10-14-04 06:30
No 535758
Hello everyone. I'm getting my new order of HBWR in tomorrow and I need a new way to extract the LSA. I've done a cold water extraction, and I've just eaten the seeds. However, both of those ways made me sick.
The consensus I've got from this forum is that the most popular way to extract the LSA is with a non-polar extraction using PE, followed by a polar extraction, using something polar. Now, the topic of the nausea wasn't really brought up much, so hopefully someone can help me here.
Questions:
1.) Does the non-polar/polar extraction, which apparently gives you a yellow gunk substance, get rid of the nausea? Is ALL of the nausea caused by the cyanogenic glycosides?
2.) I don't quite understand why, if the "bad stuff" only comes out in the non-polar solvent, whats the point? Why not just start with the polar solvent, and pull out the LSA? Or am I wrong here, and the "bad stuff" comes out in the non-polar AND polar, but the LSA only comes out in the polar. Is this correct? It sounds correct to me, but this is why I'm asking.
3.) If the non-polar/polar solvent method of LSA extraction DOESN'T get rid of the nausea, is there any way at all to do so? If so, could someone clarify what exactly causes the nausea? All I know is that it's something with the outer shell containing cyanogenic glycosides, similar to what's in apple seeds.
4.) For the polar step in the non-polar/polar extraction, could I just use water? I'm trying to minimize the amount of stuff I have to buy/put my seeds in. If I could just make due with PE followed by water, that would be great.
Thanks in advance for your help. This is a really interesting forum.
(Hive Bee)
10-14-04 07:37
No 535766
Before somebody else starts screaming 'UTFSE', I'll be the nice guy and answer your questions as far as I am possible to...
1. No, probably there are also other not very healthy substances in there - dunno
2. The "bad stuff" is soluble in both polar AND nonpolar solvents. The "good stuff" (LSA) is only soluble in polar solvents. By first removing the bad stuff with a nonpolar, you can safely extract the LSA with a polar (alcohol) afterwards, as there is only good stuff left.
3. A/B extractions should get rid of anything besides alkaloids. If they cause you nausea, you have bad luck...
4. Maybe, if you acidify the water (citric acid or similar) it could work. But alcohols are far better in creeping into the plant matter and getting all goods outta there very fast, plus you can evaporate them in a matter of hours; water has to be evapped over several days, since you cannot heat your LSA (would be destroyed). So alcohol is the polar of choice here. Use vodka if you can't get anything else, MeOH or even better food grade EtOH are recommended (you will ingest the residue, won't you? so better use something nontoxic)
Good luck!
indole_amine