hmm...i have a thing about trying not to 'spread the word' about PST too much because the stuff keeps me functional quite often. don't like too many cats or legislators being wise to it!
but anyway, here's
my poppy seed essay
i figured i'd share my long-perfected way of making it. not to say the other methods that have been suggetsed aren't acceptable or effective - they are, but i just find this works the best for me.
i agree 100% with Christ above (!) that you need to get the goodies off the seeds as quickly as possible and with just a little liquid.
i don't use water on its own - prefer grapefruit juice or a couple of lemons (or any citrus juice really - orange or pineapple is good too - bottle from the shops is good, freshly squeezed is better).
no idea about potentiation or better extraction, but for me a bit of fruit juice negates any bad taste of poppy seeds washed in water. just sort of nutty bitter fruit. used to mix a batch with lemonade, chuck it in a two litre bottle and drink it at parties.
not bad with a reefer and good company on a warm summer night
so anyway, what i've used for a long time now is a method involving two bowls and a fine sieve.
have big two round plastic bowls, which have a lip on them for pouring and hold a few litres.
i have a big sieve i bought from a chinese grocer that has fine metal mesh on it and sits nicely on top of both bowls (similar diameter). it's nothing fancy, but it stops too many seeds from getting in the mix. there are plastic ones that do the job well, too. i've used this bowl and sieve set-up for lots of different teas and concoctions i've made over the years. sure beats squeezing shit through an old t-shirt. if seeds or whatever get through it, run the liquid through a smaller, finer strainer. easier to deal with and seems more hygienic.
so what i do is get my seeds, and chuck them in the smaller of the two bowls. the sieve sits on the rim of the larger bowl (which collects the infusion, or whatever you'd like to call it).
i then pour enough grapefruit juice into the bowl of seeds to soak and cover them by a cm or so. no scientifically determined amount, maybe something roughly equivalent to the weight of the seeds.
once the juice is in there, i get a spoon and stir like crazy - if you agitate them, you'll dislodge more alkaloids, same as shaking the bottle
i do this quickly for the reason mentioned above - you don't want the seeds to soak up the liquid. don't bother boiling or crushing or doing anything else to the seeds - these are all counterproductive. unlike most of these sorts of endeavours, easy and quick is best.
shouldn't take longer than 5 or 10 minutes if you do it right.
not a race against time, but not something you want to sit back and wait ages for either. the only waiting is waiting for the juice to drain out of the seeds.
just tip the seeds, pour the juice, whip up a little frenzy with a spoon and tip the mixture into the sieve in the other bowl.
i find that a 'good' batch of seeds often tends to bubble/foam up slightly when i'm mixing it. shitty well-washed seeds dont really do this. not proof one way or the other (ie inexperienced folks shouldn't dose according to this) but just something i've noticed).
anyway, after completing this process i also do a couple of re-washes.
what i do after these seeds have been sitting in the sieve for a few minutes (once again, not too long - they'll soften up and absorb moisture which both soaks up the desired alkaloids
and makes the brew taste funky - the quicker you do it, the cleaner the taste will be!).
so i get the sieve full of seeds and tip them back into the first bowl.
this time though, i pour water onto them - about the same amount as the juice i put in to start with, enough to cover them plus a little more.
i then do the same thing - tip them into the sieve and drain - and
repeat this step again.
so i do a juice wash and two secondary water-washes.
this may seem pointless, but what i normally do is strain the first and second wash into a bottle together,chuck it in the fridge for later, and drink the third wash with just a little of the main batch mixed in for flavour. i have a nicer time on this than i do the rest of the batch (the first two washes). definitely worth doing multiple washes.
the mess is a problem, and there are always poppy seeds in weird parts of my flat...it's a little embarrassing heheh.
i like the sieve method though because you don't need a plastic bottle to do it, i think it is easier to handle them (making less mess...relatively?) but it really is up to you.
the juice though - i don't like using water. maybe it's just what i've gotten used to.
it seems to usually create a lot of waste - empty the seed containers (if they're
<snip seeds - sometimes like 8 of the 70g packets), half a kilo of spent seeds plus a fruit juice bottle iend up in the bin every time i use (sometimes i use a lot).
i don't like creating so much rubbish - but my absolute favourite way to dispose of the big piles of seeds is to put them into something kinda discreet (go find a littered mcdonalds coke cup!!) and walk around my neighbourhood throwing the seeds absolutely everywhere! even if you use once a year, you're throwing away
thousands of potential opium poppies if you chuck them in the bin!
they really do grow themselves, and even without being watered, will grow to maturity and produce pods in a lot of climates and each one of those tiny black things is a lovely juicy opium poppy just wanting a chance at life!
most people have no idea what they are (even in the last little stage where it is obvious what sort of plant it is, most people don't notice them) and they usually get pulled out because they look like weeds for the first couple of months. find an unweeded spot and you might get lucky. even if you don't you got nothing to lose
i had a fairly successful guerrilla gardening campaign this year - even though it was half hearted, i managed to get a few handfuls of pods from various little patches i sowed. i'm in perth - not the most ideal climate -not enough rain - but it's better than wasting them, and sometimes you get a nice little surprise in the springtime. i live in the city so i really had very few unmanicured bits of dirt to target (some came up in an alley near my house, some came up between cracks in the footpath) but why the hell not?!
beautify your urban environments, kids!!
oh, i've also been lead to believe that pre-soaking seeds (ie making poppy seed tea out of them) softens the wall of the seed and increases the chance of germination. maybe total poppycock (haw haw, poppy pun) but who knows?
oh, and footsy, i would agree that these days most of the best seeds to be had are from
<snip .
they're overpriced, but i find a lot of bulk stores sell lousy seeds...or at least really washed ones. i still go for them sometimes - so long as they're not totally inactive, but this seems to still be a minority of seeds, thankfully.
white poppy seeds don't work, apparently (which is good, last time i looked at them in
<snip they were $24 for about 200 grams). strictly culinary, for that price!
basically my tip for finding potent seeds is the
darker the better. when they're black and clumpy and sticking together, they're usually the goods, as i am usually confident they are actually going to work. having said that, sometimes they don't that great but tthey're really strong. it's not proof but it's something to look out for.
some brands vary dramatically batch-to-batch, and when a batch of one of the
<snip brands comes out black and clumpy i grab as many as i can before they restock the shelves with the grey/blue dry ones. if you see the ones that have a speckled mix of grey/blue and red/brown kinda seeds, they're usually very weak or completely inactive.
before 2006 good seeds were everywhere, then they all went to shit.
if you don't have a habit (as has already been mentioned) it can be a bad thing to get into because obtaining them is so fucking easy and it's hard to cut yourself off from various sources...some shopping centres i've been to have something like 8 different shops you can buy them from.
it's a bit of a dodgy habit, but there aren't many other drugs you can obtain legally and easily everywhere by just being a bit crafty.
besides shit like glue and horrible over-the-counter drugs of abuse, i can't really think of anything. it needs to be respected (and maybe feared?) a little though, because if you drink too much in a night you will get
very sick (throwing up the whole next day) aand of course if you get hooked you'll be a lot sicker for a lot longer if you stop taking it.
it's got the availability of nutmeg, but that doesn't mean its phoney opies.
apologies for another of my typical way-too-fucken-long posts, but i dig PST.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
The most recent place I visited for bulk didn't ask any questions, which was nice. One time at 
. if there is noone about i throw them all over the front garden but usually just wash them down the flats laundry sink. If the block it then it won't be long now!! man my flat mates are suss on me hanging in the laundry for like 20 min obviously not washing and then keep chuckin the dirty t shirt in the washer. Reapet this through the night and then nonone else can use the washer.