I will be jumping into 69ron's fabulous technique in the next day or so and have a few simple questions... Having prepared and consumer tea more than several times, I have always used the entire cactus, flesh, core... everything. My question is: Should I just cut off the outer flesh and pulverize that into powder? Which leads to my next question: Assuming the flesh is all I need, is it best to skin it and then let that dry out? And what is the best way to turn maybe 500g's into powder? Thanks in advance.
As far as I know, you want the outer part of the cacti, since the core contains very small amounts of alkaloids. Don't quote me on that, however. As for powdering it.. do you have a food processor or a coffee grinder or something? Once your cacti material is dry, it should be fairly easy to just run it through something with a fast spinning blade.
You will normally notice a 1/4 inch thick, dark green layer of flesh directly under the skin. This is the best bit. I always harvest this by cutting it off at aprox 1/2 the radius of the cacti (so that I am guaranteed to get all of the dark green bit, and some of the white flesh, which also containes mescaline, just in lower quantities.) DO NOT eat the core otherwise you will be drinking way more disgusting liquid than you need to. Also It is harsh on he stomach. I strongly reccomend skinning the cactus. Many people ignore this step because it is somewhat time consuming, But its totally worth it. I believe the skin is indigestable and largley responsible for the nausea. Here is a tip: Cut the cacti vertically in strips along the ridges, just enough to peirce the skin. Leave it in the sun for a couple of hours and you will notice how the flesh seems to shrink and expose the corners of the skin. Now simply grab a corner and peel the skin off. This is easier if you have fingernails and if there are no wounds or marks on the cacti. As For drying. I havent found a technique that works best, but ive heard that oven drying can be effective. Good luck.
