Dear nexians,

After lurking here for a while I decided to introduce myself.

All my life I've been interested in "exploring", but I've always held on to this somewhat hypocritical principle of "keeping it natural".
So I've limited myself to cannabis (daily user) and shrooms (seems like they "call" me a few times a year).

My life was/is going pretty well: in my late thirties, wifey and a few little monsters running around in the house

At the start of this year however, I started suffering from horrible headaches, several times a day. Turns out I'm suffering from cluster headaches .

As traditional meds weren't really helping me, or left me completely depressed and out of energy, I started exploring alternative treatment methods. Besides accapuncture, I was amazed that there's an entire community of clusterheads who swear by treatment by shrooms.

After extensive research there seems to be a mild improvement for me when following the shroom treatment, but availability is somewhat of an issue, and the fact it takes quite a while to cultivate.

One day I somewhat accidentally stumbled upon a post of someone claiming dmt helped him a lot with his attacks...
It didn't take long for me to arrive here

Next came several weeks of researching, ordering required materials (mrhb, solvent, lye, ph-meter, Soxhlet extractor (will be using that for my next extraction to see if there's a difference in yield, + can be used to recover solvent) and a vacuum pump) and deciding on an optimal tek for extraction to follow.

So that's where we are now: after some initial experiments I now have my first glass dish full of saturated solvent in the freezer since yesterday morning.

I also have some caapi and made "the machine", so both changa and vaping it are options i'all explore.

I have plenty more to tell but this post already looks like it's tl;dr
so peace to all and safe travels

I'm looking forward to hearing more, particularly about your success or failure with the soxhlet extractor. SWIM has definitely been considering one, but SWIM thinks she should do at least one extraction and have at least one experience before she (or was it he?) starts picking up optional components. His MHRB is very fine so she was thinking too much might get past the thimble.

I'm so sorry to hear about your headaches. That sounds positively awful. I don't get them often, but when I do, they are thoroughly debilitating.

Hi fidus,

I’m looking forward to my soxhet extraction too: that sort of stuff makes my inner geek very happy.

One thing I plan on doing is replacing the thimble by placing the mrhb powder in a double coffee filter with some cotton balls below and above it: much cheaper and more room in the extraction chamber for the goodies.

But judging by what I just pulled out of the freezer, the soxhlet will be up for a challenge!
results
I started from 50gr powdered mrhb root, and followed
cybs hybrid atb salt tek. Im still debating on wether to do a re-x or test it as is. But im quite happy with a 1.94% yield on my first try!

I did adjust the quantities to end up with a ph of 3 an 12.5 (less vinegar, and more lye, according to my ph meter)

Things I learned during the extraction:
- Vacuum filtration kicks ass!
vacuum pump
It took seconds for the filter and crystals on it to dry, so I’m regretting leaving so much crystals in the dish.
- don’t put your fan too close when drying the crystals, I actually saw a few fly away
- make sure to order caapi leaves, or you might end up with shredded vine like me, which isnt very useful for changa.
- i need to figure out what im doing wrong with the insert image option.

grtz!

I feel like that is a very respectful first yield. Well done!

How have I not seen this tek before? Thank you for sharing. I need to read up on what role the salt plays.

SWIM hasn't done his first pull yet. I do a lot of herbal extractions and filtration is always a major drag (I use gravity... soooooooo slow). I'll try to convince SWIM to get a vacuum filtration rig for his pull so I can borrow it for my own hobbies.

Am I right that you did a quick vacuum filtration to get out the big precipitated crystals, and then did an evaporation run to pick up the remaining? If I may ask, was your vacuum source motor, aspirated, or hand?

I actually tried to leave as much spice as possible in the dish.
During an earlier experiment without vacuum pump I saw all my crystals melt into the coffee filter I used: it just took too long for the naphtha to filter through.

I use a simple hand pump. If you don't have any I'd go for the fan method.

I'm now in the process of optimising my smoking technique... efficiently vaping is more difficult then I thought

First oh all I want say THANK YOU, discover changa in my life was a beginning of something big and It will be forever in my life. Finding this website sort all my first questions about how to create it and also I actually manage to get good results on my second cook.
Reaing many of the messages make want to meet some of you in person to even get more information about it.
Still experimenting but I would like to say I am using Petri Dishes for my extractions and it seems to be more clean than glass pots, and also Its a beautiful object to have.

Basically this post ITs for say hello, and again, thank you all