What is the best way to prepare a dried Peruvian Torch cacti?

I've searched/read all sorts of preparation methods and it seems like boiling it would be my best option. I can't look into an alcohol extraction at this time because it is hard to acquire alcohol in its pure form where I'm at. I will definitely not be looking into the capsule method. I've recently found out that some people have had diarrhea after consuming cacti and that is definitely something that I want to avoid. I was thinking of powdering the dried chips and then consuming the powder with some water, but if thats going to give diarrhea, then I want to stay far away. In terms of boiling, I'm not really sure how to go about this. I've got aluminum pots and I've read that boiling cacti in an aluminum pot isn't the best thing to do as it could react with the pot? Will adding lemon juice to the tea help? PS. Total amount of dried cacti will be 100g.

I think I'm going to try something that I read on the Internet. Can't seem to find it again but I will basically do the following:

- Powder the cactus
- Mix it with lemonade
- Freeze the mix
- Crush the ice an drink it with orange juice

You need about 1ft worth of cactus skins which is around 50gs dried outer flesh.

Add 50gs peruvian outer flesh to a blender and use 2-3cups of water with juice of a 1/16 wedge of lemon per 1cup water to bring the ph to around 4ph. Make sure to roll the lemon on a flat surface first with a little pressure before cutting to help release the lemons juice.

The smoothie should turn into foam which is what you want. Add the foam to a med cooking pot and bring to a boil with stirring to minimize burning from hot spots. The foam will turn into a liquid after cactus fats melt. If foam is to thick simply add small amounts of water with lemon to thin it out.

Once brew has been brought to a boil allow to simmer for 20min with some stirring. Filter brew through a regular metal mesh baking filter and return cactus mush to pot and add 1-2cups of water with lemon and simmer for another 20min. Strain and repeat cooking one last time.

Gather all three brews together in to one large bowl and allow to set for 15min to allow sediment to settle.

After 15 min, slowly pour brew through a fine metal mesh baking filter while trying to keep the sediment at the bottom of the bowl from going over into the filter.

After the final filtering add the filtered brew to a large wide bottom cooking pot and evaporate the brew to a 1cup volume. Only add enough heat to keep it from bubbling at all. You should be at a setting which only puts off steam.

Periodically take the pot and gently swirl the pot and or blow over the surface to help the evaporation process along.

Once you have 1cup evaporated brew. Allow brew to settle for 15min off the heat surface to allow any remaining sediment to fall out of brew.

Again slowly pour through fine metal mesh, allow to cool and drink or place in a plastic water bottle or ziplock baggie for freezing.

If using pachanoi var. you will need 100gs.

Using the blender helps to powder the cactus skins while in solution to avoid all the dust. Just remember to rinse out blender with the lemon water you are going to use for cooking the other two cooks.

This method works great for making ayahuasca as well.

Just remember to reheat the frozen brew and to sip the brews in a mug or small cup like coffee or tea. Your mouth adjusts to the taste and sipping gently allows absorption through the mouth, throat and stomach.

The 1cup water with 1/16th lemon wedge average ph4 solution. Great for cold water MGS/HBWRS/RCS extraction. Or for making teas of Kratom, Calea, etc.

Originally Posted by ancient powers

You need about 1ft worth of cactus skins which is around 50gs dried outer flesh.

Add 50gs peruvian outer flesh to a blender and use 2-3cups of water with juice of a 1/16 wedge of lemon per 1cup water to bring the ph to around 4ph. Make sure to roll the lemon on a flat surface first with a little pressure before cutting to help release the lemons juice.

The smoothie should turn into foam which is what you want. Add the foam to a med cooking pot and bring to a boil with stirring to minimize burning from hot spots. The foam will turn into a liquid after cactus fats melt. If foam is to thick simply add small amounts of water with lemon to thin it out.

Once brew has been brought to a boil allow to simmer for 20min with some stirring. Filter brew through a regular metal mesh baking filter and return cactus mush to pot and add 1-2cups of water with lemon and simmer for another 20min. Strain and repeat cooking one last time.

Gather all three brews together in to one large bowl and allow to set for 15min to allow sediment to settle.

After 15 min, slowly pour brew through a fine metal mesh baking filter while trying to keep the sediment at the bottom of the bowl from going over into the filter.

After the final filtering add the filtered brew to a large wide bottom cooking pot and evaporate the brew to a 1cup volume. Only add enough heat to keep it from bubbling at all. You should be at a setting which only puts off steam.

Periodically take the pot and gently swirl the pot and or blow over the surface to help the evaporation process along.

Once you have 1cup evaporated brew. Allow brew to settle for 15min off the heat surface to allow any remaining sediment to fall out of brew.

Again slowly pour through fine metal mesh, allow to cool and drink or place in a plastic water bottle or ziplock baggie for freezing.

If using pachanoi var. you will need 100gs.

Using the blender helps to powder the cactus skins while in solution to avoid all the dust. Just remember to rinse out blender with the lemon water you are going to use for cooking the other two cooks.

This method works great for making ayahuasca as well.

Just remember to reheat the frozen brew and to sip the brews in a mug or small cup like coffee or tea. Your mouth adjusts to the taste and sipping gently allows absorption through the mouth, throat and stomach.

The 1cup water with 1/16th lemon wedge average ph4 solution. Great for cold water MGS/HBWRS/RCS extraction. Or for making teas of Kratom, Calea, etc.

That sounds like a much more sensible process than many I've read, which, with their many hours of cooking and such, seem to be more superstition than science.

Thank you for the reply ancient powers. That sounds like an awesome way to prepare the cactus. By this "with juice of a 1/16 wedge of lemon" do you mean that the lemon will need to be divided into 16 pieces? And then add the 1/16 wedge of a lemon to 1 cup water? How large should the cup be?

sorry everybody. now that i cut it up in my mind its actually an 1/8th of lemon or lime wedge. my bad.

the wedge is squeezed to release the juice. like when you squeeze a wedge into ice tea or water.

1 cup = 8oz

Thanks for the follow up ancient. Will definitely look into this.

I used to always make a 4 hour+ boiled tea, whcich worked well but made me purge pretty violently. Later on I tried grinding the dried cactus flakes/chips with a pestle+mortar and then slowly mixing this powder with water to form a green paste/bread sort of thing, which can easily be swallowed with water and some lemons to suck on. This method has worked much better and there has been little to no nausea

I usually just powder it, mix it with water until it's a goopy substance, then slip it down my throat. I taste nothing, but sometimes it requires some pepto or ginger or something to hold it down. I personally haven't experienced nausea the times I've ingested this cactus. An other extraction to try that worked amazingly for me:

1. Take your powdered inner cactus flesh and add appropriate dosage to a jar. Perhaps add more than you're expecting because sometimes a little potency is lost during extraction.
2. Add a good amount of 151 proof alcohol (I used Bacardi 151) so it's covering the powder, maybe by a couple ounces over or so.
3. Mix and shake this brew good in the jar
4. Place this brew in the freezer, and continue to agitate periodically.
5. I'm not sure if it's necessary, but I kept the powder in the jar for about 2 to 3 days. The liquid will begin to turn a darker blackish colour.
6. Strain your end results through a metal coffee strainer, pushing all the liquid you can out of the cactus.
7. Drink desired amount of liquid according to your personal dosage preference
8. Enjoy! The mush can be discarded as it should be almost inactive at this time, but it still can be eaten for a very mild effect at higher dosages. Optimally, you could attempt the extraction again with the same goop.

If you can stomach it, I think the tea is probably the most authentic and has a broader set of alkaloids. I generally do a alcohol extraction similar to above...but slightly different:

1. Powder cactus and put in jar.
2. Fill jar at least an inch over top of powder with ethanol. (Best if you can get everclear (aka grain) so that it's close to 100% ethanol. It's also cheaper than Baccardi...but only if it's legal in your country/state.)
3. Shake whenever you can, and soak for a day or two.
4. Filter out alcohol. (You don't have to get 100% of the alcohol out since you will do another pull, but get as much as you can.)
5. Repeat with fresh alcohol a few times, combining results (If the alcohol is coming up clear or only slightly green, you are done.) I don't bother waiting a full day after the first pull.
6. Throw out cactus mush
7 .Take alcohol and evaporate it in a flat pan. (You could use some heat, a fan blowing on the surface will make it happen pretty quickly.)
8. You end up with a black sticky tar in the pan.
9. Add some flour and maybe a little baking powder to make the sticky tar into something less sticky and manageable and doughy.
10. Form the remaining blackish/green flour and tar mixture into large capsule shapes. (Some people actually put it into capsules, but you can just form the doughy stuff into the shape.)
11. Swallow the capsules with some ginger tea and enjoy.

(The little capsule shaped things get harder over time...maybe as the flour absorbs more moisture...so you can keep them in a baggie or something.)

(Take the full weight of the cactus powder and the weight off all the black doughy stuff, and you can figure out how many to take to equal 50g-75g of cactus.)

If you go with the tea, but have a lot of trouble getting it down, you could try freezing it and eating it almost like ice cream. If you swallow chunks of it frozen, without giving it time to thaw in your mouth, you won't taste it nearly as much.

To me, there is really nothing worse tasting than the cactus tea...it's almost like eating ear wax or something. That taste, combined with the nausea from mescaline, can really get me down. So, I've just given up on the tea.