Need a little guidance with San Pedro extraction

So a friend and I have been working on an extract of some San Pedro cactus, we are almost complete but at the moment we have the extract in vinegar, which has about 99% dissolved, in a plate. However, on the plate, some of the oil from previous stage of extraction is there, which needs to be separated out.

Does anyone have any ideas how to go about getting rid of the remaining oil? Anyone had this problem before? Would using heat degrade the mescaline extract?

All advice greatly appreciated.

 

I used a coffee grinder that had a separator on the bottom, you are supposed to separate those two layers, when the other layer mixed even just a little bit when I was pouring it out I would dump it back in and repeat the process until I got it right.

I really am not sure about the heat but I'm fairly sure mescaline will break down if exposed to too much heat.

 

Thanks. So you think but the mixture in a container, then put through coffee filter? Whats left in the filter will be the mesc extract hopefully? Wont it be too fine? Sorry for super n00b questions, my friend is the leader of this project, he knows a lot more about this than I. He is also pretty experienced making DMT as well, which will be another project that we work on together after this.

 

No I put both layers in a French Press coffee grinder, stir it around and let it sit for a bit and then the two layers separate. The Grinder had a piece that acted sort of like a funnel which I would pour the vinegar layer out of. There are alternative type of funnels you can get that may even be more efficient but that is as far as I understood a pretty necessary stage in the extraction and I went the cost effective way.

 

Ok. So I have the plate with the mesc extract on it, 99% of the vinegar has dissolved, there is a little bit of remaining oil that is not dissolving.....What can i do to get the oil to dissolve. Granted GB, i think we may have cocked up the extraction process a little, but i dont think its a total write off.

 

The key to keeping d-limonene out of the vinegar is proper separation. A separatory funnel would be ideal but a gravy separator will work in a pinch(kitchen supply or bed bath and beyond). A little oil in the final product doesn't hurt, however you will mess up your yield weight with the oil contamination making a less pure product to scrape up at the end.

 

GB are you describing an improvised separatory funnel?

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Those were two of my concerns as well. Any ideas on how to get rid of the oil at this stage though?

 

No I was referring to a Gravy Separator.

 

Another separation device is a freezer bag held diagonally with a tiny piece of the corner cut off so that the heavier fluid runs out and when all the heavier fluid is out, pinch off the bag. Keep one portion and discard or whatever the other.

 

Other than drying then doing a wash and a freeze precipitation(super tedious) that will cut your yield in half there is not much you can do. Don't worry man a little d-limonene is good for you. It ends up in a lot of people's evaporation dish. Better that than naptha or xylene.

This method of extraction is great because you don't need to be super cautious with dosing. At best even with a clean separation your product is about 50% mescaline and mostly other alkaloids and junk from the pulls. Just split the final product according to the amount of starting material. If you extract 100 dry grams of cactus after all the pulls and split that in two to three equal portions.

 

^^^the mescaline extract that i sampled was extracted this way i believe. i tried 525 mg of it, and another time i took 900 + 790 mg 2 hours later. neither trip was very intense, but i guess if it was 40 or 50% mescaline, it wouldn't be expected to be that intense?

 

Or quite possibly the cactus itself didn't have much mescaline to begin with. Samples of cactus acetate salts have been GC/MS tested on the nexus by members and that percentile was the best case scenario. Many results tested lower.Perhaps some used too much acetic acid during salting, or not enough care to remove the d-limonene during separation. Also this could be from the loss of alkaloids due to too much oxidation during drying which excessive heat and air movement can cause. Always dry your extract with no heat.