Do you use a lot of water?
Water dilutes the colour quite a bit.
First wash usually being the darkest.
I think taste is a better way to tell of strength IMO.
I, personally, use masses of water - as much as I can fit into the bottle/container and still be able to shake it thoroughly. When I first started using PST, I used the minimum volume I could get away with, and did a single wash, due to the disgusting taste, but as my addiction and tolerance grew I couldn't "waste" any of the opiate coating by using insufficient water. At the height of my addiction (been tapering for close to six fucking months!), I'd use a ratio of 2l water to 1kg of seeds, so when using 2kg a dose I was choking down 4l of the stuff each wash. The first wash, assuming good seeds, would always be a dark yellow/brown murky colour and taste like a slug and mud smoothie; vile. The second wash was more of a lightly tinted yellow colour which tasted better than the first, but was by no means pleasant. Wash 3 was my limit and has never contained enough opiates to make it worthwhile. By the third wash, the fats leach from the seeds, and the water moves into its place, leaving you with something resembling lard, protein shake and milk and tasting AWFUL. To this day, I've never tasted anything worse than the "Tea" from a batch of seeds that had been washed twice 36 hours earlier. I was very limited in choice, I was deep into an unplanned WD, no money, no source, and had a rather important function to attend - to any normal person, non-sterilised plant matter repeatedly dissolved in acidic water, high levels of glucose/fructose added, in an anaerobic environment next to a radiator is a pretty fucking ideal breeding ground for microorganisms and so should be avoided. Not to an addict, an addict studying for a Microbiology Degree, no less.
A lot of people avoid PST because the notion of "they're the most variable thing on Earth" is frequently bandied about - sure, there is MASSIVE variation between brands/sources (a good example being UK supermarket seeds: from one chain I can get blasted off 1.2kg, which feels somewhere in the ballpark of 120-140mg Morphine, and yet from the other: I have never got anything resembling an actual high from doses ranging up to 3kg, holding me as well as 40/50mg Morphine would), but if you can find a decent source, the variability between batches is minimal to the point it barely enters my head any more. Consistent sources DO exist, but they take some searching for and a lot of trial and error - less than ideal if you're unstable financially and will hit severe WD if your entirely new dose is sufficient. The high from a good dose of Tea is unbelievable - the tingly, warm extremities can be felt in <1 hour, the "opiate stomach feeling" comes quite early on. The first part of the high is, as far as I can tell, a typical codeine high (1.5-2 hours of sedation, warmth and itchy opiate goodness), which fades out as Thebaine takes the limelight in part two. Feels like a typical opiate high, except the sedation is non-existent, replaced with stimulation. The Thebaine allows me to have a luscious high going on, but be functional and awake enough to pass as sober. The stimulation lasts around 6 hours (T+8h) and fades off quickly. For the next 2 hours there is a weird void, there is an undeniable sense of opiate intoxication, but the actual central effects are very subtle, I very often wonder if I am nearing baseline due to the very mild feeling. I presume this part is due to one of the lesser alkaloid constituents (Noscapine, Omnipaverine etc.). Once this feeling subsides, the peak is felt: euphoria, nausea, powerful nodding, itching, full body tingles, apathy, tucked under the opiate blanket for warmth. The full high lasts ~16h, usually, though it is dose dependent. A low dose runs closer to 8h and a high dose around 18h. With very careful, meticulous, dosing scheduling, alongside enzyme inducers and inhibitors at the correct time and level, I have extended the high to between 26 and 28 hours.
I thought I'd found Heaven when I first got into PST: I could walk less than a mile from my front door, pick my beloved opiates off a store shelf, use the self-scan till, and go home with Morphine in hand, available to me by just soaking seeds in water. No sketchy dealers, no "dealer/addict time(keeping)", no worry of imprisonment, nothing that came with the usual ritual/hoop-jumping of getting hold of opioids. Not to mention it was bloody cheap! Obviously, Heaven kicked me out and Morpheus' repatriation took me, as it has many others. I am wary of giving a WD timescale for PST because, well... I've never made it far enough to know. I've been through the early stage of detox more times than I care to count, but never made it further than 14 days. Those 14 days were not typical of WD - it did not begin ~18 hours after my last dose, it did not peak between day 2 and 4, it did not ease by day 6 and the physical horror was not gone by day 8. I didn't even feel ill until around 28 hours after my last dose, but the turning point from "well" to "sick" as the last bits of opiate goodness left my receptors was clear cut, and very sharp. It got progressively worse with every passing hour. At the end of Day 3 I thought I was peaking, like I would be with most opiates, but I was so wrong it's untrue. It only just started easing off physically around Day 13, peaking around Day 10. WD'ing from 23 (?) opiates at once, in such a drawn out manner, is no less than brutal.
And to top it all off: it eventually ended up costing FAR MORE than an equivalent Morphine habit!
