Okay so SWIM is dealing with limited supplies and after his first attempt was a failure he was simply looking for the go ahead, I know this may seem lazy but he did read pretty much all there is to read on this site regarding this tek but he just want to be 100% sure. These are all questions regarding Norman's tek which seems to be a good tek as its pretty much the most prominent one on this site.

1) So if SWIM was to use 100g of powdered MHRB would he have to use 3L of water ?

2) How many times should he repeat the naptha extraction if he only uses .5ml per gram of bark ?

3) SWIM is using powdered MHRB he bought off ebay, white spirits and 99% sodium hydroxide pearls that are easily soluble ,are those ingredients safe/ideal ?

4) There was no mention of heating the MHRB, lye or naptha in the tek, is that correct ? The first tek SWIM used was from a random post on another website and because he only has access to an open flame stove he screwd up the first part of the tek.

5) SWIM also doesn't own a coffee filter, so are there any other ways to simply do the last step ? He would rather not have to go out and buy one.

Thanks in advance for any help

never mind

............. what ? Either I'm horribley mistaken or you aren't refering to the Norman's tek I am.

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...tek#Extraction_Procedure

There's no mention of an acid wash atleast not in the necesary parts, and you can't really measure water in depth as most people will be using differant sized pots, etc.

Thanks anyway

may i refer to the tek then



so 100g would require 1.5L of water and 100g lye.

You should look in the Wiki and reread the tek. What are the white spirits for? If you do your pulls within an hour or so after adding sodium hydroxide, the solution will still be warm enough from the exothermic reaction that takes place after adding lye. Instead of coffee filters and jars, do this... Do four pulls on the 100g of mhrb, combine the naptha pulls in a flat pyrex tray with a lid (found at walmart/target/almost any grocery store). Place a fan in front of the tray for about a half hour until it gets cloudy or evaps off about 30-50% of the solvent. Then stick in the freezer. Once the precip has taken place, pour off the solvent into a collection jar for later use, then put your covered pyrex tray in the freezer upside down for an hour or so to get off remaining solvent. Then take out of freezer, put in front of fan for 20 minutes until you smell no naptha and only spice, scrape off your goodies with a razor blade.

...and rave420, he's doing a STB, not an A/B.

The addendum states that powdered root bark works best with another 1-1.5x water added

if all the information is right there then i don't know what this question asking is all about ?

also, i just realized he is doing a Straight to Base

From personal experience i use 500ml water 100g pre-powdered bark and 40g lye, three pulls with 100ml naphtha done in warm water a day in between each pull.

But that's not "the tek". So if you don't want other peoples experiences then just read the text and do as you're told there. I have been through the process and got better results by modifying it slightly to better suit my needs.

i am through with STB, because i get better yields and a purer product going the A/B way. It's more work and takes longer, but i enjoy the end product so much more. I always get yellow crystals with STB that are slightly oily, and sometimes melt into a gooey puddle that dries out to a tan wax. With A/B + De-fat i end up with beautiful pure white fluffy snow-flake like crystals, and THEN i pull off the jungle with toluene.

but hey, you will need experimentation to find the way and method that gives you the results YOU'RE after

Couldn't agree with you more rave. Experience is the best teacher, just think he should go by the letter at this point until some know-how is developed. I started with STB, they are very reliable, but the A/B is definitely my preferred method now.

the thing is, he doesn't have experience. Yet, there are hundreds of people here with experience willing to share the things they had to work for to come to realize.

STB is okay if you are looking for a crude smokable product. Recrystallization of this product will greatly hurt your yields, so STB is NOT the way to go to achieve purity in my opinion. It's the absolutely lazy way to get to your spice in no time at all, but like i said, it's far from optimal.

if i were you i'd do a PROPER A/B extraction + De-Fat stage. That will give you the best results, and it shows you that if you want good yields and a pure product, you can not underestimate the importance of time in the process.

An Acid / Base extraction over three days where i pulled the liquid once a day and replaced by fresh acidified water gave me the best yields so far. STB i get somewhere around 0.25 - 0.35 % yield of yellowish spice, no matter how hard i try. A/B + Defat i can achieve 0.6 - 0.8% of the pure white product no problem.

STB you end up with "something" every time, it's just far from ideal.

When doing a STB may i also recommend putting your solvent (naphtha) in a jar, add about half the volume of solvent with FRESH WATER and a pinch of baking soda. Shake shake shake, and now pull off the naphtha. You will see that the water in the jar has acquired some yellow tint, which will not be in your final product anymore.

But yes, go with the tek, it will work the way it's outlined there. With time, you will find it works better if you adapt it to your kitchen and individual situation. You might find something that employs the same basic technique, but works much better for you.

Does anybody have similar experiences?

[quote=rave420
STB is okay if you are looking for a crude smokable product. Recrystallization of this product will greatly hurt your yields, so STB is NOT the way to go to achieve purity in my opinion. It's the absolutely lazy way to get to your spice in no time at all, but like i said, it's far from optimal.
[/quote]

A/B is slightly cleaner, yes, but an STB extract is far from crude, and recrystalization doesn't lose anything that is smokable anyway.

1) So if SWIM was to use 100g of powdered MHRB would he have to use 3L of water ?

2) How many times should he repeat the naptha extraction if he only uses .5ml per gram of bark ?

3) SWIM is using powdered MHRB he bought off ebay, white spirits and 99% sodium hydroxide pearls that are easily soluble ,are those ingredients safe/ideal ?

4) There was no mention of heating the MHRB, lye or naptha in the tek, is that correct ? The first tek SWIM used was from a random post on another website and because he only has access to an open flame stove he screwd up the first part of the tek.

5) SWIM also doesn't own a coffee filter, so are there any other ways to simply do the last step ? He would rather not have to go out and buy one.


Start with 1.5L and add water until the solution is free flowing rather than thick mud.

Do four and evaporate the last one. If there is still a lot of spice coming out, do another.

White spirits doesn't precipitate well (usually) you may have to evap.

You can heat the whole thing in a water bath for your last pulls if you like. This will get the last of the spice into your NP as well as pull a little bit of jungle spice.

A coffee filter is just one of those paper filters that goes in a coffee machine. A pack is like a dollar.


Good luck man.

Rave,

Yes he has no experience, but being guided every step of the way won't help as much as messing it up and realizing why you did. That's what I meant by experience is best teacher, we all have the experience, he needs to gain some of it on his own.

As far as STB, it is not lazy, and the product is anything but crude, freeze precip cleans things up nicely. A couple re-x's on that and that spice will rival any A/B spice out there. I like A/B because it gives slightly better yields imho, not because it is cleaner. Not sure where you're getting the idea of recrystallizing greatly hurting yields, I always notice minimal loss.

well...

i recently did an extraction on 200g of bark, STB tek.
I ended up with a large pile of yellow oily crystals. After dissolving them in hot naphtha there was a sizable pile of yellow oily stuff that would NOT dissolve, and after recrystallization, there was only half of what i put in in the first place.

i find that doing the STB way, a lot of fats in the plant get turned into soap by the lye, and some of this ends up in your final yield. Therefore, your pile shrinks every time you do the recrystallization. With A/B, i end up with pure white crystals on the first precipitation, without having to recrystallize at all. I have never even seen yellow crystals doing the A/B way. STB i get yellow crystals from freeze precipitation that need further cleaning to obtain a white product.

But maybe some people prefer yellow crystals. I don't like the jungle high as much as i like the pure white stuff

That could have been from a variety of factors, but oh well. Just don't think you should say you're results from STB are how everybody's will turn out. I can get very clean spice on the first precip off a stb. Not trying to argue though.

i have the suspicion that putting it into the refrigerator instead of the freezer might help out the purity of the final product.
I am going to do some testing to see if the temperature i precipitate at makes any difference.

hey, after all, i am only looking for a way to get to the purest product in the smallest amount of time possible + a good yield. If i could produce this using STB i would do it. It's not working for me I am still involved in permanent experimenting, maybe one day i will find something that works well. And yes, i have tried following most teks to the T, and i just don't end up with the same results. that in itself tells me that there must be some modification necessary.
I tried the Lazymans Tek STB with 500g of bark and did everything just like it was outlined, and i did not get nowhere near the 1.5 % yield. I got somewhere around 0.35% at 48 hours.

teks are a guideline, you still have to apply it to your kitchen and situation.

Exactly, developing your own techniques is the most fun part of all.

Whow ......... that was ....... patronizing.

Anyway yeah I'm relatively new and I've litterally only tried this once from a poor tek while outragously high. Unfortunately I don't have the money to waste on a failure here and there. So yeah I'd rather get it right the first time as odds are there won't be a 20th time if I don't get any results. Granted it would be best if I turned it into an artform like some people seem to have but can somebody cut me some slack. Thank you Noman BTW

Don't do this.

That was not the intent, but if being called inexperienced, when you admit you are, is patronizing to you, then...
And I was trying to help btw, sorry it was not sufficient.If you don't have money to waste on failure here and there, why extract all 100 grams? Even with the help, there's a good chance you'll still make mistakes. And working with caustic chemicals while "outrageously high" is probably not the best idea. Better luck next time.

Yeah sorry that was a bit of a moany little repsonse, thanks for the help anyway. Yeah I think i'll just stick to smaller practice runs for the first while. I was just annoyed that my first try was a failure. I was just looking for kind of straight forward answers like are my ingredients go to go and do I actually not need to heat the mixture until extracting the naptha ?

Hey, no worries. Was just trying to say to expect failure, as bad as that sounds... You will get everything down with practice. At first, just worry about getting a final pure product, as small as it is.
And yeah, your materials are good. Like I said, do your pulls sooner rather than later once you've soaked your bark in the basified solution. If you do it about an hour after adding your NaOH, the exothermic reaction that occurred from that will be sufficient enough to keep the solution warm. But as Noman also stated, you can keep the container you have your basified bark solution in a hot water bath. Either way will make more of an impact than having the jar cooled an at room temperature.

Good luck, you'll get it down.