You could reuse the same d-limonene. But not more than a few times because it's going to reduce yields as it gets saturated with chlorophyll and other crap from the cactus. I think you could probably use the same d-limonene at least 4 times before discarding it.

thanks very much. So, extrapolating, yields would actually increase if fresh d-lim was used each time, right?

As far as d-limonene goes, my friend has found industrial suppliers in the UK and also pure orange oil suppliers.

Which should I point him towards? Procuring d-lim in the UK is harder than in the US, he says, and importing is illegal. And the thread on UK/European sourcing has been dormant since May.

And man, does his garage floor need a good clean.

Importing the cactus powder has been found to be legal in the UK:
http://www.erowid.org/pl...s/cacti/cacti_law2-5.pdf

So is it within the rules of the forum to ask for trusted international suppliers on his behalf? It's for incense purposes, obviously.

If not, a PM would be very much appreciated. My friend read Huxley at an early and impressionable age and is rather excited by this thread.

Theoretically yes. But without doing real world tests, it's hard to say for sure. It all depends on how much cactus junk is collecting in the d-limonene each time. If it's just a small amount of junk, then yields will not be affect much if at all.



D-limonene comes from fruit. I can't imagine the industrial suppliers having something that's not food grade. In order to make d-limonene non food grade, they would have to add something toxic to it, which would usually mean adding expense to it. I just don't see the reason for that.

I suggest asking if they are food grade if they don't mention they are. You could always say you're cleaning your kitchen and you want food grade d-limonene because you have children in the house and you don't want them exposed to toxic products. That's a very valid reason for asking.



There are some local places in the UK that carry dried cactus. I don't recall their names, but I know they are there.

Acetone and hydrochloric acid can be found at most hardware stores but what can be a local source for 99% isopropyl alcohol? SWIM has seen 90% but not 99%. Is it something that can really only be found from chemical suppliers and on the net?

Try the SafeWay grocery store chain. They have 99% USP grade IPA in SWIM's area.

If you have one in your area, Fred Meyer's also carries it for about half the price of Safeway.

i'd also be interested in hearing how the bridgesii extract compares to that of pachanoi or peruvianis.

Unfortunately, SWIM doesn't have a Fred Meyers or a Safeway nearby. He might check around a little bit more. Do you think medical supply stores might have it?

It's very different unless you isolate the mescaline. There's no point in getting bridgesii if you're going to isolate the mescaline and through the other alkaloids away. It as less mescaline, but with the other alkaloids in it, it's still stronger than the other two. At least that's SWIM's experience with it.

is bridgesii as euphoric and bright as the other 2,or how different is it? I keep reading about dark experiences with bridgesii with some labeling it more as a teacher not as fun.

It's hard to explain. SWIM finds it very dreamy and somewhat sedating. Others find it very stimulating though. For SWIM it's a heavy experience, not as bright and euphoric as the other two, but more visionary. It's almost like mushrooms or ayahuasca. It's very unlike mescaline. It's nice, but just not what you'd expect. Many people say it's more like peyote than the other two. SWIM enjoys it when he's in the mood for a dreamy visionary experience. It's unique, and that's why it's hard to characterize the effects.

Can someone else help explain the difference?

swim made an extraction of 100g of compras pedro.
at the end he got 900mg of brownish, in texture lactose-like product. not sure about the quality, need to be tested... he can't purify it any further using ipa or acetone.
where is the problem?
-after mixing the cacti with water and calcium he only left it to sit for a few minutes
-swim was using pure orange oil, not limonene
-he was not filtering the oil with a coffe filter after the coffee press, so some fibres may be left in the solution

how can he get pure white goodness next time?

all his chemicals are lab-grade apart of the orange oil. it's impossible to get limonene in the uk

thank you

iv never had torch - i dont even own one bigger than 20cm long

iv tried this tek and i cant get it right, i just get dark goo that doesnt wash anywhere near clean with acetone - anyone got pix of how the cactus and lime paste should look ?

Phlux, is swiy using pure limonene? swim had the same sticky brown goo. had to wash-dry-wash for a few times to get this "powder". swim is very precise, followed the tek, all his chemicals are fine quality, his equipment is clean, etc. but can't get white salt...

maybe there was the same pedro chips from compras involved?

it is actually very possible the d-limonene is not pure - the smell sticks to extractions - it always makes things gooey.

In this tek, people use: 25 ml of water with 5 ml of 10% HCl solution

In the UK, HCL is most commonly found as 25% HCL, "Spirits of Salt". This is too strong.

So, how much 25% HCL would my imaginary friend add to the 25ml of water to keep the recipe balanced? Maths isn't his strong point. He's guessing 2ml??

25ml of "water"..."with" 5ml of 10% HCl I interpret to mean: 20ml of water plus 5ml of 10% HCl. That produces 25ml of 2% HCl.

By the seat of my pants, that seems like 2ml of 25% HCl plus 23ml of water would give 25ml of 2%HCl. Am I right, or do I have to write this down...

SWIM has experimented with ron69's recipe regardings this amount, because the measurement seemed a little ambiguous in the way it was phrased, and found it to be a good amount. Too much more, and you start getting a cloudy boundary layer. Much less and you waste effort with more extractions, and time with more evaporations. The premise is to just have enough for just the mescaline, and not enough for other things. you may get more if you increase the proportion, and having a lower percent reduces yields on each extract, but you get a finer quality product in the end.

Apollogies to those who can do mental arithmetic, but there seems to be a lacking, so i'll spell it out. If anyone can follow up with the exact official mmol calculations and volumes for an exact 10% hcl sol, i'd appreciate it.

Actually to the letter, its 1.7%.
as:
(5/(25+5))*10%=1.66666% [EDIT:::: ron69 has now confirmed this to be (5/25)*10%=2%)]
SWIM makes up 10% from 27% in a similar way. its nasty stuff; you open the lid and it pours out vapour hcl. use mask and goggles for sure and chemical gloves if you've got em; you don't want to loose your sense of smell or loose sight over a lil experimentation.

As measuing 2ml's of the shoite is impossible to do, given that you're using goggles and mask, I recommend you do the following:

I use glass vodka bottles, I wouldn't recommend you get PETE bottles (coke, fanta)) anywhere near raw 30% HCL, but HPLC containers are fine but harder to find without contamination.
First, determine the proportion of concentrated HCL into your mixture in order to turn your 25%HCL into 10% HCL, so...:
25% as a decimal == .25, 10% as a decimal is .1, so:
(.1/.25) is the proportion you need to use against the water.

Assuming, say, your vessel is 700mls (standard vodka bottle)
You need a volume of 25% HCL of: (.1/.25)*700=280ml 25% HCL
The volume of water is 700 - 280ml = 420ml of water.

I recommend you verify that the vessel can indeed hold 700 mls first, as you don't want the HCL to overflow at the last step.

use a measuring cup and measure exactly 420ml of water, and pour into the vessel.
Pour the 420mls of water into your vessel.
Don the gloves, mask and go outside with the vessel and HCL.
Using a glass measuring cup, measure out 280ml of HCL, using the lower meniscus as your measuring point.
Pour into bottle.
Put on all caps. Mix. Wash both source and destination bottles under tap water.
And your done, you should have 10% by volume (which for the course of these calcs should be close enough to 10% by weight)

To summarise the equation, it is:
(percent desired as decimal/percent in source as decimal)*volume of total container = volume of acid to provide from the source into the total volume of container.

Given the precise nature of this calculation, you might as well determine the exact weight content of HCL you have as a source (the weight of it will be written on the bottle): http://en.wikipedia.org/...acid#Physical_properties

And, the obligitory warning, which is not said enough, DO NOT ADD WATER TO ACID, ONLY EVER ADD ACID TO WATER.

---

Incidently, SWIM performed a distilation on her d-limonene yesterday, with the help of some al-foil and a towel to shield the vessel being boiled. My thoughts were for anyone thinking of doing the same, make sure your solution does not contain any water (AT ALL!), and rinse the vessel with some dlimonene and void it as waste. SWIM had some water in it, and the solution was quite unnessisarilly vigorous, as the water (at the bottom) was boiling due to >100 deg below and ~99deg above and the vapor travelled up through the d-limonene dispersing its heat. This created a reaction which required high maintenance, and extended the time req'd for the stil operation. Once the water was voided from the mixture, the still worked quite well, and quite rapidly.
However the end result was a particularly cloudy (but non green/non yellow) d-limonene.
But hey. very little citrus smell.
I'm reconing another distil (minus the water) is in order.
Interestingly it seemed to distil at a vapour temperature of 140c ish, instead of the 175 quoted by Merck.

---

Next solvent clarify SWIM will use is the 15% HCL method proposed in other threads, to determine its worth. I will keep you updated on SWIMs results.

The problem is that the statement: "Add 25 ml of water with 5 ml of 10% HCl solution" is ambiguous.

does with mean containing?

"Add 25ml of water CONTAINING 5 ml of 10% HCl solution": in which can you end up with 25ml of 2% HCl

or does with mean AND?

"Add 25ml of water AND 5 ml of 10% HCl solution": in which can you end up with 30ml of 1.66% HCl

The proper way to say it is to simply state the percentage and quantity: "Add 25ml of 2% HCl"
It's best to say it that way, because different people may be using different concentrations (as in this case, where somebody has 25% HCl), so it more easily allows for different people to understand what's required and calculate based on what they have in stock.

That's a really useful and clear post, Mori, thanks very much indeed for taking the time. I'm off to read again, slowly. Great tips on safety, too.