dry or boiled

[botanika]

If one was to hypothetically consume sacred cactus, are the alkaloids more active dry or when boiled? For me its theoretically easier to down a glass of good fresh dried powder quickly mixed with water...straight down the hatch with an anti sickness pill to stop nausea. Boiling can turn the cactus into a snotty mixture - does it actually increase how active it is orally or is it done mearly to reduce the amount of plant material down?

[chilli]

I've never tried dried powder, but from reports I have read, it seems that the alkaloids are absorbed more thoroughly and more rapidly with cactus tea than with dried plant material... partly because the alkaloids are already out of the cellular material, and partly beacuse you can get a much greater concentration per volume.

Also, check out tst.tantra's post RE: distilling and decanting the final product, it doesn't change the taste, but it sure improves the texture... my advice if you try this method is to distill it before it gets too thick, as the sediment settles out much more quickly.

[botanika]

I've never tried dried powder, but from reports I have read, it seems that the alkaloids are absorbed more thoroughly and more rapidly with cactus tea than with dried plant material... partly because the alkaloids are already out of the cellular material, and partly beacuse you can get a much greater concentration per volume.

Also, check out tst.tantra's post RE: distilling and decanting the final product, it doesn't change the taste, but it sure improves the texture... my advice if you try this method is to distill it before it gets too thick, as the sediment settles out much more quickly.

Thanks Chilli, The powder my gnome has is quite concentrated and will give effects simply drunk with water - I think what happens then though is it becomes gluteny in my stomach, its sort of put my gnome off having it again. Will try looking at tantras post. Cheers

[AndyAmine.]

Yeah, I heard that consuming powder can give you a sore tummy and pooping problems because it expands inside your gut

I guess it depends on how much you consume.

[narayan]

Yeah, I heard that consuming powder can give you a sore tummy and pooping problems because it expands inside your gut

I guess it depends on how much you consume.

This is true of the core part of the cacti which swells quite alot when it comes in contact with water.

The fleshy part between the core and skin on the other hand hardly reacts at all when it comes in contact with water and gives little to no nausea. I've never puked whilst consuming dried powder.

Drying does seem to reduce potency though, but possible my drying technique wasn't quite correct.

[Rev]

seeing as how theyve found 5000 year old peyote buttons still at 2% dry weight id be suprised if drying reduced concentrations. Unless they went mouldy?

[Gunter]

The alkaloids are rather stable, boiling and drying should not affect them in any major way.

[Torsten]

Also, check out tst.tantra's post RE: distilling and decanting the final product,

His method did not involve any distilling.

[botanika]

thanks torsten, got a pm on the tantra + nook posts. i havent got a PC but there are other options. powder is good quality, a little tummy expansion and noticable mild effects from 25gm. will try for better extraction - puked last time tried larger dose

[chilli]

thanks torsten, got a pm on the tantra + nook posts. i havent got a PC but there are other options. powder is good quality, a little tummy expansion and noticable mild effects from 25gm. will try for better extraction - puked last time tried larger dose

I wouldn't worry too much about a PC, especially if you are going to be boiling and straining the powder. If you are usuing fresh material, I think its worth chopping quite small, then freezing and thawing 2 or 3 times in the pot you are planning on using to boil it down (so you don't lose any green goop). If you do this, and use enough lemon juice, I've found most of the alkaloids are extracted in two or three 1-2 hour boiling sessions.

BTW, yeah what a dummy I am Torsten... all this time I thought distilling was boiling it down, but then again I dropped out of school in year 9...

[Dodie]

My mate in South America said - " I'm really keen to dry some, crush it then cap it (using tbm's and just mainly the dark green matter) Each time i go to have a drink it gets worse each time cause you know what to expect...First time was fine cause i didnt have a clue what it was going to taste like...even the smell the first time is alright, but as soon as you taste it the smell is horrible.... I've used grapefruit juice once which got rid of a bit of the taste...but you have to drink twice as much.. "

Edited December 16, 2005 by strangebrew

[chilli]

Each time i go to have a drink it gets worse each time cause you know what to expect...

Hey Botanika, so is the powder you are using just dried and powdered flesh? I wonder if this works just as well as concentrating the alkaloids by boiling down, and makes it easier to drink?

it just seems like you'd have to get down such a large quantity, and that it wouldn't be absorbed as efficiently...

Edited December 16, 2005 by strangebrew

[mescalito]

What about mixing the powder with something sweet like say...baby pear puree?

[chilli]

I wouldn't worry too much about a PC, especially if you are going to be boiling and straining the powder. Assuming you're doing this in a country where legal, If you are usuing fresh material, I think its worth chopping quite small, then freezing and thawing 2 or 3 times in the pot you are planning on using to boil it down (so you don't lose any green goop). If you do this, and use enough lemon juice, I've heard that most of the alkaloids are extracted in two or three 1-2 hour boiling sessions.

BTW, yeah what a dummy I am Torsten... all this time I thought distilling was boiling it down, but then again I dropped out of school in year 9...

[Fenris]

If you were to mix the dry powdered material with an aqueous food acid you might find that there is almost no mucilage and that the rehydrated material could be strained through a stocking and squeezed to get the remaining juices out. This would most likely taste quite tarte rather than nauseatingly bitter.

Or so I would imagine.

[naja naja]

Wat about a simple ethanolic extraction on dried powder?

[Monk]

After trying methods such as blended fresh("alien spooj,") dried chunks("pedro chips,") pedro jello, and crude cooked down extract, my south american friend arrived back at dried capped up material. I made a thread before titled "Enzymes," that detailed his experiences using food enzyme blends to clear up this stomach discomfort. It seems humans are not designed to digest large amounts of hemicellulose, oligosaccharides and various other long chain sugars. These supplements are cheap, however, and helped him IMMENSELY with the bloating/tummy problems. Hell, I even found one preparation that had glutenase in it for people with celiacs disease and other gluten intolerance. Torsten may want to check that one out. Anyway, this method required the least processing for lazy people and those that want to preserve any of the more temp. sensitive components that may be in the material. Also, he has the same experience as Dodie with the learned response to the flavor/smell. Some folks may object, however, to having to swallow 20-100 gel caps over a period of time. He says that 20 of T.pach is all day technicolor enhanced stimulation with 40-60 being more entheogenic/visual. Allegedly, 97 was 18 hrs. of undersea adventure complete with fish-people, kelp-alyptus forests and musical dancing buildings.

[SaBReT00tH]

can 60-80grams of average strain australian pachanoi powder do any harm? Can you OD on mesc and other pachanoi alkaloids?

Edited May 21, 2007 by SaBReT00tH

[Monk]

According to him, 97 big caps was 28 grams(california home depot purchased, shipped to south america, grown on for 2 years.) I think, unless the variety is very weak, that 60-80 g. dose sounds quite large. Start small with unkown material, potency can vary wildly. Too much in that ballpark prolly won't kill you, but you'll have a hell of an unpleasant ride for quite some hours. I see puking, incoherency, and nothing learned in that future.

[Jack]

Can you OD on mesc and other pachanoi alkaloids?

There have been no verified human deaths from mescaline ever.

there is one unconfirmed report of a person who died during military experiments after receiving a 15 gram dose intravenously. (k.Trout)

The LD50 for mescaline has been established in the range of 800-1200mg/kg orally (with rats)

[planthelper]

i have tried 3 different methodes whilst staying in south america.

1,the green layer, fresh and the skin peeled(the skin comes off easy if you put the desected pieces {cut along the grooves and cut away all the white stuff, use only the green} of pedro into the strong sun) off, result, hard to eat in large ammounts but possible.

2, the green layer dried and powdered without skin, easy to swallow, but once it hit's your stomach expands enormously, and because of this, it's a no, no for me. just put some green powder in a jar and add water, kaboom, it will expand to probably close to it's original volume, if not even more. having something expand in your stomach all at once can't be good. thats why, lot's of small caps have been suggested before!

3, if you boil for a long time you can reduce the liquid to a great extent, which is easy to gulp down, this is my preferred methode.

but, although i never tried this, i would say that it is possible to totaly dry out a boiled down extract and than cap the resin.

one could even try to vaporize this resin (maybe basify the resin beforehand), to obtain a business man lunch type experience!!

[Monk]

planthelper, I wonder if that process(basification/vaporization) would actually lead to a "business man's lunch" or a very long lunch. Let's see...could we safely estimate 1/4 the length of time of an oral experience based on vap/oral differences of other alks i.e. spice, psilo, C, etc? 3 hour lunch sounds nice if that peruvian doesn's have to get back to work right away Also, my peruvian pen pal has used the cooked down to powder resin method. He was not as impressed as with dried bulk material. He said something about inefficient extraction or inherent losses of goodies and fragile compounds. Back to the other thing, I wonder if it would be hard on the lungs to try to absorb 300-500 mg of alks, hypothetically.

[The Dude]

Vapourisation sounds like such a cool thing to try if it hasn't been done before. This and the psilocin xtal evaporation are top of the list of things for my gnome to try.

[-YT-]

As Rev mentioned dried material should be just as potent as fresh material but then again could be certain alkaloid changes and loss etc with the less known PEA's not so much with mescaline.

Also rate of absorbtion/metabolism of a brew compared with say dried capped material would greatly vary i imagine, maybe a slower more drawn out experience with the caps compared to a harder more intense expereince with the brew... again cactus in question would also factor into this

also heard a good way to use the dried material instead of caps is to mix with some OJ and cocoa powder and give it a good shake and down that... shouldnt expand to much more in ones stomach... all pure speculation offcourse

[t st tantra]

a brew produced as per my method then thoughly dried,finely ground shortly before use,is about a tablespoon of powder that does not reconstitute immediately.dumped into ginger/lime cordial it forms lumps that slide down easy mixed in a reasonable taste .the ginger/lime also is antinausea and seems to improve bioavailability or somesuch.

a bit more work but worth it.

t s t .