Due to unfortunate events I was forced to do an improvised extraction. Soo you could say I've just been eye balling it and winging it >_>

I had gotten positive results from a test run with a new plant and supplier I was trying out (Successful extraction of spice via improvised a/b [after failing a previous stb tek on the plant matter **A/B Required for Successful ACRB Extraction**]. So I went ahead with a larger extraction. Things got a little weird when I re-acidified my previous extraction (which I only pulled from once) and added it to the acid boiling/reducing steps


Here's what's going on


1kg ACRB was blended to as powdery as I could get it in a food processor.

bark was boiled in a large stainless steal pot.(4 Acid boils. 5 Quarts. approx. 2 oz Muriatic Acid added to each boil[concentration 14.5% Ph approx -0.65])

Each boil was coarsely strained into another stainless steal pot that was reducing the solution slowly.

Nice looking reduction going on, looked somewhat like hot chocolate with floating plant flakes.

-Pause-
>>Here's where things got a bit odd<<
After transferring my 4th acid boil to the reduction pot I figure'd it'd only make sense to add my previous extraction (Which I had only pulled from one time with naptha)
-Resume

I re-acidified my previous extraction of ACRB (Ph was somewhere around 12-14) with about 6 fl. oz's of Muriatic Acid (Concentration 14.5%) mixed it lightly and added it to the acid boiling pot. It made a lot of bubbles when I poured it in there. I figured it was probably just a reaction from residual lye left over from over basing during the previous extraction.

I kept mixing the solution till all the bubbles calmed down (for some reason there was a lot of bubblage) and it was at a nice rolling boil. added about 4 quarts of water and another 3oz's of Muriatic Acid.

Side Note: The bubbles and the solution were extremely bubbly almost to the point of frothy foam and were very black Yet at the same time looked almost like a rainbow pearlescent black.

Left it alone for a little bit (did every boil for about an hour and checked every 20-30 mins). Came back and noticed that the pot had boiled over a bit and had loss some fluid and plant matter. Shrugged it off as it wasn't a significant amount. Added another quart of water and another oz acid and left it to boil for another 20 minutes.

Other then the strange pearlscent tinge and frothy bubbly-ness when straining it everything seemed to be okay. Figured it would turn everything black (which it did) since the mix was already black due to basing.

Added extraction to reduction pot and left it to reduce some more and extracted the left over plant matter and put it in a large pickle jar for future use (maybe I'll turn it into soap or try and pull from it more?)

Side Note: For some reason there was a floating thin layer of pearlescent looking stuff on top of the reduction. So I strained the solution through a few T-Shirts and proceeded to reduce, (all signs of pearlescence were gone after this)

By the time I had to get off the stove I was only able to reduce the solution to about 8 Liters.

I proceeded to salt the solution by just pouring a bunch of salt (unmeasured) into the pot while it was still hot.

Forced to continue on (was slightly more rushed then I'd have liked but meh. I let the solution cool down to room temp (threw in a couple ice cubes to help the process)

I made a slight boo boo and added naptha before adding lye *Facepalm*

I agitated the solution and added about 800 or so grams of lye to the pot and let it sit for about 2 hours. Agitated the solution 4 more times (once every 15-20 minutes) and extracted.

Naptha came out really yellow, looks promising. Currently sitting in the freezer.

Added more naptha.. Agitated..etc.etc. (I'm on the 2nd of 4 pulls tonight).


?? And now the Questions ??

Anyways I just wanted to know what peoples thoughts were on this improvised extraction process?

If anyone could give me a guess-timation on what the Ph of my currently basified solution I would greatly appreciate it!

[8 Liters of reduced acid boils (my guess is the Ph was around 0.5 - 2) + 800 or so grams of Lye]

And one last question. When doing a reduction of acid boils is the Ph affected at all from the temperature and concentration of the solution?



Thanks again for all your help in advanced!

[= Peace, Love and Infinite Blessings =]

-Satsu

Snapped a picture of the first pull after an hour in the freezer, really nice cloudy thick looking goodies on the bottom. Looks promising so far.




[= Peace, Love and Infinite Blessings =]

-Satsu

let us know how the goodies turn out i had somewhat of a fail 1st attempt with acrb bub i learned lots so all i not lost

My first attempt using stb was a fail too lol. Though I was able to make a recovery by just using the same solution and doing an a/b.

I'll keep you guys posted with pictures and what nots on my progress

Extraction Update: After a days worth of decanting and settling finally getting around to the evap.


Here's the jar's after freezing.

1st Jar (only jar I can distinguish sorry)








And a shot of it evaping




Hoping all goes well. I've come to terms with not ending up with crystals (Oooh Mimosa how you've spoiled me). Expecting some lovely goo though. Personally, I do enjoy me some goo. Planning on making some Changa with some passion flower. Anyone have any favorite changa blend suggestions?

Nice photographic documentation, Satsukiyami

Scrap that up and weigh it, I'd be delighted to see what sort of yield you got.

This weekend for me, I'm going at it. I have a kilo, but I'm gonna do a test run on 100 grams of bark, see what I can expect as I work with larger amounts.

Thanks for the update, the evap tray looks really nice! I just got yellow naphtha for the first time and it made me think of the pics on the thread, it must be a good sign

As far as changa I've only tried blue lotus so I don't have anything to compare to, but I really like it. The smoke actually tastes pretty good and it seems to give a nice subtle calming effect.

yeee, tried and weighed it. had about 3.5g from that. I still have a lot of pulling to do from the solution as the naptha i keep pulling out is still crashing with crystals I'm thinking about reducing the solution more since 8 liters is kind of a lot ._.

I think ima order some blue lotus and passion flower and make a nice little blend.

the goo i ended up with is lovely! its smooth, isn't too harsh (flavors kinda kickin though), and you can hold it down till you can't feel it anymore with ease. visuals were lovely. body high from a bubbler was very heavy like spirit hash and melting into the cosmos. tiny threshold hit through the machine was Very visual with almost no body high which was something new to me

interesting.. this extraction was all over the place, but looks like it ended well. when i did a ab extraction and salted my boils, my naptha was more yellow too. it was more of a milky white substance without the salt added, i didn't notice a larger yield with the salt.

i smoke the goo like it's hash, spread it out on a plate with a razor and let it dry, for at least a week, i actually like to put goo in freezer, it tends to harden. you gotta let the goo dry out much longer than regular crystals, i made that mistake once. my first goo hit was amazing.. all heady, lasted a long time, beautiful spinning geometric shapes.

Here's a shot of some crystals that were stuck to the side of one of the decanting jars

Glad it turned out ok, but IME you aren't supposed to boil an already basified solution. I imagine that is why it bubbled loads when heated.

Nice result though.