Hi,

After lurking around here for a while I am in the process of salvaging the remnants of my first two extractions - first with 100 gr MHRB, second with 75 gr.

I used Noman's tek in conjunction with the additional sodium carbonate wash from Vovin's tek. Apart from being my usual blundering self and not getting it right the first time (took me a while to use my spanking new separation funnel right - so in the first extraction I got water in, which I mistook for exceptionally large crystals - before they dissolved all the real product that was also in the filter).

The second extraction went a little smoother, but the yield was not particularly high when freeze precipitating, so I bought a fan and evaporated one batch. I have to mention that I am not using Naphta, but Shellsol T, as this is easier and cheaper to get hold of here. It also hardly smells when evaporating, so I thought I give that a go.

However, instead of crystals forming, I was left with some sticky goo in the dish, that didn't seem to want to dry any further, not even on a mirror. If anyone has had experiences with Shellsol T - could it be that evap is a no-go for that one? In the meantime I have simply redissolved the goo with the Shellsol from the other batch, am evaporating that down to half or less, before attempting another freeze precipitation - but I would be obliged if someone could answer this for future reference.

However, I did get a smallish yield out of it already (175 mg so far) and had my very first journey two days ago with 36 mg for starters - and was thoroughly amazed. I have done a lot of other things before, but this experience was probably the most intense I ever had in my thirty years of dabbling with psychedelics.

I had read about the spice at the end of the 90s already, but to my knowledge then it wasn't available easily and I had of course no idea that one could extract it oneself. Anyway, I think that everything happens or doesn't happen for a reason and that now is exactly the right time in my life to seriously delve into wherever this will get me to. I will try 50 mg tonight.

But first and foremost I would like to thank you all, for I managed to figure out quite a few of my little blunders just by reading your tips and suggestions for other noobs like me. Oddly enough, despite those little mishaps I really feel a bit like an alchemist sometimes during the extraction and am enjoying it immensely. I even started reading up on chemistry...

I still have 275 gr left to improve upon my technique as soon as my lye will arrive, as I used up the 250 gr I had in the previous two extractions.