Large scale san pedro extraction

I can get about 40 feet of san pedro for cheap. I would like to extract it all at once and would want to be able to save the extraction for awhile. So, can anyone recommend an extraction that wound work?

 

what you are going to need to do is cut off all the spines first. Wash the cactus and begin to cut up the cactus into 3in sections. Then begin to cut off the outer dark green layers of the sections.

Lay out a large cardboard and place all the skins skin side down with the dark green flesh up in full sun for 5-7days. You can use a conventional oven on the lowest setting using baking sheets skinside down. This takes a long while and makes your place reek of cacti!

Shred the dryed skins in a blender, then powder them in a coffee grinder. You get like 50g powder to the 1foot of SP. so 40x50 = 2000g or 4.5lbs. Thats about 20g-40gs alkaloids.

For a large cook I would advise cooking out the alkaloids using 1tbsp vitamin c powder or citric acid per 1liter of water. In a large stainless steel cooking pot add your SP powder and vitamin c water until it becomes very soupy.

Simmer the soupy mixture for 20min with frequent stirring. Use the lid to pour off the cooked water into a seperate container and refresh the pot with fresh vitamin c water. Cook powder 3x to extract all water soluble alkaloids.

Filter extract solution and let sit overnite to sediment then pour off solution into a clean container. Use 1 gallon ziplock baggies to seperate sediment out of solution.

Evaporate water layer on large glass baking dish in oven at lowest setting to a wet solid. All wet solid to dry at room temp. Scrape and consume as is or purify to a salt using the a/b tek below.

 

1/2lb (224gs) of San Pedro var. Cactus powder is added to a clean 2 quart plastic HDPE2 ammonia bottle.

1500ml of tap water is added to the bottle and shaken.

6tbsps of NaOH(lye) is added using a funnel 1tbsp at a time. Cap and shake bottle after each tbsp to distribute NaOH(lye) evenly and to avoid melting the bottle.

500ml d-limonene or xylene solvant is added to bottle using a funnel which will fill the bottle to maximum capacity. Make sure to leave a little air bubble at the top to help with the mixing process. Cap and shake bottle as much as you can the first day and let sit over night.

The strong alkaline cactus solution will shrink a bit over night so you will need to add a little more solvant the next day, shake again and let seperate.

Drill a hole in a spare cap and feed a 3ft long piece of 3/8in clear vinyl tubbing at 8 and 1/4cm long from the bottom of the cap to siphon off the solvant.

Cap and siphon solvant into a pint glass Ball mason jar. Make sure to only get solvant and no cacti solution. Some solvant will be left behind in the solution bottle. 300ml to 400ml of solvant is perfect for salting.

Add 1tbsp NaOH(lye) to the cactus solution using a funnel, cap and shake.

Add 2oz of distilled water to the jar of siphoned solvant and 2 drops of hardware store brand 31.45% muratic acid(HCl) using a tincture dropper and shake for 5min. Seperate layers in a quart ziplock freezer baggie or freeze hcl extract layer solid by putting jar in the freezer.

Hang baggie up by one corner and carefully snip a small hole in the bottom corner to slowly drain the bottom clear to foamy layer into a clean ball mason jar.

Drain the solvant layer back into the solution bottle, cap and shake for 5min then let seperate. At this point the solution will seperate in a few minutes.

Shake and let seperate a few times to maximize extraction yields.

Extract the cactus solution 4x. One right after the other. Do not wait another day. All extractions after the first day of seperation need to be perfomed back to back to ensure the highest purity from cactus fats and oils. After a few days of sitting and seperating, the solvant layer absorbs fatty oils that make the 2oz hcl water layers foamy instead of clear.

All 4 hcl water extraction layers are collected together in a jar of 200ml fresh solvant and shaken repeatedly to wash the hcl extract solution. This will help remove any solvant soluble materials that may have polluted the hcl extract solution layer. The mixture is seperated with freezing.

Make sure to remove the frozen hcl layer to evaporation(evap) dish before it melts or you will be scraping excess crystals off the inner jar.

The hcl extract solution is evaporated on a large glass baking dish, using a fan or 150F oven. Fan evaporation will ensure that you do not damage the product. The oven is great for testing to see if alkaloids will crystal from the material being used or if the extractors are in a hurry.

Pack into '0' gelatin capsules using the back end of a clean hammer nail.

Refer to ekstanza's tek for more regarding this method.