follow this guide
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=39030

Thanks again

Good idea. Pulls are much more effective in warm solutions.

I agree with Lash, it sounds like the naphtha wasn't mixed long enough with the basic solution.

This time the layers took much longer to separate, so I think you guys are right. Last time it was only 5 minutes until they were completely separated. I pulled a clear layer of Naptha and we'll see if I get crystals after it evaporates. Given 40g root bark to 100ml Naptha I wasn't expecting a cloudy layer, I'll try to let at least 1/2 the Naptha evaporate then try to get crystals.

However this time there was a pink layer between the dark red layer and the clear Naptha layer. I don't think it was emulsion, I'll attach some pics.

http://i.imgur.com/0HYtx01.jpg (pic taken after pulling off most of the Naptha)

http://i.imgur.com/s4wjc4I.jpg