Hello nexus

with 2 flawless STB extractions, I have a basic understanding of the chemistry behind it all.

from what I believe, in an A/B tek, you add naphtha, and pull it at a high PH, before basifying, so only the plants fats are pulled, and no spice?

is this possible in a STB tek?

is my understanding of the defat process even correct?


PS, also if I recrystallize my last few pulls which come out darker in colour, will they lighten up?
and be of the same quality as the first few pulls?

Thanks in advance nexus! you guys are great
happy travels

Hi,

It sort of is, but if you were to do it like that then you would have an a/b - a stb is, in essence, only an a/b without the a.

i have seen some links about a stb defat though, cant remeber what they used (i will try to find them though), it was something like soak it in naptha, no water then pull the naptha, discard. repeat and then stb. but this used tons and tons of naptha. people use mhrb so they dont need to defat. try to avoid picking them up

a little yellowness is to be expected, but mhrb doesnt need defatting if the stb is done well, and its not that hard to do it well a stb imho shouldnt take ages. but then its a yield v effort thing and im quite lazy. recrysalising should fix most of the problems anyway.

here is a something to try that might help eliminate oils before they become a problem.

This is all hypothetical and i have written it in a first person style so it will illustrate my point more clearly. Obviously the I in this is not me.

I am assuming you already know all the safety stuff. and dont do this in a country where it is illegal. also its probably not a good idea to do something that someone from the internet told you to or how to do. good luck though and be safe

i have found that the trick with a stb is to not give it time to pick up the minimal oils and fats in mhrb. this is a slight difficult technique to perfect and might take a few goes before you get it right. dont throw anything away before you have all the stuff out of the freezer, that way you wont lose anything but time if you try this next time.

just for an idea, i the ratios i am thinking of when i am saying this is 250 powders mhrb to 250 lye and 250ish ml of naptha 2500ish ml of water in a 3ltr glass lid jar. i do not know the ratios you are using, but it should be in the same ballpark.

so you do your normal stb process and make sure that the mhrb and water are nicely mixed in your glass jar, use a hand blender if you need to, give it a real good mix, shake it, violently. add the lye water, make sure this is mixed a little shake should be okay. Stir it now for 4 - 5 mins. no more shaking. all this happens at room temperature. no need to chill the lye, just make sure it has cooled a bit and has stopped reacting before you add it to the mhrb/water paste.

- let this settle for five to 10 minutes. it should still be foamyish.
- slowly pour in the desired amount of naptha
- replace lid and leave for 5 minutes.

- for ultra clear crystals but a lower yield per pull:
- lie the bottle/jar on the floor on its side and slowly roll the jar 360 degrees then stop - maybe 2 - 3 seconds
- now roll it back 360 degrees at the same pace.
- do this 10 times in each direction then let stand for 5 mins or until it looks settled again. - stuff can stick to the glass to make it look not settled when it is.
- repeat 2 or 3 times - depending on how quickly your solvent picks up the yellow stuff.

- for _slightly_ yellow crystals but still impressive and white and less pulls - i think over all greater yields too, but that is another post.
- hold the jar in your hands and turn end over end 20 times - do this carefully though and slowly maybe 3 - 5 seconds a spin. i do it in two movements of 180 degrees.
- let stand for 5 minutes - the solvent doesnt have to be completely clear at this point, just there shouldnt be any cloud like bits where it joins the mhrb - watch for emulsions. any will ruin the whiteness, in waiting for them to
- repeat 3 times
[end of diffence]
- now take the jar and get that naptha out and freeze it at -20.

repeat this until you have all the dmt.

it took me a little while to find the right combo of technique and naptha for this, but it isnt that hard. it saves so much time. and of course a recystalisation will sort a lot of the problem if it is really yellow. but you tend to lose spice that way and it takes time.

i hope this helps. your milage may vary. sorry if this kills your cat, it isnt meant to.

thp.

To defat with an STB you can mix a solvent with the dried bark and then filter it off before you add it to the lye solution. I think xylene/limonene would be good for this purpose, though I think you'd have to use a hell of a lot as the bark will soak up a lot of it.

Though I think this is unecassary, as you can get really nice white crystals on the first freeze precip from an STB by cooling the solvent phase very slowly. So maybe leave it by a window for 12 hours, then the fridge for 12 hours and then the freezer for 24.

I can get white/glassy needles this way out of even the most oily of naphtha.

If one were so inclined to do the STB method using MHRB, they need not worry about defatting.

As a beginner, wich I understand you are, you should focus on Keeping it simple.

STB= Straight to Base

Thats what you are talking about right?

or

are you taliking about STAB? lol.

You do not need to defat MHRB.

or yeah... what this guy said^

Yeah, i tried the defat with naphtha once... and only once... it was a waste of naphtha and the quality was exactly the same as when i didn't do it.

@thpthial: I used to be so gentle when mixing the naphtha into the base soup, but i soon realised that you can literally shake the hell out of the jar with no emulsion forming even if you tried. Since there is so much lye at the 1:1 (lye to bark) ratio, it is damn hard for an emulsion to form. I guess its better to be safe than sorry on that front, as emulsions can be a pain in ass, but no need to be too careful.

Look, if you are really dead set on doing an acid wash then do what I do.

Take your powderized bark and soak it in vinager for a week. Use just enough vinager to cover everything up, not an ounce more. Shake it up a bit, make sure everything is soaked in vinager. Let it sit for a week in a warm dark place.

After sitting a week, add basified water until your mhrb mixture is a 13+ ph close to 14 as possible.

Many may diagree with some of the details here.

This is a tried and true method for me.

These steps are exactly what is used in the beginning of BLAB.

What I have outlined above works! Every single time.

hello mate,

you are right, emulsions are an absolute pain. however, i wasnt telling him to be gentle for that reason, i am trying to minimise the oils picked up, so you dont discolore the dmt. I didnt explain this in the previous post because i thought it would make it too long winded.

1:1 not only stops emulsions but it also makes the dmt float

(I will be writing this up as part of a bigger tek.)

water density = 1
dmt density = 1.099
08% NaOH water = 1.0869
10% NaOH water = 1.1089
12% NaOH water = 1.1309

so 10% and really shaking it up before you put the solvent in will free up loads of dmt, and the dmt will float to the surface. because these crystals are so small they get absorbed quickly into the white spirit.(this is the time the jar is left standing between spins standing time in my technque).

The only reason the jar is rotated at all is to losen up any dmt trapped in the big bulk of mhrb trapped at the bottom. this is why it is done slowly.

if the solvent will collect it all just sitting there if the dmt floats

when shaken violently the white spirit will get trapped in the mhrb powder, it takes ages to come out and is very discoloured. if enought mhrb is on top it wont come out at all.when people ask "where did all my solvent go" this is where it went.

you also want to minimise the contact between the white spirit and the mhrb water, this is when it will pick up oils and fats.so even when turning end over end it is still done in a smooth motion, rolling the spirit around. not spun quickly creating pockets of solvent and dmt trapped.

heat is bad for this too, it lowers the density of the fluid.
heat also increases the absorbtion powers of the white spirit (this is bad because it will pick up oils, it is already powerful enough to get all _floating_ dmt.)

This technique is a lot more powerful than just this though, but that needs greater accuracy. i will be explaining more in my tek when i have finished it.

cheers

thp.

thanks thpial that really helps me understand why the method in your first post is logical,

thanks for the answers guys.

I think I'm going to try the slow cooling method, along with the short soak times, and see what kind of results I get.

also my eyes are opened as to why adding a solvent before basifying would be a waste of my time, and a waste of naphtha.

PS. I have had very good success with the STB tek, just wondering if there are any A/B tek's done with lye/naphtha that do not require any heating? lye and naphtha are very easy to acquire for me, and the heating is the only part of the A/B that puts me off.