ubza_1234

of course your allowed and encouraged! I'll bring a plant for you! :D

shit i thought it was today! Lucky i double checked ;)

long story short i had a crazy idea to make a cactus fruit liquor so i need some info. First up! My first thought is to use fruit from the prickly pear because of its abundance, but what other fruits are large, tastey and abundant? When i say abundant, i mean can i get enough of them to fill say, at least a 1.5L jar? Being large is to make it easy to harvest and process. anyway, thoughts anyone? Cheers!

hahaha ya. Well i have aquired some 92% alcohol which from past experience is perfect. Remember that fruit has a whole lotta juice in it so that can drop the alcohol down by half usually, then you add your sugar and other additives and it usually drops it down more. Finally, water can be added if absolutely needed but by that time its usually good ;)

nearly there :D

interesting.. Perhaps it may be a matter of doing something like soaking the fruit pulp in the alcohol for a while, filtier soak that alcohol in fresh fruit, repeat untill a reasonable amount of colour and flavour comes thru...

i'm pretty sure if you brew up a sugar water wash its legal, to put that fermented product in the freezer is legal, and to tip it upside down and to collect the alcohol that drains out is also legal too. I could be wrong too. To behonest, i dont realy care :S besides, you'd need a dam strong wash, (not hard to get over 18%-22% if done correctly with the right yeast) and a dam cold freezer to get it freeze the water and leave the aalcohol, especially if the sugar isnt completely fermented out... Anyway, i love the sugestions already! Your making my job alot easier :D

www.nationalgeographicstock.com/comp/MI/001/1147282.jpg holy poop thats a dam sexy fruit :D i like the pink bits

yes, i ment ment liqueur :S specificly distilling is illegal. Other forms of purifying alcohol are fine, like freezing.. And... Umm... Well, thats all i know in terms of purifying alcohol i dont even know how compatible cactus fruit will be as a liqueur, but what the hey, i'll give it a go hopefully the alcohol may help to preserve it. I hope to get it close to 30% if possible so that should help and the low juice content may work to my advantage. Usually i need to use 85%-92% alcohol because if i use just 40% it will come out at 15%-25% which is ok, but if done correctly, will have a much better mouth feel at the stronger alcohol content. If it turns out i plan to bring it to a melb meet :D wont be ready till say, autum-winter meet, but should be worth the wait! :D

yes, i ment ment liqueur :S specificly distilling is illegal. Other forms of purifying alcohol are fine, like freezing.. And... Umm... Well, thats all i know in terms of purifying alcohol i dont even know how compatible cactus fruit will be as a liqueur, but what the hey, i'll give it a go hopefully the alcohol may help to preserve it. I hope to get it close to 30% if possible so that should help and the low juice content may work to my advantage. Usually i need to use 85%-92% alcohol because if i use just 40% it will come out at 15%-25% which is ok, but if done correctly, will have a much better mouth feel at the stronger alcohol content. If it turns out i plan to bring it to a melb meet :D wont be ready till say, autum-winter meet, but should be worth the wait! :D

the fact that plain CWE seems more resiny and ethanol extracts are crumbly makes sense. Alot of protiens are not soluable in solvents like ethanol, methanol, acetone etc. If you wanted to remove some of these protiens, fan it for a few days, preverably with dry air from an air conditioner or other dehumidifyer, then once its down to warm honey viscocity, wack in an excess of 70%+ ethanol (the purer the better!) and give it a good mix. It should turn white as it percips the protienes. Simply decant your liquid and evap with a fan! I chose ethanol because its easy to get (bacardi 151 form a bottle shop) its relitively low toxic so if it doesnt all evap out no biggy and it the fumes arent too bad or too toxic ;) i used this method with cactus tea to good effect aswell ;) its my gut feeling the CWE followed by protien percip would be best because there is a chance that goodies may be trapped in the protiens and the ethanol may not be able to penetrate into it, but i could be wrong. In any case, if your worried about such losses, simple harvest more plant material!!!!! :D

thats a lil silly to say. Dmt isnt independantly orally active, but wack some cappi in the brew and happy days. As long as it changes the way the body normally behaves, then IT IS in some way active and thats what i'm interested in ;)

sweet! Food never goes astray ;)

usually around 12-1ish. And thats a big ish. :D any time after that seems to be good

so the protien doesnt dissolve in water?

i like :D

those red rap white stem shrooms look gorjuz :D

sweet. Cant wait :D

then smoke pot :S

i only just looked properly at the pic my bad. Notice that the new growth is alot heathier then the older, lower leaves? This is because the new growth is aclimatized and the lower leaves are not so they are dying. This is fine remember, as the new growth will survive just fine. Like most plants, the old leaves will fall off as it grows, with new leaves being bigger in size. The deformed bumpy leaves are of concern tho, swim has only had this on sallys grown in too much sun. They will grow faster in lots of sun, but will grow smaller leaves that are less potent for there weight made obvious by the lack of that pretty sally satin shean on the leaves ;) dont be afraid of growing in shade, it will grow just fine there once the heat picks up after winter. Summer is her time to shine!

you will never need to mist that sucker in NZ imo. The main reason to do this is on those 30*c days were the water in the substrate isnt enough to keep it from dehydrating. Atm, swim has one growing in the ground near a compost heap and its strangely the healthiest of them allp and anyone in victoria knows that the frost these days is pretty bad, and enough to normally kill a sally left outside without protection. Sallys need to be looked after but not babied. Your sally looks fine for one that hasnt been aclimatized yet and that is still being misted. The old growth may turn brown and fall off, but new growth will be strong and will survive not being misted. Save the leaves that fall off, as the are still active ;) its common for a sally with a good root system to tur completely black ontop and apear dead when exposed to a new environment, but it will soon push up a shoot from beneath the soil and this shoot will become stronger then the last! It scary tho.. as mentioned, she may be pot bound so taking her out, teasing the roots, and putting in a new bigger pot with more soil is a good idea. They tend to grow slower in winter and with smaller leaves in winter and man is a NZ winter cold! I doubt there is a nutrient problem but when you repot it, this may normalize the nutrients. She loves wet feet, especially in warmer weather (+20*c) but it may be wise to keep the soil just moist in temps colder then this to avoid fungal problems. Swims had them rot from too much water in winter, but with a good root system, they always survived. edit: oh and droopy leaves are pretty common and not a bad thing. This wont hurt the plant. Wilted leaves will if left untreated. Be sure to know the difference ;) wilting is usually due to severe dehydration and a good flooding is in order imo. This only realy happens when its hot tho.

damiana seems active to me, however, not strongly enough for a friend to notice its subtle effects. It makes sence that some strains are less active then others, obviously the active chemical(s) are in small amounts or are not potent or perhaps there are a group of that are in the correct balance to become mildly active. The annnoying thing is i wouldnt be surprised if the growing conditions effect this balance/level so seeds from mutant, who seems to be in the perfect location, may not be as active here in australia. Hmmm...

platypii: i didnt notice anything like that from the few times i had it but everywere i read it says that is the norm.

dam, forgot to keep typing, oh well, not alot happened. Got a lil buzz, but after 2.5 hours of finishing it, something was telling me to drink, so i did and watched star trek, but thats a lil off topic. Sorry i couldnt have anything interesting happen

i'm up to about 1/4 of my omlet and starting to notice lil effects. One is a familiar psycological nausia. I remember i went thru a stage of sprinkling crushed HBWR seeds in food and i remember the last time i did this i did it in a banana custard dough nut. For months after i couldnt eat that flavour of dough nut anymore. I just made me sick in my stomach and throat. Thats exactly how i feel now, and it only comes on when i pick it up or start eating it wich leads me to believe it is not strictly a toxicity issue.