(click pics to enlarge)
Items you'll need
1. At least 2 glass or HDPE(should show a triangular recycle symbol with a 2 inside of it somewhere on the bottom) plastic jugs or jars. HDPE is preferred because strong lye solutions will etch glass and cause it to break eventually. I know first hand.
2. RedDevil brand lye
3. Muriatic acid (HCL or hydrochloric acid)
4. Acetone
5. Xylene
6. turkey baster
7. a glass or stainless steel funnel
8. cotton balls
all easy to get items (use NO aluminum)
You should not use any type of open flame at any point during this extraction. Use adequate ventilation at all times.
Preparing your cactus
You'll want to begin with dry powdered cactus if you can. You can dry slices of cactus in the oven with low heat and then use a coffee grinder to powderize it.
NOTE: I've experience a severe reaction to breathing the powder. It screws up my sinuses for a week or two. I'd suggest using a face mask to prevent it being inhaled. Also I have noticed irritation to the eyes if the dust comes in contact with them. Be careful.
Extracting
Prepare a solution of lye water by slowly mixing together 1 TBS of lye for every pint(8 TBS/gallon) of cold water that you think you'll need to completely cover you dry cactus. This will produce a little heat so don't be alarmed. Just swirl it around slowly as you add the lye a little at a time. This is what I will refer to as base or basic water.
Next add you dry cactus powder. Mix the contents thoroughly to ensure that you expose all of the powder to the basic water.
Now add about a pint or so of xylene to the mix. You want enough of a layer to be able to draw off the xylene with the turkey baster later. Shake it all up and let it sit for an hour. This is what it will look like just after shaking.
If after an hour you can see that the xylene layer is separating back out, fine, if not, add a little more pre-made basic water and check again. Now shake it back up and put it away for 24 hours (every second of it).
This is after three hours.
24 hours later, you want to draw off the xylene so now you need to use the turkey baster to suck it up and put it in a new jar(a mason jar works fine). You don't want any of the water from beneath the xylene to come with it.
And put it into your salting bottles
Salting
Now you want to mix your acid water in order to dilute it to the proper strength you want. Be very careful not to breath the vapors that come out of the bottle when you open it. HCL comes very strong and it will burn you.
You want to add approximately 4-8 drops of HCL acid to 1.5 cups of water. Slowly add this acid water to the xylene while gently swirling the liquids around in the jar. Add just enough to make a half inch or so layer beneath the xylene.
Don't worry that you won't get all of the goods because the xylene is going back into the extraction bottle and you'll get another shot at what you missed before. Put the lid on the jar and shake it all up. Wait a few minutes and shake again.
Once it has returned completely to a separated state loosen the lid on the jar and place it in the freezer. You want the bottom layer(the acid water) to now freeze solid. The xylene will not freeze. Once the water is frozen, work quickly and pour the xylene back into the extraction bottle.
With the water still frozen solid, pour in a little warm water and swirl around and discard quickly. This helps get rid of a little more residual xylene. The rest will evaporate later.
Repeat the extraction and salting steps 4 to 6 times to get all of the goodies. You can reuse the xylene over and over again.
Evaporating
Now thaw out the water and put it in you evaporation dish. A large flat bottomed pyrex dish works best. Using heat(heating pad beneath the dish) or not, fan dry it to evaporate the water from the dish. This may take some time depending on how much water you used.
Once all of this is dry you will see a crystalline residue left on the dish.
This pic shows off a mistake that I made and one that some of you may make also. On the right side of the dish you can see a huge brown spot. This happened because I used too much hcl acid in the salting step. This, however, is not a big problem. It will all be gone after the cleaning step, plus much of it evaporated with the water. I might could have even avoided some of the discoloration by evaporating slower, giving the hcl more time evaporate.
Scrape it off with a razor blade. Mescaline hcl will be a brownish powder.
This is from the first scraping from the first salting. It actually turned out much better than I normally expect. It can be used as is but the next procedure is simple if you've got this far.
Cleaning
Put a cotton ball in the spout end of your funnel so that it can filter.
Mix some acetone with your extracted alkaloids. I use a mason jar so that I can swirl it around easily. You want to get every piece of mescaline washed with acetone, so mix it in good.
Next, pour it into the funnel with a clean dry jar to catch the liquids. Use acetone to wash loose needles, that remain in the jar, into the funnel.
You will notice some color draining through with the acetone. Wash like this with fresh acetone until little to no more color is draining through. Put the funnel somewhere to dry.
Once all acetone smell is gone from the funnel and it's contents you need to pour some hot water into it with it positioned over the evaporation dish. The hot water will dissolve the crystals and allow them to flow through the cotton into the dish.
Evaporate as before. The resulting crystals will be considerably whiter and more pure. This is not only for aesthetics, but also it makes for more accurate dosing.
You can put this powder in capsules to facilitate simple dosing with pre-measured amounts in each capsule.
~elphstone 
