Hello everyone and thanks for creating such a fine place.

Quick question, bike performed 1st extraction on hawaiian acrb (or something so described) using Cyb's tek except with 100g of material, and ended up with brown/yellow caramel goo. In the freezer it looked like crystals but when the nap dried it became a thin film of the goo. It had the unmistakable smell of active product.

Here are the steps bike performed:

1. 125mL white vinegar added to 200mL boiling water, then added to 100g of blender-powdered acrb + mixed well
1a. Possible issue: vinegar+water was not really boiling at all upon hitting the bark.
2. The above was kept warm in a crock pot on "low" for 3-4 hrs. and stirred/shaken occasionally
3. 50g NaCl was dissolved in 100ml distilled water, and added to the bark/acid mix
4. 100g NaOH was dissolved in 200ml distilled water, then added to bark/acid mix
5. Above was kept warm in crock pot on "low" for 3-4 hrs and stirred/shaken occasionally
6. 80ml of nap was added, swirled/rolled for 20-30s then allowed to settle 4-5x
7. Nap was never shaken hard or violently, just rolled/swirled, dump upside down, etc
7a. Possible issue: Bike read elsewhere not to shake hard to avoid emulsions, but maybe this was too gentle.
8. Nap settled for another 6hrs after the 4x swirl/settle cycles
8a. Possible issue: nap stayed in the basified mix too long before pulling?
9. Only 40-50ml of nap was able to be removed cleanly into glass tray, due to shallow nap level and drippy baster. The rest was left inside the basified mix.

Bike performed Cyb's as it seemed an easy way to verify the presence of alkaloids in the bark using a small amount of material and a short amount of time. But when compared with Thick-Light's tek, the bark/acid is boiled a lot longer there. Should the heat bath bike did above be enough of an acid step? Did bike need to boil it longer? Did bike need to shake the nap into the mix more, or was the nap left on the basified mix too long? Does this seem like a symptom of bunk bark like stem or trunk bark? Or something else altogether bike hasn't though of?

Thank you and many blessings
-bike

Everything you did looks fine.
The heat of the acid soak should not be boiling...just warm.

Acrb quality appears to be quite hit and miss according to many users reports, so it may be that your bark is low on product.

Caramel/Amber Goo is the Good Stuff...don't get hung up on achieving crystals...
Just dry the goo well over a few days or infuse into leaf.
It sounds like you did ok.

[quote=oldsoul]Hello everyone and thanks for creating such a fine place.

Quick question, bike performed 1st extraction on hawaiian acrb (or something so described) using Cyb's tek except with 100g of material, and ended up with brown/yellow caramel goo. In the freezer it looked like crystals but when the nap dried it became a thin film of the goo. It had the unmistakable smell of active product.

Here are the steps bike performed:

1. 125mL white vinegar added to 200mL boiling water, then added to 100g of blender-powdered acrb + mixed well
1a. Possible issue: vinegar+water was not really boiling at all upon hitting the bark.
2. The above was kept warm in a crock pot on "low" for 3-4 hrs. and stirred/shaken occasionally
3. 50g NaCl was dissolved in 100ml distilled water, and added to the bark/acid mix
4. 100g NaOH was dissolved in 200ml distilled water, then added to bark/acid mix
5. Above was kept warm in crock pot on "low" for 3-4 hrs and stirred/shaken occasionally
6. 80ml of nap was added, swirled/rolled for 20-30s then allowed to settle 4-5x
7. Nap was never shaken hard or violently, just rolled/swirled, dump upside down, etc
7a. Possible issue: Bike read elsewhere not to shake hard to avoid emulsions, but maybe this was too gentle.
8. Nap settled for another 6hrs after the 4x swirl/settle cycles
8a. Possible issue: nap stayed in the basified mix too long before pulling?
9. Only 40-50ml of nap was able to be removed cleanly into glass tray, due to shallow nap level and drippy baster. The rest was left inside the basified mix.

Bike performed Cyb's as it seemed an easy way to verify the presence of alkaloids in the bark using a small amount of material and a short amount of time. But when compared with Thick-Light's tek, the bark/acid is boiled a lot longer there. Should the heat bath bike did above be enough of an acid step? Did bike need to boil it longer? Did bike need to shake the nap into the mix more, or was the nap left on the basified mix too long? Does this seem like a symptom of bunk bark like stem or trunk bark? Or something else altogether bike hasn't though of?

Thank you and many blessings

I thought i got ..[bunk [ACRB]bark].. because the [AB tec] failed to produce crystals being so used to MHRB being so easy to get crystals from..
For ABRB extraction I used the [Acid Base tec] boining in [vinagar water]..
After all night in freezer i at first observed tiny little crystals floating all through the napatha..
But when removing the dish from freezer it all disapeared. nothing stuck to the glass?
After ordering more ACRB from diferent source I failed to get crystals also?
But I found [the clear to amber goo] on bottom of dish to be very active!!
I dont know how a few are getting such pretty crystals but maybe its because they monitored the PH?
I dont test PH at all.. I just follow a simple recepie..

Thank you Cyb.. although crap, that is what I feared. The goo from about half the first pull (~45ml of nap out of 80ml added) barely covered the edge of a razor blade. Would this further the weak bark hypothesis? Anyone else can spot any potential pitfall?

Since I can't buy a lot of nap here (just ronsonol $4/133ml)I wanted to do this easy tek with small amount first just to test the bark, then switch and extract the remaining bark with d-limonene/FASW. Would this be a good idea to try next?

But yea goo definitely seems active! Just a pinprick amount that got on my finger was infused and gave ~10% of the initial "rush" feeling... exciting!

SWIM did an extraction from 500grams of Hawaiian Acacia Confusa root bark. Thick-lights tek was awesome and produced some really nice looking crystals.

Instead of Vinegar for the acid bath SWIM used a few drops of food grade phosphoric acid added to a gallon of distilled water. SWIM left acid bath at a rolling boil and strained with cheese cloth to a reducing pot every hour and half. SWIM let the reducing mixture reduce to 1500ml and was then added to a half gallon mason jar.

With whatever space was left in the mason jar, naptha was added making sure there was just enough room to shake properly. SWIM shook mixture like crazy during this process. SWIM's best crystals were from what dropped at room temp!

InnerVoyage that is a nice looking pic!

For the hell of it I'm gonna do another 100g and boil it like mad before basifying like in Thick-lights tek just to compare with the results with what I did above. Seems like more boiling is the only real difference between that and Thick-Light's. Maybe ACRB needs more boiling to get stuff out?

Thanks

I boiled for 4 1/2 hours. Maybe you need to shake the mixture a little harder? This was SWIM's first extraction. Maybe SWIM got lucky with his bark?

It will be an interesting comparison to do full boiling next and see if what I get out of it compares to just the heated acid bath.

Maybe since the A. confusa is much bigger tree than M. hostilis the root bark has the spices held more tightly and this species needs a lot more boiling to release it properly.

I will get to it in the next couple of days and keep you guys posted on it.