planthelper Posted March 19, 2004 1, check the weather forcast, you need a couple of sunny days for this methode. 2, collect the material, remove 80 to 90% of each plants vegetative green matter (leaves, tips and branches). the more material, the better, small amounts of sceletium dont realy start a strong reaction). 3, wash the material very fast with cold water. never allowe the material to soak, otherwise you might loose some actives allready with the "wash water". than let the material drip dry. ..sometimes i add a few drops of household bleach to the water with the first rinse.. 4,now put the clean, dry material into a suitable fermentation vessel. for small ammounts, small jam jars are used or even plastic zipp lock bags, for larger proceedings, use 2l rubber seal jam jars or plastic household buckets. just close the container and place into the direct hot sun for 5 to 8 days, depending on the temperature. there is no need to turn the material into a pulp with a blender or manualy befor putting it into the fermenter, the material will turn into goo within days, mostly all by itselfe. just open the container once or twice a day and make sure to rotate and mix up its' contents. after 3 or 4 days the material will start to turn darker and, a smell will be noticed, but keep on fermenting for a little while more... 5,now after 5 up to 8 days temperature pending, the fermentation should be completed. pls, notice the smell, and the appereance of your "goo" for further reference, i mean, i choose the point of stopping the fermentation by experience! after a few attempts you will be able aswell, to tell when it's the right time, to start to dry out the goo. if you are not sure, than rather let the material ferment a few days longer than to short. but if it starts smelling very much like poo, than you have overdone it, and the material is rotting you away. like this, your product will be very save to use. lets not forget why we have to ferment, formost to get rid of the oxalic acids which are part of the plant ingrediences and secondly it makes the kanna somehow stronger. ok, fermentation is finished, all we have to do now is to, empty the contents onto a big, scrape proof plate, enamel baking tray or similar. the plate/tray gets put into the hot sun again, and turned over once or twice a day, to aid the evaporation, till all the goo has dried up. put some mozzi screen over the plates to keep the insects off. in case, the weather turned unfavorable to do so, use your baking oven to dry out the material. set your stove on the lowest setting, put the plates on the shelves and use a wooden spoon to keep the oven door open a bit! drying out can take up to 3 days. 6,mortar and pestil the dry material or grind it in the blender. than sieve the material with a kitchen sieve and remove all the coarse woody bit's. the reminder is ready for use now and can be, sniffed, smoked, hotknifed and used as an infusion (tea). here's what happend to a gnome friend of mine: ... after fermenting two household buckets full of sceletium pulpe for several day's, the buckets where placed into a hotwater bath for 2 hours, after that, the material was spread out for drying in the hot sun... because of the volume of the material an old door was covered with thick black builders plastic, and as such used to dry out this material. the material was heated up in an spontanious motion, proly in an attempt to speed up the evaporation and making sure all oxalic has gone.. well, suddenly the gnome observed something floating on top (like fat's in a soup) of the goo, something that had a bit of a "shine" and sparkle. the liquid was poured out over the plastic and, to the total amazement of the gnome, the "floaties" all turned into CRYSTALLS. for a while those crystalls seemed to grow bigger, everytime the goo was poured over them again. the gnome used a good quality magnifying glass and definatly, small clusters of crystalls where observed!! at the later stages of the drying out process, all the whiteish/allmost translucent crystalls dissapeared, lets hope they are happy somewhere inside the powder now. attempts to scrape of those crystalls failed because, they stuck too well to the plastic and a razor blade proofed useless. if the gnome ever sees those crystalls again, thats what he's planed: a, if on plastic again, cutting out whole areas of crystall growing (allways accumulate on the elevated spots anyway) for save keeping, than store in frige. b, tranfering the top parts of the liquid to a scrape proof plate in hope of better removal. c,experimenting with a sieve or some filter devices (lithogrphic sreens?!), suitable for taking those crystalls out. the gnome needs ideas with that one, pls post if you know how the gnome could trapp those crystals. [ 19. March 2004, 12:06: Message edited by: planthelper ] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
waterdragon Posted March 20, 2004 having encountered the same crystals, i mentioned the crystal formation to one who would know and was assured that the crystals are very possibly oxalic acid. these crystals formed in some of my batches after a very thorough ferment and it was suggested that if they are oxalic acid then perhaps more heat is needed during the drying stage. i would love someone to tell me that this is incorrect. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
planthelper Posted March 20, 2004 i thought of that aswell, and if they are oxalic, we are probably best off, just to remove the top layer, before drying out. sounds as simple as skimming the top of a soup or milk. [ 20. March 2004, 11:27: Message edited by: planthelper ] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
planthelper Posted November 16, 2004 last batch i did, i tasted the crystalls a bit, they tasted not very acidic, so i assume they are not oxcalic, so don't skimm them off, but leave them. aswell it's worth to experiment, with water extractions a la t st tantra, so read up on the heimia alchemy topic...meaning you decant the liquid (but don't forget no water was added at the beginning, but maybe with this methode water could be added even at the beginning) off after a few days and let it dry in the sun or stove. than you pour some water over the material and let it sit for a few day's again, than pour of the liquid. repeat till the material seems exhausted. only problem with this methode, is the same as you have when you, "simmer your acidic cactus or whatever juice down to a paste and than fill in caps" methode. if the actives "are" in the acidic water, evaporation of that solution would logicly not work! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted November 17, 2004 oxalic acid is highly water soluble, so I doubt this would crystalise in this process as described. Most of the oxalic acid is present as oxalate salts though, some of which are very insoluble and hence would form crystals easily. Compounds like calcium oxalate would have a low solubility I think, and would also not taste acidic. When talking about the Aizoaceae people generally talk about oxalic acid as the problem, but in fact this concept should include all the oxalates as they are turned into free oxalic acid in the stomach. This sometimes causes confusion when getting down to the nitty gritty of crystal development. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
planthelper Posted November 17, 2004 yes, but those crystalls "form on the rim" and are produced, even before the rest of the material gets dry. in trival terms if it's water soluble, it means it will never form crystalls in water. the leftover transformed acid content though could act like a solvent, pulling some of the actives... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
