176 replies to this topic

[YoshiTrainer]

One of these times El_Ron, you'll have to give CIELO a try. It is so much faster and safer, I might not go back to HCl again.

Good luck!

[el_ronhub_bird]

Pro tip: use cheese cloth as opposed to nut milk bags for filtration of cactus juice at least on the first go round. Then maybe go with a finer filter but good God it will never finish filtration at the rate of nut milk bags lol

[pharmer]

nope   

 

 put the boiled cactus in the fridge overnight or longer.  99% of the solids will settle to the bottom making it very easy to 

decant what you want away from the crud

 

after that the cotton ball in a funnel trick cleans up what little solids are still in solution

 

I'm into Easy.

[el_ronhub_bird]

nope

put the boiled cactus in the fridge overnight or longer. 99% of the solids will settle to the bottom making it very easy to
decant what you want away from the crud

after that the cotton ball in a funnel trick cleans up what little solids are still in solution

I'm into Easy.

It seems I'm doing things a bit outta order from the way you do them. I allow the sediment to fall overnight after the cheesecloth filtration

[DocOct]

Yeah what pharmer is saying makes alot of sense, especially since you are useing powdered skins. They would pretty much sink right to the bottom after a night or two.

I honestly hate the filtering process for cacti. Even after filtering a bunch youll still get a bunch of sediment.

The question is would this work for blended or chunked fresh/frozen cacti? Im assuming decanting off of powdered cacti would work the best.

[el_ronhub_bird]

nope

put the boiled cactus in the fridge overnight or longer. 99% of the solids will settle to the bottom making it very easy to
decant what you want away from the crud

after that the cotton ball in a funnel trick cleans up what little solids are still in solution

I'm into Easy.

I'm respectfully disagreeing with you wholeheartedly on this one man. It simply takes too long to filter through the cotton/funnel contraption. Maybe this can be attributed to different cacti consistency between batches but the cheese cloth is doing a nearly perfect job removing solids especially compared to the cotton funnel jammy that barely even leaks fluid through, especially once it gets gunked up with a bit of cactus sludge. This is only my second cacti extraction so take this with a grain of salt but it's a win for the cheese cloth all day boys. Cheese cloth remains my recommendation and pro tip

[pharmer]

You're using a fine ground powder?

[el_ronhub_bird]

You're using a fine ground powder?

Yes. It's really a matter of how many times the cheese cloth is folded, I usually use 2 layers. It's dense enough to keep the vast majority (if not all) of the solids out of the liquid. After I let it settle over night, I decant off the top and any remaining solids are ran through a single layer of cheese cloth and this cactus juice is pretty damn clean if I must say so. I'll post pictures later

[pharmer]

I don't doubt it works. T-shirts used to be the go-to for home chem rats :) and it got the job almost done.

 

Looking at early tie-dyed T-shirts could easily suggest people having strained cactus or MHRB through them and wringing the liquids out of the cloth :)

 

I'm lucky to have a spare fridge that's usually half empty so chilling a gallon jug of green juice is easy enough. In the late fall/winter you don't even need the fridge. 

 

I filter once this way and end up with a wine like clarity.

 

It's amazing how much amateur chemistry and cooking/wine making/distillery   overlap

[el_ronhub_bird]

This vinegar water cactus sludge represents days of washing, filtering, reducing, freezing, etc of 250 grams of Peruvianus skins. 4 washes and 2 freezes to be exact. Now I'm gonna throw some xylene into this funnel and start trying to get some fats out

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[el_ronhub_bird]

A few minutes after a good tumbling of the vessel, we have good separation with noticeable impurities in the xylene; chlorophyll, lipids etc

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[pharmer]

IIRC the better chemists would add non-iodized table salt to the sludge to ease and speed the defat

Edited by pharmer, 22 January 2023 - 04:38 PM.

[el_ronhub_bird]

IIRC the better chemists would add non-iodized table salt to the sludge to ease and speed the defat

I suppose I'm not as good as those chemists lol. I'm a high school drop out brother! Never took a Chem class until org chem 101 in college and I was initially terrified to take the course. Ended up acing the course and getting the highest grade of more than 100 students. Be easy on me, I might have the potential in me to be a great chemist some day lol

PS could you spare a cup of non iodized salt neighbor?

Edited by el_ronhub_bird, 22 January 2023 - 05:10 PM.

[pharmer]

I'm just a monkey see - monkey do kitchen chemist following simplified recipes

 

Norman and Finneas Carmichael and some others over the years are the real brains  behind my modest successes. They actually understand the processes and even the MATH behind this stuff.

[el_ronhub_bird]

Ok what is shown here is my first 2 fat pulls combined. There are 3 distinct layers, here's what I think they are-from the top down; fairly clear xylene turned green from chlorophyll I would imagine. Next in line is plant fats, waxes, oils, lipids etc. Then the very bottom is just the cactus sludge. It hadn't separated out yet when I ran it through the funnel so it finished separating in the jar. I can obviously still recover it if I feel like it. Anyhow I just picked up some non-iodized salt from the grocery mart so I'm gonna throw some of that in the cactus juice and do another fat pull

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[el_ronhub_bird]

Here are all 3 fat pulls so far. Before the 3rd pull I added 1/4 cup non-iodized salt to the cactus solution (thanks pharmer) and holy shit did it work wonders!!! Look at all that FAT that came out compared to the last pic. It's gelatinous as hell, you can still see the crater in it where the flow from the sep funnel was landing. I'll do my 4th fat pull today. I'll update with more pics when there's something to look at

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[el_ronhub_bird]

I'm just a monkey see - monkey do kitchen chemist following simplified recipes

Norman and Finneas Carmichael and some others over the years are the real brains behind my modest successes. They actually understand the processes and even the MATH behind this stuff.

Firstly, thanks for the salt tip, it really helped. Secondly, Phineas and Norman were like my training wheels when I first started extracting. I'm still a noob myself but I can pretty much crank out extractions without too much extra help these days. Those guys taught me a whole lot through other people's threads and also through my threads. I have a huge DMT thread and a huge mescaline thread where I document my learning experiences and then just documenting any follow up extractions to show off my newly acquired skills. There's no way I could ever pay those guys back for the knowledge and time that they freely gave to me and everyone else who fell into the Botanicals hole and never got back out lol. It's staple characters like Phineas and Norman that make Mycotopia such a great place. Especially on the interwebs where most sites people have no patience for us noobs. Here I was always treated with patience and kindness. That's why I'll always keep coming back here. Plus we never stop learning and Mycotopia is a treasure trove for the psychedelically curious.

One more thing on success: the success I've experienced was not even slightly modest, it was GREAT success. But not because of me, because I had those guys holding me by the hand and patiently showing me the way. I know I've said it before and I'll say it again and this won't be the last time either: thanks to Phineas, thanks to Norman, thanks to Mushinist. If any of you guys are reading this thanks and thanks again because I can't thank you enough. Anyways...back to our regular programming