Has anyone added activated carbon to a brew or during a A/B extraction? I'm wondering if it at all clears it up any or removes the tannins/fats/etc. effectively? I'll be working with Acacia Confusa bark.

I was thinking if i could get the solution clear enough, i could maybe boil the brew with AC, filter, repeat 3-5 times, boil down to a small volume and pour it into a pyrex baking dish, add lime to it, and let this dry over a few days time. Then pull with Isopropyl alcohol, then add some more AC to clean that up? Any thoughts?

Iv'e seen a thread over at mycotopia that showed some yellow spice turned into pure white w/ activated carbon that sparked the idea, haven't found much else about this by using the search bar.

(I don't want to order chemicals online for obvious reasons, and i would like to utilize the materials i already have and what is locally available)

activated carbon/charcoal is used on the crude dmt extract to clean it even further.
if you want to clean the whole brew, wihch i think is pointless.. you will need bulk amounts of activated carbon, and you will have long filtering session after that in my opinion.
the carbon will clump itself with the absorbed matter in form of a sludge, which can be dificult to filter with the kitchen setup.



i would just boil the material few times (3x-4x), filter, leave it overnight for sediment to settle(if your filtering is sloppy), decant the next day, reduce the liquid, than repeat the filtering and decanting, than add the activated carbon on the reduced liquid to clean it up.also, this way you have better chance to cover the whole volume of liquid so the carbon particles can come fully in contact with it.
filter, evaporate and continue the iso tek, with another carbon clean up on the end.

btw, i havent tried this!...but i dont see why it should not work.

Hey that's great idea, exactly, it would be pointless to add to the brew before all the filtering steps, i didn't think of that.

Thanks for the reply, i'm glad you think this might work, that's very encouraging. I'm going to the store later today to get some AC and Iso (91%.. should work eh?), i already have some lime, i'll test a small batch to see how it goes, i'll report back for sure.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

An older post that can be relevant here:

i suggested this one because the user said he would work with iso-alcohol.

if he would be able to acquire napthta than a re-x is a more elegant approach to get crystals of course.

edit : i find alot of sense in that quote reference, but people have reported success with ActiveCarbon cleaning and no one complained about big loss of yield.

if i would have the materials i would test this imediately.


edit2 : i am also interested if De Silva in that quote refers to alkaloids in their salt form, or it also means the same for freebase alkaloids.

Yeah, there is no naphtha around here or i'd use it instead, and do not want to order it online.

i know d-limo would work better here, but none is sold locally, however i do know where to get some essential orange and lemon oil, think that would work? And then i could salt that into vingar evap, add lime, and pull with iso and clean w/ AC.

But i'm curious to see if the iso would work alone with AC, i think this would be great for a lot of people who want to keep a low profile, and everyone should have these ingredients sold locally. Plus it's not as toxic as using lye and solvents. Iso has a strong smell though

another post regarding AC used in spice cleanup i think you should be aware of.

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...s&m=91923#post91923


the iso will work for sure but the final product will contain undesirables and it will be goo instead of crystals.

maybe if one pull with cold iso you will pull less crap from the mix. if this works you can try different sub zero temperatures. i know this works when making pure canabinoid extracts. the more you freeze the alcohol, less chlorophyl it pulls and other oils.

Appreciate the post, so use very little.
NICE! I'll try that. I wonder if freezing would separate the nmt too or maybe if the AC cleans it out? I'm not too worried about getting goo, but crystals would be fantastic!

I just did a search and found this post by endlessness:

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=13172

Hopefully this doesn't include ipa at freezing temps. But it wont hurt to try it.

Edit: Is it just my computer or are the quote and links not working? IT's showing up as plain text.

Edit: Now found this, awesome!

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=27946

its a bug. the quotes are missing on my end too.

dont missunderstand me. im not saying that dmt will crystalize and precipitate in freezing IPA. alcohol is way too polar .

I wanted to say that it might be that freezing IPA will pull less plant oils and color, as this is the case when extracting cannabis plant matter with freezing alcohol.

dmt should stay soluble, thats a good thing.. the point in freezing the alcohol is to reduce the solubility of the other crap in it.


edit: yea, i am aware that dmt is very soluble even at low temperatures. that means you can freely leave the alcohol at least few hours at below zero temp before making the extraction. you want to make sure its really cold, and it will stay that way during the pulling.

maybe its also good idea to cool the extraction vessels too for some time, just like the hash tek, in order to keep the solvent cool for the period of extracting.

Yeah i got ya!

I just posted that to show it was soluble in freezing temps.

Edit: Ok, definetly.

What i think i'll do is scrape up the extract/lime powder up after it dries on the pyrex baking dish and place it in a pyrex measuring cup for easy pouring and place that in the freezer.

Adding AC to the brew after the filtering process may not be needed pulling with the freezing iso, but i think i will anyways because of the tannins and what not. I got a lot of testing to do

Thanks for you input, i'm excited now.

cool, no problem.

if you get to any trouble or doubts dont hesitate to ask, also dont throw anything until you are sure you have the spice.

and post your results of course. im interested if the freezing will make it less of a goo at the end.

Ok, if it works i'll write up a detailed tek with pictures and all the credit will go to you my friend!

Edit: I think i'm getting ahead of myself though.

Right now i'm doing a normal boil w/ no vinegar on 100 grams of rootbark, and also a vinegar soak w/ 100 grams in about 350ml. which will take a few days, and while that soaking the boiled batch will be evaporating on the pyrex dish.

Btw, forgot to mention this is shredded bark, just to let ya know.

Still have 80 grams left, i'll probably save for some traditional ayahuasca brews.

I'll keep the thread updated for those interested.

great to see you are on it. il follow your thread closely.

be safe and keep us posted.

So i just finished with the boiling. I was going to boil last night but i ended up being to tired to do so, so it soaked all night in about 800ml of water. All i did was one boil for about 2 hours, and i added a wee bit of vinegar because i wasn't sure what my tap water's ph would be. I ended up with 500ml of liquid (2 cups) edit after filtering then added 2 tablespoons of rinsed activated carbon. I tried filtering with a coffee filter to no avail, but i improvised and used paper towels which worked GREAT!

I let the AC soak for about 30 min. As soon as i added the AC immediately bubbles started forming and i could see big particles moving toward the AC which was all filtered out. It actually did clear it up very nicely.

I have a few questions, what would be a good temperature to further evaporate the liquid in the oven? My oven goes down to 170.
Also I'm going to add 50 grams of lime when it's evaporated a good bit, so it'll be a 2:1 ratio bark:lime then let that dry, and continue, do you think this will be good?

Edit: it looks darker than what it really is in the pictures. My camera is old. More boils would have gotten a very very light color. I just couldn't do more boils to to the smell. It fills the area fast and is so potent.

i hope you exhausted your bark from alkaloids.

i would evaporate with this ammount of liquid on 150 c degrees, and i would reduce the temperature as the water evaporates further to minimize the chance of burning your extract.

I'm pretty sure i got all of them. Plus i let the bark soak all night so it was nice and soggy before boiling.

Do you really think 170 is too much? It's all i got to work with.

well, 170 is well over waters boiling point, if it were me i wouldnt risk it. have patience.

Oh your saying celcius. My bad, i should have said 170 degrees. I understand now, so 170 degrees is good, just keep it below the boiling point and it should be good yeah?

exactly