Ive never tried this tek but I remember reading that if the whole thing is too dry, it sucks more solvent, than if it was a bit more moist. Also I read that if you add some sodium carbonate, when it reacts with calcium hydroxide it forms lye, which helps with separation (be careful it will be more basic, wear safety equipment)

the rehydrated cacti powder should be almoast fluid but more goopy. your dlimo (check your supply for purity) should sit like oil on an ice cube and youll want to manually mix the pasty cactus through your solvent with a stir rod or something, then it easily settles and you collect your solvents and salt them.

if your solvent mixes with the basic cacti water goop id say your orange oil is the culprit, again make sure its as pure as you can find, it should be colorless/slight yellow at most.

id opt for lye instead of pickling lime because you need less bass and you arent going to be eating this product without cleaning the hcl in dry acetone anyway.

with 100 g of flesh ive had 7 g hcl with this style of extraction, it defintley works and works well

so one can make functional or pure sodium hydroxide with calcium hydroxide and sodium carbonate? wont there be some other byproduct? is that byproduct going to effect anything?

i ask this because sometimes lye goes out of stock for months or cant be found locally, thanks!