I've been having a lot of success with small extractions using sodium carb as my base and sunflower oil as the NPS. I decided to try a 500g extraction of ACRB following the same methods I've used on the smaller ones:
acid boiling / decanting with citric acid and vinegar till significant color change
reduce to minimum volume
base with sodium carb and add salt
pull with sunflower oil
wash with sodium carb
salt out with vinegar
Things started going wrong as soon I tried basing the reduced liquid. It was a thick red syrup. Upon adding sodium it expanded and kept expanding. I tried to add slowly but clearly not slowly enough. I added around 200g of sodium carb by the end.
Eventually it turned into a big spongy mess. So I added more water and this help it to become a thick paste. Usually I do a 'dry' extraction on such a mixture, but this had become too moist, so i added more water and attempted to do a wet extraction.
But alas, even after filling 2 1 litre jars over half way it was still not liquid enough. When adding the oil to one jar to test if it would work it just combined in a big sludge. So i transferred to a bigger vessel and added more water. The oil separated but now there is a horrible emulsion in the oil which won't budge. I've added over 300g of salt without any effect. I probably have around 3 litres of fluid in the vessel.
I tried sucking off the messy oil and washing with sodium carb which is having some success but even here I am getting more emulsions that won't go away.
Too much sodium carb?
Any bright ideas where to go from here?
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