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foaf's simple mescaline extraction the


original tek without boil or straining
foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:42 AM

12.7 grams of crude mescalinecrystal: no pressure cooking, no boiling, no straining,


minimal steps, and easy to get materials.
Inspiration from nan, ion, owen, dr.b; thanks guys.
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This post has been edited by Dr. Bombay: 15 December 2006 - 03:15 AM

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:43 AM

Summary:
A: 2.5 gallon water jug (carboy) + 1.5 gallons water + 27 ounces of lye <mix> + 1 kg powdered peruvian torch + 48
ounces xylene <mix repeatedly then let sit 2 days>
B: siphon about 44 ounces of the xylene off the top put into sep funnell
C: Add 8 ounces of distilled water + 3 cc Muriatic Acid <swirl a bunch no shaking>
D: Replace xylene in carboy each cycle with 44 ounces of fresh xyxlene for a total of 4 x 44 ounce xylene washes total.
With each new cycle add 1/2 a bottle of lye to up the ante.
E: Put acid water in casserole dish and evap with fan <3 acid water washes for each of the 44 ounce xylene layers>
F: Scrape Crude mescaline hydrocloride with razor <total of 12 casserole dish cycles>
G: Discard Xylene
H: Add another 9 ounces of lye with each of the 3 fresh xylene layers
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This post has been edited by foaf: 29 October 2003 - 01:25 AM

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:43 AM

Details:
Setup - equipment - safety
If possible, invest the time and funds to get a couple of the helpful tools. Budget it into your deal both time and money.
You will do it again if you make it easy on yourself.
Here is some of the equipment that you might consider. The 2.5 gallon glass water jug is just about essential. Your local
water delivery company will have it, they are glad to sell you one. You can also order one on the internet or get locally
from homebrew dealers. A 1 liter seperatory funnell is about essential. You can figure out a workaround, I'm sure. The
turkey baster has had a TB syringe epoxied to the opening to make it long and narrow. This makes it take longer to suck
up, but the large standard opening slobbers solvent and it stirs up the separation when it falls back in, this long small
tip helps a lot. Siphoning is best. Black plastic tubing used for micro irrigation systems doesnt get soft in xylene.
Safety equipment: always always were safety goggles. Gloves should come on and off without having to turn them
inside out, dont use nitrile with xylene, and thin latex gets soft, you need thick chemical gloves, latex or polyurethane.
Xylene wont hurt your skin, but if your glove breaches, the lye will. A foam fire extinguisher incase the xylene catches
on fire. You need to have running water near your laboratory. If you get lye or acid on you, you need to be able to wash
off immediately, and if you get it in your eyes, you need running water that you can direct at your eyes such as a
bathtub that you can quickly lay in and look up at the stream of water. I keep a jug of pool ph down, it is soduim
bisulfate. Its like a half used up sulfuric acid molecule. The worst case scenario is to have the glass reaction chamber
break or spill, and you can throw this on it to neutralize the lye. Concentrated NaOH water is very causic, and while
sodium bisulfate could burn you, you would gladly trade it for the NaOH.
You need a bottle of muriatic acid. It is basically 30% hydrocloric acid. 3 bottles of Red Devil Lye (addendum..... Red
Devil Lye may have changed their ingredients, use only pure NaOH or KOH). A gallon of distilled water. 2 gallons of
xylene.

NOTE - Picture below shows Red Devil Lye... the composition may have changed recently , use only pure NaOH or
KOH
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This post has been edited by Dr. Bombay: 19 October 2009 - 04:23 AM

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:44 AM

Starting off:
You start out by powdering well dried cactus. You can use a coffee mill, food processor, or mortar and pestal. I think
that getting it to be a very fine powder is important and a potential site of improved yeilds. Sift the cactus flour or
screen it through a collander. Re mill the pieces that arent powder.
In the Carboy:
Get a 2.5 gal carboy. Drain off 1 gallon, or if empty, fill it with 1.5 gallons clean water, doesn't have to be distilled, the
spring water that came in the jug is fine. Slowly add 1 1/2 cans of pure NaOH or KOH They are 18 ounces each bottle of
draincleaner lye, careful it is pure NaOH. Goggles gloves for sure from here on out. Get it all dissolved, roll the bottle
with a glove held ove the top using the cap that comes with it, hold the cap on at all times, or get a special stopper. It
will heat and pressure will try to pop the top off and spray lye water on you; dont let this happen. Add the 1000 grams
of powdered cactus after all the lye is dissolved. Add 48 ounces of xylene. Roll it around on something soft, I have a
rubber mat, roll it intermittently for part of a day, and let it settle at least 2 days undisturbed, 2 days is very important.
The xylene, cactus/water/lye interface will settle more and more if you wait overnight. There is a very fine dust that will
take much longer to completely settle out of the xylene, it can be hard to appreciate at first. If you can wait a couple
days, the xylene will be free of it. If you want to rush you will see more of it in the next step or you can filter the xylene
prior to next step but you will need fine lab filter paper, it goes straight through coffee filters.
Nan bought a chemical resistand cork at a brew supply store, I couldnt find one so I put a chemical resistant latex glove
over the opening and then the plastic outside cap. This cap that comes with it gets soft if it touches the xylene. With
xylene dont use nitrile, polypropylene is best then thick latex, thin latex softens.
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This post has been edited by Dr. Bombay: 19 October 2009 - 04:24 AM

foaf
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Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:45 AM


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Siphoning:
Careful siphoning. It is best to have two people, one to watch the tip and hold the tube, the other to get the siphon
going. If you suck, well, its bad to get xylene in your mouth, but not terrible. It is terrible to get the lye/cactus layer in
your mouth and it will burn you quickly, dont let this happen.
You can suck to siphon (use something other than your mouth if you can), but it is better to take a syrings of distilled
water and slowly fill the tube up after it is in place, dont push hard you will disturb the layer interface. If xylene gets in
a syringe, it locks up cause it dissolves the rubber plunger. I used some copper tubing to hold the plastic to the side wall
so you can be more careful and not suck up much aqueous. You could also use a sturdy copper wire, no insulation or
painted coat hangers.
Siphon, or turkey baste the 44 of the 48 oz of xylene from the top, care taken not to suck up any cactus/lye/water, you
will have to leave a 1/4 inch layer of xylene to accomplish this.
Once you have the 44 ounces of xylene cleanly out of the reaction carboy, at this point go ahead and add 44 ounces of
fresh xylene to the reaction chamber, and another half bottle of lye. I tried reusing the xylene for each extraction, but
for some reason, with this tek, the xylene builds up some unwanted stuff, and the crystal is a good bit cleaner if you use
fresh xylene each time. If you plan on a final purification step, you can reuse the xylene, or at least use two xylene layers
and rotate them. Siphon into a juice jar then put it into the sep funnell or improvise somehow.
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This post has been edited by Dr. Bombay: 25 August 2009 - 07:51 AM

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:47 AM

In the Sep Funnell:


Put all the xylene in a seperatory funnell (a 1 liter unit will hold everything), or do it in two batches if you have a small
funnell. Add one cup of distilled water; must be distilled. And add 3 cc of muriatic acid. Swirl the sep funnell,dont
shake. Swirl repeatedly, let it sit, and repeat swirrling.
If there is a flocculent later at the top of the water do not let this get into the casserole dish. This is not mescaline. This
is some insoluble stuff that you can avoid if you let the carboy settle longer before siphoning. If you get some of it, it
will float to the top of the acid/water layer, put this stuff and the very bottom of the xylene back in the reaction carboy.
Put only the clear water part in the dish. If there is much suspended dust in the acid water, you should filter it before
evaporating or let it settle before evaporating. Keep the clean xylene on top for another round of acid water extractions.
Do 3 acid water extractions with 8 oz each, and evaporate each in a casserole dish.
Back to the Carboy and then back to the Sep Funnell.
Repeat with a total of 4 xylene layers in the carboy, adding another half a bottle of lye each time. The last xylene layer,
suck up all the xylene and as you start to get that last bit, have a friend switch the containers that catch the siphon, and
suck up the last xylene and the top of the lye/water/dust layer. let the water dust part settleout in a sep funnell, and
throw away the dust/water/lye layer that will settle.
In the casserole dish:
Thats a total of 12 acid washes of 8 oz each; so you need a good evaporation station and a couple of casserole dishes.
When you check the crystals in the casserole dish, if they smell like hydrocloric acid when you scrape, they need to dry
out some more, and this confirms that an excess of acid was used. You can reduce the amount of acid if you smell a lot
of it as it evaporates. The amount of acid to mix in the water needs to be worked out, much less than 3cc would likely be
enough.
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This post has been edited by foaf: 29 October 2003 - 01:20 AM

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 12:48 AM

Final thoughts
Remember that efforts to greatly purify the final product are gratifying, but not essential. Except for better dosing
control and aesthetics, I dont see any benefit to purifying past the first HCL acid water evaporation.
I have heard from reliable sources, (a friend of a friend), that you can get on average 14 grams of similiar appearing
crude crystal from the same starting material if you use the standard tek nans syrup -> extract xylene -> hcl evap. So it
may be that this tek is less efficient, but hey, this was the first run, and perhaps we can improve.
Dispose of the xylene safely. Best would be to put it back in the metal container, and find a toxic waste station that
takes used solvent. Dont flush it, if you must discard it clandestinely, spill it on the ground away from plants, animals,
and runoff water so it can evaporate.
Please be safe. Ive heard it said that the only safe way to do this is just to make syrup and choke it down. If you dont
feel comfortable handling strong acid, strong lye solutions, and flamable solvents, you should not do this.
Here is the next experiment that someone should try or I will once I eat all the mescaline that I have.
Fresh cactus, turned to elephant snot, and then either just boil it plain then add lye, boil it with lye, or just add lye and
extract as above. See where Im going?
May mescalito smile on your efforts.
This post has been edited by foaf: 29 October 2003 - 03:26 AM

free spirit

Posted 29 October 2003 - 02:05 AM

im no chemist...
but if its all correct
THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU!!!! woop woopp woop!
man this is easy to follow...
lots of pics..
oh its archivable fo sho!
man thanks soo much... incredible!

jikuhchagi

Posted 29 October 2003 - 02:11 AM

Thanks FOAF! It still intimidates the hell out of me, but maybe, just maybe...
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Nanook

Posted 29 October 2003 - 02:17 AM

It looks good to me
Archive material fer sure

ion

Posted 29 October 2003 - 02:50 AM

Definitely a winner!
Just remember folks... this is a tek of patience. You really need to know how to wait. The dust must settle or you will get
cactus and lye in yur final extract.
Foaf and Nan... I have to ask this: Why do you guys add more and more lye with each successive xylene wash? Have you
found that your pH is significantly decreased after each wash? If so, then something is amiss...
I have an idea for you, foaf (as usual, right?
)... ammonium gas. Affix a chemical resistant tube (HDPE) to the top of
a boiling flask full of clean household ammonia. Run the other end of the tube into the bottom of your powder and
xylene in the large bottle. Simmer the ammonia to bubble the gases (ammonia/water vapor) throughout the
powder/xylene mixture. This will serve the purposes of both basifying and stirring.
Make sure you detach the tubing from the boiling flask before allowing it to cool!!
You don't want the reverse pressure to suck cactus/xylene crud into your boiling flask.
This may work better with a more penetrating solvent, but xylene should suffice... you will be doing an acid wash of the
xylene after all, and xylene has a wonderfully low polarity index.
It may seem more difficult, but once you have the boiling bottle set up I don't think it'll seem so hard anymore.
One word of caution: You should have the boiling system on a shelf above the xylene bottle... the small amount of
xylene vapor that escapes will travel down over the sides of the bottle. I don't see too many hazards with such a small
amount (xylene really isn't as flammable as many other solvents), but it's better safe than sorry.
-ion
This post has been edited by ion: 29 October 2003 - 02:53 AM

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 03:23 AM

ion, on Oct 28 03, 04:50 PM GMT, said:


Foaf and Nan... I have to ask this: Why do you guys add more and more lye with each successive xylene wash? Have you
found that your pH is significantly decreased after each wash? If so, then something is amiss...
Here is my theory.
At first I went with the amount nan uses to start, cause we know that works. More may be a problem if it degrades the
mescaline, we dont know, but we doubt it.
Then, since I am relying on just pulverization of the cactus and the lye water to get the mescaline out of the cactus, I
figure more is better, and as we go along, the mesc left in the cactus slurry may be the harder to get out so, if the lye
helps get it out, more is better.
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The ph paper I have only goes up to 11, but I did some ciphering and figure it is at about 12 to 13. It stayed above 11.
I bet that you could get by with less lye, and Im sure you can get by with less HCL in each extraction. It would be good
to do this with less lye, for safety reasons if nothing else.
Once I eat all this mescaline, if there is anything left of me, Ill try to tune those parameters up.

Nanook

Posted 29 October 2003 - 03:41 AM

I add more lye because it does not hurt. I always figured on a big extraction you want the solubility/concentration
gradients as steep as possible. As mesc comes out the concentration drops, so I add more lye to make sure the gradient
stays as steep as possible... I want it all
It may not help or do a thing, but I know for a fact it does not hurt

jikuhchagi

Posted 29 October 2003 - 03:52 AM

<<Once I eat all this mescaline, if there is anything left of me, Ill try to tune those parameters up.>>
So, we'll expect to hear more about this early next week?
j

owen_

Posted 29 October 2003 - 05:58 AM

One thing that seems to work just as well and saves the environment:
You can re-use all your xylene. You don't need to add fresh stuff each time. Another foaf tested this and got no loss of
yield at all. It gets really yellow, but it still seems to pick up the mesc just as well, and the color doesn't come over into
the aquaeous mesc hcl solution at all.

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 06:16 AM

For extractions from nans syrup, I agree Owen.


With this tek, I tried to reuse the xylene from the first extraction in the second, and the crystal was very very dirty. I
threw it all back into the carboy, and did it over with fresh xylene, and it was good. Filtering with fine watman paper
didn't get anything out of the dirty xylene so I dont think it is particulate material.
I wish it were different and Id be glad to see someone else try it with variations, but thats my experience. Also, perhaps
if one were to use Sulphuric acid precipitation it wouldnt matter as much and you could re-use the xylene.

shade
So... aside from the bravo and bananas for such an artistic portrayl (

Posted 29 October 2003 - 06:57 AM

)... what's up with the girl and the

wrench? And what the hell is that librarian lady doing to that little boy?
Don't laugh; I want answers, damnit!

jikuhchagi

Posted 29 October 2003 - 07:00 AM

Thats the cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Presence' album...


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foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 07:05 AM

The wrench wench was a gift given to me by my wifey. A photo of a sign on the side of a hardware store, done in black
and white and colorized. We have the negative and plan to re do it.
And since you must be such a youngster, the librarian is a picture on what the historians call an "album cover". Thats
an old name for the cardboard that they put on those plastic discs that used to keep our music called "records". And the
specific "album" is, of course, Presence, a Led Zeppelin album. Im sure that that picture is also on the CD of Presence,
but its likely about 1 x 1 inch in size and not suitable for examination while tripping neither can you use it to roll a joint
on.
Thanks for checking on us Shade. And BTW, does R2D2 have that little thing that kicks out and plugs into the
mainframe and controlls the computer?

Nanook

Posted 29 October 2003 - 07:14 AM

LMAO
Kids these days

(I teethed on vinyl)

shade

Posted 29 October 2003 - 07:35 AM

*gives a long, sideways glance...*


I used to have the Zepplin Box set, but I lived with an asshole that stole first the large book that came with it (detailing
all the cover art), and later, the cd's themselves. Before that I used to have a lot of Zepplin on tape, but they were mostly
dubbed copies. Always thought of myself as a Tangerine girl.
So while I'm a little offended by the comments, I'll let it pass. Just because I wasn't familiar with the cover art doesn't
mean I'm an uncultured little imp who considers The Who to be 'oldies.'
I'm only a youngin by comparison to some,
I too teethed on vinyl and 8tracks... Still got a happy little collection of records at home, shame my turntable's such a
piece of shit that I hardly ever play them (but that's all I used to listen to when I was tripping on LSD...) Something
about that crisp sound that feels just right.
And R2D2 did have one of those, but one night in a stoned frenzy I replaced it with something I thought would be a
little more fun. Damn pot, always gets me riled up.

bluejay

Posted 29 October 2003 - 07:42 AM

Just when I thought I had this stuff down pat in my head! Your last post didnt mention muratic acid,,What does this do
and is it necessary?...I understood tea>lye(ph over 12)> add xylene then retrieve x and evap with heat...Why did this
tek add the muratic acid to the xylene?

Fearless1

Posted 29 October 2003 - 07:58 AM

8tracks are these out of date? I guess I need to get a new tape player hey, I guess I can get one of them there new
cassette players but the technology is so overwhelming I don't know if I can absorb all of that newfangled technology,
fast forward, rewind, and flipping the tape wow I'm lost allready!

foaf

Posted 29 October 2003 - 08:21 AM

bluejay, on Oct 28 03, 09:42 PM GMT, said:


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Just when I thought I had this stuff down pat in my head! Your last post didnt mention muratic acid,,What does this do
and is it necessary?...I understood tea>lye(ph over 12)> add xylene then retrieve x and evap with heat...Why did this
tek add the muratic acid to the xylene?
Im just teasing you shade, hope thats ok ya crazy tangerine chick.
bluejayYou take the xylene that has the mescaline freebase in it.
then you "rinse" or extract the mesc freebase out of the xylene with acidified water, (diluted hydrochloric acid). When
the freebase in the xylene crosses the water interface (part of any equilibrium), it turns into mesc-hcl and then it is
insoluble in xylene so it stays in the water. hydrocloric acid is used here because it gasses off easily so you can use
excess and not end up with excess salt in your final crystals. Hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid) would not dissolve in
xylene.
you could just evaporate the xylene and would end up with mesc carbonate, or could evaporate the xylene and as it got
to the last oily layer, put a little dilute hydrochloric acid in the pan and it would convert to the hcl salt that way.

owen_

Posted 29 October 2003 - 11:31 AM

Also the xylene turns yellow, and when you put the hcl water through it, the goodies go to the clear hcl water and it
remains clear.
What I'm trying to say is that you leave some crap that comes over with the freebase mesc in the xylene. If you just
evap'd the xylene you would get that yellow crap in your end product... not terrible, but, using hcl water yields a slightly
purer end product with barely any yellow crap. In a foaf's opinion, that last stage is worth it... the xylene is so smelly
anyways -- you have gotten that far, so why not just do one more step?

shroomsrock

Posted 29 October 2003 - 11:42 AM

When I use lye water to strip paint from painted steel parts, I keep a gallon of distilled vinegar handy to neutralize the
stuff if I splash any on me. You may wanna ad that for a safety precaution.

bluejay

Posted 30 October 2003 - 11:59 AM

foaf, on Oct 28 03, 10:21 PM GMT, said:


bluejayYou take the xylene that has the mescaline freebase in it.
then you "rinse" or extract the mesc freebase out of the xylene with acidified water, (diluted hydrochloric acid). When
the freebase in the xylene crosses the water interface (part of any equilibrium), it turns into mesc-hcl and then it is
insoluble in xylene so it stays in the water. hydrocloric acid is used here because it gasses off easily so you can use
excess and not end up with excess salt in your final crystals. Hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid) would not dissolve in
xylene.
So when you add the muratic acid to the xylene the whole mix would go back into the sep funnel and would seperate
into 2 different layers again? Would the x be on top to discard or would it be on the bottom?

Dr. Bombay

Posted 30 October 2003 - 06:00 PM

xylene floats on top of water, and you add water + muriatic acid to the xylene, and this would be the only step in a sep
funnel using foafs tek. the acid water comes off the bottom of the sep funnel directly into the casserole dish.

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Robert

Posted 31 October 2003 - 02:28 AM

Excuse my ignorance, but on the first photo/image... what are those three small pics representing...? It kind of reminds
me of the blotter acid from the 70s...
I've just copied, pasted and corrected (spellings) these directions into Word, with all the photos to print and follow
along with so I can give this method a try... thanks a lot! If anyone wants a copy in this format, I'd be happy to send.

foaf

Posted 31 October 2003 - 02:40 AM

Robert, on Oct 30 03, 04:28 PM GMT, said:


Excuse my ignorance, but on the first photo/image... what are those three small pics representing...? It kind of reminds
me of the blotter acid from the 70s...
my spelling sucks.
the first picture is what happens if you post while stoned
top is the earliest rendering of sacramental use of cactus from peru.
middle is a favorite album cover, Hot Tuna
bottom is my avatar, "My life in the bush of ghosts" Brian Eno and David Byrne, a must have album for the musically
diverse.
Right - album cover, Led Zep, Presence
1 2 3
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