I have been working on my first extraction, using 100 g. of Chaliponga,
and a "Marsofold's TEK"-inspired A/B.
I'm giving as many details as I can think of here, even those that maybe aren't necessary to my knowledge.

I have gotten less product than even one solid breakthrough dose,
and would like advice-
In the event that you get next-to-nothing from a batch, what steps would you take before assuming bad plant material?

Here are the materials and steps taken so far:

Chaliponga, 100 grams.

Xylene, Jasco brand; 100% pure according to their SDS, and no residues noticed on an evap test.

Baking soda
the two solutions I have (I haven't bothered to start the strained-out material soaking again yet) seem to already be completely saturated, but if any of the steps suggested involve basifying again, I will do that.

(I admit that measurement was not very exact, and that Ph was not measured- according to my understanding, baking soda/vinegar would not make the Ph too high/low to destroy bufotenin, let alone DMT, so I just added as much as seemed necessary of each, and a bit more, to make sure it wasn't too little)


1) ground all 100 g. 1eaf material into a coarse powder, with some intact stem pieces, in a coffee grinder

2) mixed with ~6 cups of water and ~1.5 cups of white vinegar, let soak for 24 hours
### I realize I neglected to boil the original acid solution, as in the original Marsofold's TEK; this is one of the steps I will be taking before discarding any material. I had assumed a long soak would be sufficient.###

2.5) strained into another glass container, added new water/vinegar to the strained-out plant material for a second soak.
###used a mesh strainer, since I had no cotton balls and coffee filters have always gone torturously slowly with my HBWR extractions; because of this, a good bit of the finer plant powder got into the new container.###

3) gradually added liberal amounts of baking soda (~1/4 cup)
### at this point, some of the soda was added too quickly, and some of the solution spilled out due to foaming (1/4 or less of total).###
###Yes, I know I should have made sodium carbonate. I know how, and have done it for yopo-type snuffs before- there is no excuse, I was just impatient to get the process rolling.###

4) added ~1.5 cups (~350 ml) of xylene, and swished container back and forth for >1 minute, although less than the 3 minutes in the original TEK.

5) evaporated completely (since freeze precip won't work with xylene) in a warm attic with a fan blowing and window cracked- because of the windows, the dish might have gotten some sunlight.
This yielded a tiny amount of goo (I know not to expect crystals from xylene without a defatting stage), which I mixed with ash and smoked- non-placebo effect, but very slight.

6) Added another ~1.5 cups xylene, mixed for longer this time (I didn't use a timer and can't count seconds accurately, but probably closer to 3 min.), and evaporated the same way.
This yielded a comparably tiny amount of goo.

7) Added more baking soda (1/8-1/4 cup) to the liquid.
I also strained the plant material out of the second soak container and added liberal baking soda to that liquid (1/4-3/8 cup).
I would add a TBSP of soda, swish the container for 30 seconds-1 min., and add more baking soda.
The 'second soak' container continued to release small amounts of CO2 (had hand over mouth while swishing, slight hissing noise when hand removed), but as both containers had significant undissolved soda at the bottom, I assumed they were more than saturated.

8 ) Added another ~1.5 cups xylene to both the first and second soak liquids, swished for even longer (still possibly less than 3 minutes, I'd say 2-4).

9) Evapped the same way as before, to just the same sort of yield.
Just scraped it all up and smoked it, to negligible, although non-placebo, effects.

So the question remains-
What other steps, aside from boiling the plant material, should be taken before discarding?

Any help you all can give is greatly appreciated!

Relatively new to all this myself but I don't believe that even a fully saturated solution of sodium bicarbonate can reach a high enough pH to fully freebase dmt from it's salt forms. Sodium Bicarbonate solutions max out at about a pH of 10 while most teks insist on a pH of 13. I would suggest to find some pure sodium hydroxide and use that to raise the pH further. I am pretty certain that most of the spice is still in solution in salt form in your mixture so don't toss it.

Doing a little bit of digging on chaliponga, it seems the DMT content varies drastically from 0.17% to 1.75% although TiHKAL mentions 1.3%.

I personally use ACRB and if I get a low yield on the first few pulls, I let the basified solution sit for a week at room temp and do some more pulls.
Most likely though, the pH is just not high enough.


EDIT: We all grow our own source material here. We don't even buy non-active/legal plant products here, only viable seeds or cuttings.

Please read the attitude before posting.
You are breaking multiple rules especially for "sourcing of illicit plant matter/drugs"

Dang, I'm embarrassed- I caught rule 2.2, but missed 2.14 somehow.
I should have read much more carefully.

Which other rules have I broken?
I've just re-read my post and the attitude page twice more, and I'm not finding any.




I got my hands on some Calcium Hydroxide, and added until past the point where the liquid didn't seem to be getting darker- probably a 1/4 cup into the ~2 quart solution.
Another pull resulted in the same tiny amount as the previous two.

From what I read in The Chemistry of Extraction, a ph of 10 should be enough to freebase more than 50% of the molecules anyway, though.

Putting it in to freeze/thaw for a while before doing any more pulling.

Dont use chaliponga for extraction. Save it for brews. Barks are much more consistant in alkaloid content & easier to work with for beginners. Find some MHRB & try cybs tek.

'Baking soda' can be made up of many ingredients in addition to sodium bicarbonate. Often tartaric acid is included as well as other fillers, lowering the PH and adding other variables.

If I was to try and bring this extraction back to life I would base the crap out of it with NaOH and do more pulls. If there is DMT in there and you pull with xylene, you are sure to get it this way.

Failing this, add the leaf material to the basic solution and let it break down, then pull again. This will make potentially insufficient boils a non-issue. The extract could be cleaned up later.