Posted by Miguel (4.40.20.153) on September 18, 2000 at 12:56:51:
In Reply to: ChemLab 101 Extra Credit Questions posted by Q on September 18, 2000 at 11:01:35:
Dark Room = Closet, change light bulb to red.
Extraction/Separation: Easy procedure. Get glass,
short one. Place shrooms and solvent in it. Mix.
Solvent: Ether is not commercially available. Perhaps
if a source can help you with it. It is very volatile,
dangerous, flamable, etc (you have to work very
quickly with it too). If you are not familiar
use Alcohol. It just takes longer to evaporate.
PGA is fine. The higher the concentration/purity
the better.
Do not use denatured, 200 proof alcohol.
Benzene is utilized to rid it of the remaining 10%
water. Benzene is residual here, and toxic. PGA
will do fine, no benzene.
Chop the shrooms very, very, very finely. More surface area
better extraction.
Fill a squiting bottle with EtOH (PGA)
Rinse the chopping device into the glass, so you wash
any psy remaining on device as well.
Rinse chopping board with
EtOH while draining into the glass as you rinse it.
It doesn't take a whole lot of EtOH to do this.
Now, u got shrooms in glass with EtOH, hopefully
enough to cover the chopped material.
Stirr and stirr and stirr, making sure that everything is
wet and soaking EtOH pretty good. Let is sit
for a couple of hours. Come back and stirr, stirr, stirr
(not like a blender, but steadily and gently).
Do all this always under red light in closet.
Cover the glass with aluminum foil after every
stirring process.
After the stirring is done:
Get a strainer, or clean, lintless terry cloth/gauze
Drain the remaining EtOH into a new, aluminum foil-covered
glass, while filtering all particulate matter out
of it through the strainer/terry cloth.
Use the squirt bottle to rinse the original glass
while draining through the strainer into the new glass.
Squeeze dry the particulate matter in the strainer
or terry cloth to extract the last of the EtOH.
Set that junk aside, place in aluminum foil and
freeze it (just in case it did not work).
Wrap the glass with EtOH/Psy with aluminum foil, and
let it sit in the dark until the EtOH evaporates.
It may take a couple of days at room temp.
There should be a residue on the walls of the glass
once the EtOH evaporates, even if it looks like
a very thin white film. That is the psy, along with
anything else that was extracted from the shrooms.
It will likely be a brownish film.
Note, you may consume the filtered stuff while
in suspension/solution in EtOH. However, knowing
the negative impact of EtOH on CH, it would probably
be better to avoid that, as well as rid yourself of
another variable (i.e.: you get attack and you
do not know if it was from extraction failing
or the EtOH, or just because psy did not work.
Once you have the film, get some room temp, water,
hopefully distilled, pure, and add to the glass, small amount
of water at first...see if it solubilizes the
residue. May need to warm up a bit with your hands
only if residue does not go into solution.
Once the residue is in solution, well...add sugar,
nutrasweet, honey...whatever tickles yer fancy.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Good Luck
Miguel