• Psychedelic Drugs Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting RulesBluelight Rules
    PD's Best Threads Index
    Social ThreadSupport Bluelight
    Psychedelic Beginner's FAQ

☛ Official ☚ The Big & Dandy Mescaline Extraction thread

Hmm I've never had trichocereus cactus foam up much with methanol extractions. If you dry it out well and grind it to shreds it acts like any other plant material IME. People have done STB on cactus powder and had success with it.

Check it:

Ekstaza said:
I've put this out in other threads, but I wanted it to show up immediately if a search for mescaline extraction is conducted, so here it is.

Try this extraction tek. It's the simplest full extraction that I've found. It doesn't require a seperatory funnel and it's written in simple step-by-step recipe style wording.

Things you'll need:


1.at least 2 glass or HDPE(should show a triangular recycle symbol with a 2 inside of it somewhere on the bottom) plastic jugs or jars. HDPE is preferred because strong lye solutions will etch glass and cause it to break eventually. I know first hand.

2. 100% pure lye (reagent grade is best if you can get it)

3. Muriatic acid (HCL or hydrochloric acid)

4. Acetone

5. Xylene

6. turkey baster

7. a glass or stainless steel funnel

8. cotton balls

9. a short piece of fish tank air tubing

all easy to get items (use NO aluminum)

You should not use any type of open flame at any point during this extraction.
Use adequate ventilation at all times.

Preparing your cactus
You'll want to begin with dry powdered cactus if you can. You can dry slices of cactus in the oven with low heat and then use a coffee grinder to powderize it.
NOTEI've experience a severe reaction to breathing the powder. It screws up my sinuses for a week or two. I'd suggest using a face mask to prevent it being inhaled. Also I have noticed irritation to the eyes if the dust comes in contact with them. Be careful.

Extracting
Prepare a solution of lye water by slowly mixing together 1 TBS of lye for every pint(8 TBS/gallon) of cold water that you think you'll need to completely cover you dry cactus. This will produce a little heat so don't be alarmed. Just swirl it around slowly as you add the lye a little at a time. This is what I will refer to as base or basic water.

Next add you dry cactus powder(100grams of powder in each gallon jug was used for this extraction). Mix the contents thoroughly to ensure that you expose all of the powder to the basic water.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/847203802-Extraction_jugs_without_xylene.jpg

Now add about a pint or so of xylene to the mix. You want enough of a layer to be able to draw off the xylene with the turkey baster later. Shake it all up and let it sit for an hour. This is what it will look like just after shaking.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/847205105-Extraction_jugs_after_shaking_up.jpg

If after an hour you can see that the xylene layer is separating back out, fine, if not, add a little more pre-made basic water and check again. Now shake it back up and put it away for 24 hours (every second of it).
This is after three hours.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/847716836-Partial_separation_at_3_hours.jpg

24 hours later, you want to draw off the xylene so now you need to use the turkey baster to suck it up and put it in a new jar(a mason jar works fine). You don't want any of the water from beneath the xylene to come with it.

The way that you draw up the xylene without it dripping back into the jug is the put about 6" of fish tank air tubing in the end of the baster. You may have to cut a bit on the baster to get it to fit, but be careful not to cut too much as you need the tube to fit snug.
When drawing xylene out you should keep one hand on the bulb of the baster and one on the tube for maximum control of the tube and so that you can pinch the tube with your thumb and forefinger while lifting it out of the jug.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/857015498-Xylene_pull.jpg

and put it into your salting bottles.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/857016859-Into_the_Salting_bottle.jpg

(You want to rinse the turkey baster and the tubing thoroughly after each use with hot water)

Optional Additional Cleaning step (Originally left out of the pictoral because I do not perform this task. This step helps to remove some of the chlorophyl and plant fats from the xylene.)
Add lye water, about 1/4 the volume of your xylene, to the xylene in the salting bottles/jars. Give this a good shake and allow it to settle back out into two layers. It's probably best to let it sit for a few hours to separate completely. Place the bottle/jar into the freezer and allow the lye water to freeze solid. Once the water is frozen solid, pour off the xylene into another container suitable for salting.

Salting
Now you want to mix your acid water in order to dilute it to the proper strength you want. Be very careful not to breath the vapors that come out of the bottle when you open it. HCL comes very strong and it will burn you.

You want to add approximately 4-6 drops of HCL acid to 1.5 cups of water.
Slowly add this acid water to the xylene while gently swirling the liquids around in the jar. Add just enough to make a half inch or so layer beneath the xylene.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/872738631-Salting_bottle_-_001.jpg

Don't worry that you won't get all of the goods because the xylene is going back into the extraction bottle and you'll get another shot at what you missed before. Put the lid on the jar and shake it all up. Wait a few minutes and shake again.

Once it has returned completely to a separated state loosen the lid on the jar and place it in the freezer. You want the bottom layer(the acid water) to now freeze solid. The xylene will not freeze. Once the water is frozen, work quickly and pour the xylene back into the extraction bottle.

With the water still frozen solid, pour in a little warm water and swirl around and discard quickly. This helps get rid of a little more residual xylene. The rest will evaporate later.

Repeat the extraction and salting steps 4 to 6 times to get all of the goodies. You can reuse the xylene over and over again.

Evaporating
Now thaw out the water and put it in you evaporation dish. A large flat bottomed pyrex dish works best. Using heat(heating pad beneath the dish) or not, fan dry it to evaporate the water from the dish. This may take some time depending on how much water you used.

Once all of this is dry you will see a crystalline residue left on the dish.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/872758774-mescrystals_-_004.jpg

This pic shows off a mistake that I made and one that some of you may make also. On the right side of the dish you can see a huge brown spot. This happened because I used too much hcl acid in the salting step. This, however, is not a big problem. It will all be gone after the cleaning step, plus much of it evaporated with the water. I might could have even avoided some of the discoloration by evaporating slower, giving the hcl more time to evaporate.

Scrape it off with a razor blade. It will be a brownish powder.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/872754985-Crude_mescaline_first_salting_-_002.jpg

This is from the first scraping from the first salting. It actually turned out much better than I normally expect.

It can be used as is but the next procedure is simple if you've got this far.

Cleaning
Put a cotton ball in the spout end of your funnel so that it can filter.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/874779664-cleaning_-_012.jpg
http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/874781032-cleaning_-_013.jpg

Mix some acetone with your extracted alkaloids. I use a mason jar so that I can swirl it around easily. You want to get every piece of mescaline washed with acetone, so mix it in good.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/874796870-cleaning_-_011.jpg
http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/874790175-cleaning_-_006.jpg

Next, pour it into the funnel with a clean dry jar to catch the liquids. Use acetone to wash loose needles, that remain in the jar, into the funnel.

http://files.shroomery.org/files/05-40/874785027-cleaning_-_003.jpg

You will notice some color draining through with the acetone. Wash like this with fresh acetone until little to no more color is draining through. Put the funnel somewhere to dry.

Once all acetone smell is gone from the funnel and it's contents you need to pour some hot water into it with it positioned over the evaporation dish. The hot water will dissolve the crystals and allow them to flow through the cotton into the dish.

Evaporate as before. The resulting crystals will be considerably whiter and more pure. This is not only for aesthetics, but also it makes for more accurate dosing.

You can put this powder in capsules to facilitate simple dosing with pre-measured amounts in each capsule. Look to www.erowid.com for dosing guidelines.
 
Drying the cactus

What types of alcohol is the desired chemicals soluble in? If using grain alcohol what is the minimum proof that should be used? I might be able to find Everclear with some effort but if not would some 151 work? Can you perform the AB extract tech with fresh cactus or does it need to be dried out? So if one has access to an over abundant supply of fresh San Pedro cactus, what would the best method of drying be if it must be dry? How much fresh product does one need to use per dose by fresh product weight? Also for those of us who have no way to way the fresh or dry product in general how long in length would a single dose from a mature cactus be?

I've tried the tea and eating it sooo many times. I've never been able to get enough down to get a good trip. I must someday (hopefully sooner than later) cactus trip.
 
Last edited:
What types of alcohol is the desired chemicals soluble in? If using grain alcohol what is the minimum proof that should be used? I might be able to find Everclear with some effort but if not would some 151 work? Can you perform the AB extract tech with fresh cactus or does it need to be dried out? So if one has access to an over abundant supply of fresh San Pedro cactus, what would the best method of drying be if it must be dry? How much fresh product does one need to use per dose by fresh product weight? Also for those of us who have no way to way the fresh or dry product in general how long in length would a single dose from a mature cactus be?

I've tried the tea and eating it sooo many times. I've never been able to get enough down to get a good trip. I must someday (hopefully sooner than later) cactus trip.

Whoa there's a lot of questions in there.

1) Methanol is my alcohol of choice for simple alcohol extraction. It's available in 3.78L jugs in the paint sections of hardware stores. It's often labeled as "Methyl Hydrate".

2) Best efficiency is achieved if it's dried out and ground up.

3) I cut everything off the woody core and cut it up into small chunks. Throw them on a pan making sure no chunks are on top of each other and throw it in the oven on a low setting until it's dried.

4) Cacti specimens vary in alkaloid content by a big margin. To get an accurate dose you have to do an A/B and weigh the mescaline crystal. That's the only way. You can extract 1 foot of cactus for starters to see where it sits; it could be strong, it could be mild, no one knows except you after you try it out.

And yes, drinking the tea is an awful way of consumption; it tastes awful and gives lots of nausea. Alcohol extraction is easy but your dosage is based on length of cactus and therefore not accurate. A/B is more labour intensive but it gives the cleanest product and most accurate dosing.
 
i did an extraction before with xylene and came out with some product not sure how much it is.. but they have been stored in an airtight container for almost a year now..
wondering how i can purify them since they are not very pure.. there are some that are tannish and some that are brownish..
any good recommendations for recrystallization or purification?
Thanks
 
Sorry - posted a tek but it was pretty vague. I will search for another one.

If you have lots of chem equipment: http://dhp.mraxe.com/mesc/

OK I can't find easy teks, I'd certainly try washing with warm acetone though and after drying again redissolving in just enough xylene (or other solvent)
then filtering through cottonballs an activated carbon. Pretty simple and it should definitely help.
 
Last edited:
I like that crystallization method, I just only have a gas stove, making the whole toluene boiling step pretty tricky.

I also have a question for whoever. Using the tek by Ekstaza that is posted on the previous page, at one point I added too much HCl, which I understand will tend to cause the first evaporation to have a reddish brown coloration. However, I've only gotten white to gray product so far. Not that this disappoints me, I'm just curious about the discrepancy.
 
White to gray is good. The gray can be washed out with acetone to leave white.

HCl is volatile so it should evaporate off with the water. I'm not really sure why ekstaza's turned red.
 
I've read countless things that say the outer skin and outer flesh contain the most mescaline in the cactus. Is this true? If it is true how much mescaline might be lost from just using this part of the cactus, and how deep into the outer flesh should someone go to get the most from the parts that contain the most alkaloids? I would think that just cutting the parts of the cactus which contain the most alkaloids would cut down on a lot of the tar goo that you would be left with when doing the simple alcohol extraction. You would also reduce the amount of acidic brew you start with in the Acid-Base Extraction method which would in turn cut down the amount of work and the amount of time needed in either method of extraction. What does others think about this theory? Would it be worth the yield/loss/time ratio?
 
Could I do the alcohol extraction and then dissolve the product in acidic water and go through the A/B extraction with it?
 
Could I do the alcohol extraction and then dissolve the product in acidic water and go through the A/B extraction with it?

Yes indeedy :)

This is actually a refinement in the procedure. When the alcohol extract is the input into the A/B extraction instead of cactus powder the A/B extraction goes smoother with less contaminants and/or emulsion to deal with because a lot of that junk as already been taken out by the alcohol extraction.
 
Anyone got any suggestions for seperating mescaline citrate from the excess citric acid? I don't care if the other alkaloids come along, I just want this citric acid gone.
 
I'll stick with the chop and boil method that's worked for me this far ;)
 
A while back I read a food-safe extraction tek involving the following:

* 100 grams of died cactus, preferably dried green outer flesh with the core, spines, and the thin waxy skin removed from it.
* 25 grams of edible calcium hydroxide (hydrated lime).
* 300 ml of any type of drinking water. Tap water is just fine.
* 900 ml of food grade non-toxic d-limonene (orange oil). Note that some non-distilled d-limonene apparently contains traces of citric acid (less than 0.1. Someone brought this up as a possible concern. The amount of citric acid present is too small to have any impact at all on the extraction process. We would need at least 10 grams of citric acid for there to be any impact at all on this extraction process. 0.1% of 1000 ml is only 1 gram, and most non-distilled d-limonene would contain much less that 0.1%. So don’t worry about traces of citric acid present in non-distilled d-limonene, its of no concern at all. Citric acid cannot be distilled, so distilled d-limonene cannot contain any at all.
* 150 -225 ml of vinegar.
* 3 coffee filters.
* A large container to hold the cactus mix. It's best to use glass or metal. If plastic is used, HDPE or PP is best. Do not use polystyrene because it dissolves in d-limonene.
* A dish for evaporating your final alkaloid extract in.
* A glass gravy separator or a separatory funnel (HDPE or PP plastic could be used instead of glass)
I'm not going to post the full tek here cause I don't know if that crosses the synth line, but you chem nerds should get the idea... Has anyone else tried this, and would it work? Why or why not?
 
If it's an acid/base extraction, it should work just fine. d-limo as the nonpolar should be ok.
 
Only d-limonene I can find is ridiculously expensive...

Expecting a nice fat bag of cactus, really have to say that getting crystal purity in the end is like one of my goals in life lol.
 
thanks guys. I've been wondering about that for a while. If anyone wants the full tek just message me and i'll send it to you
 
Top