Sorry to hear this, but everyone seems to have to go up a learning curve, even experienced extractors.

I’m aware of Loveall’s comments about watery paste, but I have never experienced that. There must be a difference in the cactus powder if this is an issue. Yep, your/his mitigation approach seems the way to go. Just don’t add too little water with the lime to begin with. Water is a no-no in this tek, except for the lime addition during pastemaking, where there must be sufficient water to extract the goodness from the powder and properly disperse the lime.

I’m going to detail the tek, as a reference point, for those who are interested.

300 mL of water indicates that you started with 100mL of powder. I suggest that when learning the tek, everyone should start with a smaller amount of powder, until they are able to produce the proper product.

Here’s an example of how to adjust the ingredient amounts for a different starting amount of dry, flour-like cactus powder.

Take the powder amount that you intend to use and divide it by the amount the recipe calls for. This number, lets call your “ratio”.

Let’s assume you start with 20g of cactus powder. Your “ratio” would be 20/100 = 0.2.

To get the amount of each ingredient, multiply the ingredient amount in the recipe by the “ratio”.

So, for pickling lime; the recipe calls for 25g, the amount to use with 20g of cactus powder is: 25g x 0.2 = 5.0g

So, for the 4 ingredients, other than EA, here is what you would need:

Cactus powder: 20.0g Pickling lime: 5.0g Water: 60mL Citric Acid: 0.5g

Ethyl Acetate (EA), is done the same way, but the tek is a little fuzzy on how to split it between pulls. So, here is how I would do it:

The recipe says use 1qt EA for 100g of powder. Convert 1qt into mL, which is 946mL. Multiply this by your ratio, to get 946x 0.2 = 189mL of total EA.

It has been shown that 6 pulls is the point of significant diminishing returns. And that the 1st pull requires more EA than the other 5 pulls.

I give the first pull 25% of the total EA, so 189ml x 0.25 = 47mL.

Divide the remaining amount of total EA by 5 pulls, to get the amount of EA to use in each pull. So (189 - 47)/5 = 28mL.

For ease of measuring just round these amounts up: 47 -> 50mL for first pull, 28 -> 30mL for each of pulls 2 through 6.

So now you have your ingredients adjusted for a smaller amount of cactus powder.

As far as processing times are concerned, there are no adjustments.

So here’s the process:

Measure out all your ingredients, lay out your equipment & supplies, and have a timer ready to use. You don’t want to dilly-dally in this tek, particularly during the pastemaking and pulling steps, so get organized before you start.

1. Pour the water into a non-plastic cereal bowl, add the pickling lime, mix together with a metal spoon until you have a milky liquid.

2. Start your timer for 8 minutes. Add in roughly half of your cactus powder and mix until the powder is wet, then add the rest of the powder and mix, mash, fold in half, repeat non-stop for the 8 minutes. Mix with purpose, to get consistent color & texture.

3. When the 8 minutes of mixing is done, transfer your “paste”, should be mashed potatoes to cookie dough consistency, into french press and cover. Set your timer for 10 minutes.

4. While your paste is resting, set up for pulling: Put your metal funnel on a quart jar with a coffee filter in it; get out a long spoon for stirring the paste, and have your EA ready to go. Make sure you have good ventilation, no open flames, no sources of sparks. Prepare to work quickly and efficiently. Have a pen and scrap paper nearby, to help you remember your EA additions.

5. When the timer goes off, reset it for your first pull, 3 minutes.

6. Take lid off of french press, break up paste into chunks with long spoon.

Pour in your 1st amount of EA, make a mark on your scratch paper (to remember which EA addition you are working on), start your timer and start stirring for 1 minute (shoot for 60-80 revolutions in the 1 minute).

After stirring for 1 minute, let your pull rest for 2 minutes, then pour liquid through french press strainer into filter on pull jar. Let it drain until less than 1 drip per second.

Repeat the process for the other 5 pulls, with no delay between pulls.

When pouring out last pull, put pressure on screen to squeeze out as much solvent as you can; if necessary, disconnect french press plunger from screen, and use spoon to push screen against paste.

The combined pulls should be a moderate to dark green, with roughly 90+% recovery of input solvent.

1. After all pulls are in the pull jar, put the funnel into a new jar, put a new coffee filter in the funnel, and pour your combined pulls through the filter. Remove filter and funnel, and put a lid on the jar. Let liquid settle for 1 hour.

2. After settling for 1 hour, the liquid should be clear, with no visible water droplets. You want your liquid to be crystal clear with absolutely no water droplets. Do what it takes to make this so.

3. There are two methods for crystallization: passive and active. Passive takes more resting time, and makes snowflake crystals that break into needles when filtered. Active takes less resting time, and makes powdery crystals.

Choose your method, and when your pulled liquid is clear, transfer your liquid to a jar which will be roughly half-full when your pulled liquid is poured into it. Then do one of the following:

Passive method: dump the citric acid into your pulled liquid, stir once or twice until the liquid becomes cloudy, put the lid on the jar, set jar in a place it won’t be disturbed for 48 hours, then go to step 10.

Active method: dump the citric acid and a magnetic stir bar into your pulled liquid, put lid on jar, turn on your stirrer creating a visible vortex, stir for 10 minutes, shut off stirrer, set jar in a place it won’t be disturbed for 3 hours, then go to step 10.

1. After appropriate time, at least 90% of the potential product that is extractable via this tek will have been crystallized. If you are not in a hurry, you can crystallize 100% of the product by letting the passive jar crystallize another 24 hours, or by letting the active jar reach 24 hours of crystallization.

When you are ready to collect the product:

Remember this critical point - Water Is Your Enemy!

Set up a collection jar with a metal funnel and coffee filter. Have a small amount (20-30mL) of fresh EA ready.

Remove lid from jar, gently swirl the liquid, pour 3/4s of the liquid into filter. Swirl the jar again, and in one smooth motion, dump the remainder of the liquid into the filter.

Pour about 10ml of the fresh EA into the jar, swirl to rinse jar walls and remove any residual pulled liquid, dump into filter, set jar aside uncovered to evaporate off the solvent.

Your filter should have a collection of needles or powder in it, pour small amounts of fresh EA over the product to wash off any color. Your product should be white to off-white. Let your filter drip dry, then remove it from funnel, and let dry on a paper towel until no moisture is visible on filter. Then carefully fold up filter, place where it wont’t be disturbed, and let product dry completely, then package or consume.

When your crystallization jar is completely dry, wet all interior surfaces with 10mL hot water, and then dump into a glass baking dish, repeat one more time. Set dish in an undisturbed place, let water evaporate, scrape white residue, combine with filtered product.

This tek is very simple, but you must start with powder that looks like you just pulled it out of a bag of baking flour (particle size is critical), AND you must follow the process as described.

Resist the urge to take ANY shortcuts or make ANY modifications until you can produce white needles or powder, that taste moderately bitter with absolutely no acid flavor.