Hey yall swim performed a few stb extractions with mediocre results. swim is about to use Orions Boil and base method for my next attempt. He gives measurements of chemicals but not the PH level that he is obtaining. swim is too much of a noob to know what the measurements create.

swim have also read from Lextek's tek .

Lextek's yelid was fairly low however and this has prompted the question of, what is the optimum ph levels for extraction? Therefore it will not matter how much bark one uses. Thanks for taking the time if anybody answers.

pH 2-4 for the acidic phase
pH 12 or above for the basic phase.

Hi, while it is admirable that you wish to fully understand the chemistry going on, may i suggest that you follow the recipe in the first instance. When you have a extracted successfully a couple of times, then look more deeply into the chemistry. When you bake a cake do you know the chemistry going on? Or do you just want a delicious cake to eat? (preferably chocolate )

Most "noobs" make the mistake of thinking they need to fully understand what is going on for this to work, they don't. The hard work has been done for you by people like Orion and Cyb for example. Most failures from new extractors come from not following the recipe or choosing a recipe they have not got the ingredients for. Too many times you see posts along the lines of " i am doing a variation of this tek why as it gone wrong" or my favourite one of mixing steps from different teks

Much better would be, "i have succesfully followed the recipe and have a nice pile of spice, i was wondering what would happen if i did this next time"



Back to cakes, (i like cakes) if the recipe makes enough for 4 people and i want to make enough for 8 people i usual double the ingredients. It is the same with your tek it is not rocket science and no chemistry knowledge needed. Orions tek has given you the amounts required to reach the required Ph levels for a successful extraction. The only time you will really need to know the details is if you are going to be experimenting with new extraction methods.

Stand on the shoulders of giants first.

Read this if you have not already done so

I'm afraid I'm having trouble agreeing with this, except for the fact that indeed a lot of hard work, trial and error included, has been done by the authors of various teks and they deserve our utmost respect for it. However, understanding what is going on, or at least trying to, certainly has some advantages over simply executing a tek as if, like you said, baking a cake...





Here you prove you have not entirely gotten the point: baking a cake and extracting dmt is not the same... Simply doubling all ingredients is not the best way to scale up an extraction, regardless of how well this strategy works in cake-baking...

Now on to actually answering some of the OP's questions

Yes, pH levels matter - some teks mention using quite a bit more reagents than strictly necessary to reach the desired pH levels but they do this with good reason...

If you have a pH meter (or papers) and don't want to use more chemicals than strictly necessary, you will have some studying to do pKa levels and their meaning and so on...
One advice I would give you is to not measure pH immediately after adding a reagent to your solution - I'm sure I read somewhere that it's better to allow some time for the reaction to take place then measure... I would also never measure the solution directly, but rather take a small sample of it and measure that...

Some teks provide quite a bit of insight into the chemical principles and interactions in an extraction process rather than merely being a "recipe"... Reading a variety of teks will help you to improve your understanding of what's going on... Cybs Max Ion tek for instance is a very good read and I highly recommend it...

It's good to see you are on a path of seeking knowledge and insight rather than looking for the easiest/fastest way to get blasted...

Some people choose a tek and go for it while other people do weeks/months of reading before their first attempt at extracting Both seem to work quite well, but what and how much you get out of it (not talking about yields here) may vary slightly (lol) depending on which route you choose...

I personally use Cybs hybrid salt tek for guidance and inspiration - if you take into account a few things you can experiment/mess around a bit in such a way that any mistakes you may make can be corrected and no yield should be lost

Good luck, may your yield be pure and plentiful... If you have a question, try the FAQ and WIKI sections first, try using the "search" function as well - if those methods fail to satisfy your hunger, feel free to ask anything

PLUR

edit - If you are going to do "acidic boils" you may want to check the pH before, during and after each boil - acetic acid for instance breaks down with heat and evaporates as well, so your pH will change during the boils...

I have never bothered with measuring ph levels when extracting DMT, just cook with vinegar water and base till its good and black.

this works a treat for me.

Same here more or less (different procedure but never measured), but if someone wants to measure I'd rather they measure correctly

thank you most for your insights, i appreciate your time. ill be reading up on cybs tek right now