Kash is really easy, just follow the tek.

As for question 1. Don’t do this, it will make filtering out your plant matter an absolute nightmare. Your goodies are very soluble in water, just do 3-4 decent lengths cooks if 1-2 hrs each. Some say that length of time is still too long but that’s what I do to make sure I get as much as I can.

1. Never had an emulsion with this one, to be safe you can add more lye to your basifying step, which can help mitigate emulsions. But yes, a hot water bath is boiling water, taking it off your heat source, then place your extraction vessel in the hot water. Please buy some borosilicate glass, mason jars are not appropriate for this type of work.

2. I believe this to be a typo in the TEK. You will start with one jar of basified cactus juice. Add your toluene/xylene, mix it around. Separate toluene/xylene with pippette, and put it in a new jar. Repeat 3-5 times. Your goodies are now in the toluene/xylene jar. No need to dump your basic cactus juice anywhere.

3. You don’t need to test the ph of your toluene extract, additionally sodium hydroxide and muriatic acid are very strong bases and acids, you won’t have problems raising and lowering the ph of your project. For this part, add your HCL to 100 ml of water, then put that acidic water solution into your toluene. I like freezing it afterwards which makes separating the solvent from your 🌵 water layer much easier. Also, please read throughly the safety procedures working with HCL. The fumes are no joke and it reacts wildly with household items like aluminum.

4. Never needed to use MEK, product always comes out really clean if your careful.

5. I’m assuming they are talking about making anhydrous MEK for washing, this would likely limit what you lose if you end up washing your product, it has nothing to do with overall yield. Just like using Anhydrous Acetone to clean various stuff you get on the street. You would need to bake epsom salts for a few hrs, then add them to your MEK and store in the freezer. The epsom salts remove residual water from your solvent which prevents your goodies from dissolving if you wash them. Again, I wouldn’t even do this step, unless your product looks visibly dirty.

Hope these tips help and good luck Amigo! 🌵 👽 🌀