so I made the crucial mistake with about 350 grams of ACRB and tried in stb. I did an successful a/b tek on my lest 100 grams. I still have about 4 jars with bark soaked in my lye solution and a small amount of solvent on top. One is 2 days old and the rest are about a week old maybe one is 2 weeks. I want to know if I can still pull of a successful a/b on those jars. Would I still be able to boil them (making sure I get all the naptha out)even though there is no vinegar in them and there so old? Can I just boil the bark in the lye solution? Or should I strain out the bark and just boil in fresh water and vinegar and continue on as normal?

q21q21's tek says something like, you can skip the acid step, but you have to leave the basified mix sitting for a week or longer.

So, based on that info, you could try pulling from the one that's a week old and see if you get anything, that's easy enough to try out.

i don't know if boiling lye is a good idea, or even in what container you could do so (hopefully someone more scientifically literate can chime in here).

but the acid step is essentially there just to lyse the cells, so if the mixture is fairly hydrated you might be able to freeze it, thaw it, and then pull it (again, hopefully someone can back me up here).


re-acidifying is probably out of the question as it would require a large amount of acid, and even more base.

if your bark is basified, your alkaloids wouldn't be water soluble, which might mean you could wash the lye out of the bark with water (hopefully you could evap/reduce the water to recover the lye), and then do an STB with that bark.


if freezing is a viable method, i would think that is your best bet (assuming the lye alone isn't enough to lyse the cells).


even if you do the acid step you want to let the basified mix sit for a long time.

you can do pulls right away if you want, but if you let it sit and pull again you will get quite a bit more.