So I decided to do my own extraction tek on my newest batch of ACRB. I started a few days ago and this morning I began my pulls. I've got a step by step progression written out on my computer but I am not sure that it will be a success so until I am I will refrain from posting it to prevent anyone from attempting a tek that may be a failure (although that certainly does not seem the case).

Anyways, the short version is that I started with a couple of acid boils then froze all the liquid and bark together. The next day, I pulled the frozen hunk of bark and acid water from the freezer and rapidly thawed it and brought it to a boil. Boiled for just a bit, strained the water, and started all over again with fresh acid boils and refroze. The next day, I pulled the frozen (for the second time) mixture from the freezer and rapidly thawed it again, bringing it to a boil just as before. I strained it and did a couple more acid boils then combined all liquid together and reduced it to the desired amount. I then added my lye and then my naphtha. I shook the daylights out of it then passed out for the night. I woke up this morning, warmed it back up, shook it some more and proceeded to begin pulling naphtha. By the time I had pulled half of my naphtha from the jar, there were already small crystals lining my crystallization container (and plenty of them).

I have never seen so much room temp precipitation so my hopes are high for an excellent yield. I just placed the container in the freezer. Updates are sure to follow.

Not having even rudimentary chemistry knowledge ( I just read the directions on the side of the box) what is the rationale behind the freezing? Cell lysing?

I was actually wondering if refrigerating/freezing degrades the DMT/NMT after it's been acid boiled. How long can the compound stay in that state before deteriorating?

Ashema

Generally, freezing is a good way to conserve things, as chemical reactivity drops with temperature.

I think this is the least of your worries. Overheating the basified solution is far more damaging to the DMT.

Edit: No worries if basifying only a little, as called for in A/B. But strong base + heat = very corrosive.

To my knowledge, freezing it would have no negative effects at all. I cannot see how freezing the solution would lead to anything other than cell lysing (which is the intension of the freezing). And yes, overheating the basified solution would definitely do more damage than anything else besides maybe boiling off all of your acid/water solution and burning the bark due to inattentiveness (the end state of my first extraction). So far my naphtha is producing very small crystals in large amounts. I have yet to try and harvest any of them, as I prefer to let my naphtha sit in the freezer for as long as I can bear it. Patience, however, is not my strongest attribute...

I like the freeze, and thats maybe the key difference in this than with other teks.

How do you strain? Do you use shredded rb?

What are you defining as "overheating"?

DMT can withstand hard-boiling and extended durations in extremely high pH.

This strikes me as a somewhat dubious claim.

True. I hard-boiled (acid) my bark, to the point of very (very) minimal burning. The product seems unphased. My only concern was the fact that I had to refrigerate ~3500ml and wasn't sure if it would degrade in acid over several hours.

I don't see what would cause it to degrade. I assume you're not storing it in a highly concentrated acid solution and the temperature isn't an issue...if anything it's beneficial to have it at cooler temps. But that really shouldn't matter in the context of an aqueous solution containing DMT.

Thanks for the reassurance, Snozzleberry.
The solution is good. Accurately measured from the tek and waiting for additional use. Exactly (well ok, roughly) how long can it remain refrigerated? Not sure I'll be able to add lye and naphtha until next week at the soonest.

Well, here's a picture of filtered product. Drying phase.

No.I use powdered root bark. The more surface area the better.

But not boiling in extremely high pH. Boiling concentrated lye is a monster. It will eat your glass.


Surely you noticed that I had already edited my initial statement immediately after posting?

I'm not sure I follow. When would boiling DMT at a high pH even come into play and what evidence is there for degradation?

You can get a significant temperature spike by adding large(r) quantities of lye to your aqueous solution...maybe close to boiling...but afaik, that won't degrade the DMT. Similarly, some people put their container of basified solution in a hot water bath to increase the amount of DMT the NPS pulls will hold, some have even reported simmering, and no loss of yield was encountered afaik.

As stated before, I'm just not clear as to where this assertion is coming from or what evidence it's based on. I'd certainly be interested in seeing/hearing about it if it's the case. I'm just saying that it's contrary to the things I've experienced and have seen others share.

Well, there's no boiling of a basified solution going on here or anywhere else in this thread. So we're all good.
That said, does anyone know how long (theoretically) DMT can remain stable in a basified, refrigerated container?

Also, that's a pretty deep signature, Snozzleberry.

A nice long time...months for sure...maybe even years? I've left non-refrigerated basified solutions sitting at room temp for months after doing several naphtha pulls. I came back and did some more toluene pulls and retrieved a considerable amount of product that remained. Life had gotten hectic as I was finishing up the naphtha pulls, so I set it aside and forgot about it. It really didn't seem to present a significant lose of overall yield. As said earlier, I don't know what effect (if any) refrigeration will have, but I can't imagine it will add to degradation.


Thanks...it's a line from the newest edition of Rolling Thunder that I modified to be a tad more personally relevant.

So good to know.
Thanks again, SnozzleBerry.

Blessings,

Ashema

It was mostly a hypothetical situation. Freezing in acid vs. Boiling in lye.


Well, when I add lye to water, sometimes I see and hear the water around the lye prills boiling. The immediate vicinity of the prills consists of boiling and very concentrated lye solution. My personal observation is that I get a whiter product when I don't add lye prills directly, but add the lye as a premade solution. Also, when I open a container that has been standing for a longer time with a strongly basic bark soup, there is a definite smell of ammonia that may possibly come from degraded amines.


But what is simmering, the water bath, the basified soup or the non-polar solvent? Petroleum ether starts boiling already at a little over body temperature. If it's just a low-boiling solvent simmering, that is no problem to the DMT. In fact it would hasten the removal of DMT from the basic soup into the solvent.


The assertion that started your question is not very relevant to practical extractions. I agree with the sharing of experiences, especcially with regard to the effects of adding lye as a solution vs. as prills and the development of ammoniacal smell in longer standing extractions.

Whiteness vs yellowness or other colors is not necessarily an indicator of the purity of the product. endlessness put together a wonderful thread on this exact topic. Even burnt's analysis of waxy red DMT that is often called "jungle spice" showed that the product was ~95% DMT.

I'm not debating that longer exposure to lye/hotter pulls wont potentially result in a yellower or otherwise less-white product, just that it's more likely imo/ime an indicator of traces of plant fats/oils, owing to their increased solubility in the NPS at that point, rather than degradation. It appears that only a tiny amount of "impurity" is needed to drastically alter the color/appearance.

One thing I'll point out, as an aside, because we found out after endlessness made that post, is that DMT is also polymorphic which could also contribute to color variance.

As to the smell of ammonia indicating the potential degradation of amines...I don't know. Perhaps a chemist could weigh in with a technical explanation. Personally, from an experiential/anecdotal standpoint as reported with some frequency, I think the evidence points towards a lack of degradation, but perhaps more evidence (or concatenation of current evidence) is needed to back up this assertion one way or the other.

I agree that any amount of degradation on standing probably is very small. The smell of ammonia isn't particularly strong.

Speaking of waxy, red jungle spice...that is what I have yeilded. It looks like crystals until I evap the naphtha. I set the stuff out and come back 10 mintues later to find a fairly thick coating of brownish-red wax on the bottom of my crystallization container. I put this on a straw and coated the inside of a lightbulb vape with the stuff. A fairly large amount I felt. Since it is in this form, it is very difficult to weigh and get an accurate dose. Anyways, I heat the bulb until it is filled completely with vapor and take a deep breath. I repeat this 3 times and lay down. I can feel my body change. I get faint CEVs. And then 2 minutes later it is gone. Nowhere near as potent as my yellow oil or goo that I yielded last extractiong. Now rest assured, I took big big hits. The entire lightbulb was filled with vapor. The hits were so harsh and disgusting is was almost unbearable. What could be causing this? Why can't I get any damn crystals? No matter what tek I try or how perfectly I follow the instructions I have yet to acquire more than a few small yellow crystals that melt at room temp. I'm beginning to get frustrated. I'm not opposed to yielding nothing but red wax the rest of my life as long as the stuff will get me to the other side. Maybe my smoking technique was off but I certainly don't see how you can inhale more smoke than I did.