ash for snuff

[hebrew]

so i have been reading about snuffs lately, mainly about Nu Nu and other tobacco snuffs from the amazon, to make these snuffs usually a base of some sort is added, in the amazon there is a tree that is favoured for the ash production, that is the wild cocoa tree, the inner bark is made into an ash which is added to the tobacco, coca as well sometimes.

sometimes a mineral is added to the snuffs as well it is collected at a certain place and added to things like ambil and snuffs too after some processing, i can not remember the full details of the top of my head about this mineral though, it is in one of my books so can look up if anyone is interested.

so i start thinking about how a bioregional snuff can be made, i wonder what plants would go well in making ash for snuffs, i do not really know a great deal about ashes and how they are utilised in the making of snuffs and chewing tobacco's.

from memory ash is made and then washed with water which is collected and left to evap leaving behind a good ash product that is great for making these treats.

so any ideas of what may make good ashes for this? i figure some acacia's may be suitable, and i recall torsten writing something a while back about the wood is best when it is a hardwood that produces a fine ash.

anyone done any experiments with ash?

[Vertmorpheus]

Hickory wattles make a lovely ash, they are very rich and densely grained but not overly heavy timber... but very dense, and ends up quite alkaline with the right burning. I've also heard of mallee wattle and I think river redgum being used. I'm thinking anything that tends to favour slow, strong, heavy timber growth in mineral rich areas might be the go, rather than fast sappy light flexible things that tend to have sweeter timbers. Maybe rich red tones rather than gentle fair ones, or something. I guess the more colour there is and the harder the timber is, might reflect the amount of minerals that have been used in their making.

I sometimes use hickory wattle to make charcoal for forge work too, and a couple of times for various reasons I've had to quench the fire rather than let it burn thru, when it wasn't far from done... underneath the perforated drum I use I found large, crumbly and sparkly deposits of very alkaline (not something I'd leave on my tongue in a heap for fear of a chemical burn etc) tasting minerals, a little finding its way onto sweaty skin was almost soapy, and using recovered charcoal from those batches showed up a lot of hot spits and blue flashes that tend to mean a lot of potassium etc. Ash from these trees when used as a plant dust to prevent chewers and biters is also quite prone to burning some plants, vs ash from say bush lemons, silky oak, green wattle, young eucalypt etc which are all quite gentle and a lot more "neutral". I guess what to use would change depending on what you wanted it for, if you need a strong or a mild action.

Most larger towns n cities have a timber merchants, not so much a timberyard as somewhere catering for crafters, carvers, antique restoration etc... these usually stock "odds n sods" of hundreds of varieties of timber, in say 6 inch sections or less... biscuit, some of them call it. I've seen a good range of native timbers come from one in Brisbane at reasonable prices... all with very different grains, hardness and degrees of "spiciness" and all come labelled but finding the tiny lead pencil scrawl can be hard sometimes!

hopefully something helpful in there.

VM

[apothecary]

Hi hebs, I believe the Acacia species that was burnt for use in pituri preparation (most probably as freebasing agent) is Acacia salicina (which is a Queensland species).

Supposedly another common freebasing agent from the Amazon was burnt snail shells? Snail shells are pretty bioregional

Aside from being a hardwood with a fine ash, whatever you use should burn to a pure white!

[ferret]

Acacia ligulata/bivenosa ssp. wayi is also apparently used for pituri ash and isfairly widespread through arid inland and into vic, have no idea about snuffs though i spose it'd work the same really..

some more up north-

Acacia aneura, A. calcicola, A. pruinocarpa (WA), Grevillea stenobotrya, G. striata

i may have a ligulata branch floating around ill have a looksee

[hebrew]

thanks sina and VM, i will have to experiment with some plants.

ferret that would be really good thanks man.

Edited December 30, 2007 by hebrew

[friendly]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I knew an O smoker who used to eat and sniff the ashes of consumed O, claiming there were still sufficient alkaloid traces left in the ash to make it a viable option.

I do believe Sceletium ashes are ingested by the African tribes that use Sceletium, but I do not know if they were eaten or snuffed.

I must have been away for longer than I thought. Some of the emoticons now express frustration, disrespect and hostility. If I recall correctly, they were not here in 2004. I do like the expanded selection, however.

Edited December 30, 2007 by friendly

[t st tantra]

opium dross is suposed to contain 80% or so of the morphine content.

unfortunately i think the production of alkaline salts may be covered by the tga?[delete?]

t s t .