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Soxhlet Extraction
Bufotenin
by Ron
Citation:   Ron. "Soxhlet Extraction: An Experience with Bufotenin (exp67680)". Erowid.org. Sep 29, 2011. erowid.org/exp/67680

 
DOSE:
7 mg smoked Bufotenin (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 250 lb
I had recently upgraded my lab with a Soxhlet extractor. These things are GREAT! I decided to try extracting bufotenine from Anadenanthera colubrina using my Soxhlet extractor. After reading about Jonathan Ott’s freebase bufotenine experiences, I was dying to try it for myself. So I did an extraction. Here’s what I did:

1) Ground 100 grams of Anadenanthera colubrina beans in a birr mill coffee grinder. I set it to medium.

2) I roasted the beans in an oven for 1 hour at 300 F. They smelled wonderful. Sort of like roasted peanuts and sunflower seeds.

3) I did a pre-defatting process. I placed a cotton round (the type used for makeup) in the bottom of a fritted glass extraction thimble. I poured the beans into the thimble. I added cotton balls to prevent the beans from coming out of the thimble during Soxhlet extraction. I loaded the thimble into a 1000 ml Soxhlet extractor. I added 600 ml of DCM to the boiling flask used below the Soxhlet extractor. I used running water to cool the Allihn condenser attached on top of the Soxhlet extractor. I turned the heat up to 540 C on the hotplate and let the Soxhlet extractor run for 8 hours. At that point the DCM in the Soxhlet chamber was completely clear, indicating all the DCM soluble oils and fats were extracted. The salt form of bufotenine present in the beans is not soluble in DCM, so there is no worry of losing any bufotenine during the defatting process. At the end of the extraction the DCM was orange. During the run, there were times it stopped siphoning and the DCM just dripped down the siphon tube endlessly. When that happened I added 10 ml of DCM to the Soxhlet extractor by pouring it down through a pressure whole in top of the Allihn condenser. This would force a siphon.

4) I took apart the Soxhlet extractor and put aside the DCM for recycling.

5) I drained all the DCM off the beans and thoroughly dried the beans in an oven for 1 hour at 300 F. I washed the entire Soxhlet extraction apparatus so that no more DCM was present.

6) I began extracting bufotenine from the beans by placing the dried beans back into the Soxhlet extractor as before, only this time I used 600 ml of 91% isopropyl alcohol instead of DCM. As before, I used running water as the coolant in the condenser, and set the hotplate to 540 C. I ran the Soxhlet extractor for 18 hours. There were no siphoning problems at all during the run. After 18 hours, the isopropyl alcohol in the Soxhlet chamber still looked lightly yellow. I could probably have run it even longer, but I think all the bufotenine has been extracted at this point.

7) I removed the isopropyl alcohol from the extractor and distilled it down to 50 ml. I added 100 ml of water. The color was very dark amber, nearly black. I washed it 7 times with DCM in a separatory funnel. Each wash used 75 ml of DCM and was shaken vigorously 100 times in a separatory funnel and then the DCM was discarded (saved to be recycled). What’s cool is that no emulsions ever formed. DCM is notorious for causing emulsions and would have if I didn’t do the pre-defatting step earlier. These washes removed inactive dark amber colored material.

8) I then started the freebase alkaloid extraction step. I added 75 ml of DCM and shook it 100 times. The color of the DCM was very light yellow. The color of the aqueous layer was very dark amber. I checked the pH of the aqueous layer. It was 2.8. I added 25 ml of clear ammonia. This brought the pH up to 9.5. Immediately the aqueous layer became orange and cloudy with freebase alkaloids. I shook the separatory funnel 100 times. The DCM layer became a rich amber color. The alkaloids moved into the DCM. I saved the DCM. I extracted with 75 ml of DCM 5 more times until the DCM became very light yellow again indicating most of the alkaloids were extracted out of the aqueous layer.

9) I washed the DCM 4 times in a separatory funnel. Each wash used with 200 ml of water made pH 10 with clear ammonia and was shook 30 times in a separatory funnel. The water was discarded.

10) After washing the DCM, I distilled off most of the DCM and then dried the rest in an oven in a dish at 300 F for 1 hour. I scraped up the dried extract. It was crystalline and dark amber brown. It was very easy to scrape it up. The extract weighed 2.9 grams. That’s a 2.9 % yield. Not bad!

11) I took a small portion of the extract and had my friend analyze it via gas chromatography. Tests showed it contained only bufotenine. No other alkaloids were found, not even a trace of DMT or even 5-MeO-DMT. It was just bufotenine, just like Jonathan Ott’s results, and the DEA’s recent results. Last week, my friend’s own extract from Anadenanthera colubrina also only contained bufotenine. He followed Jonathan Ott’s extraction tech exactly. So I’m starting to disbelieve that any of the beans have DMT or 5-MeO-DMT in them. But why do all the old books state these beans have bufotenine, as well as DMT and 5-MeO-DMT in them? Is there a special variety of these beans that has all of them? Or do they all only have bufotenine? Are these old books wrong? Did they test the wrong species? It’s possible. It seems that all the recent research shows they only have bufotenine. Maybe the older tests were actually done on Anadenanthera peregrina mistakenly thought to be Anadenanthera colubrina? Makes sense to me. The beans of these two different plants do look alike.

I tested 10 mg of the extract by vaporizing it. I inhaled as much as I could. I held it in my lungs for about 20 seconds. The smoke was a little harsh. I couldn’t inhale any more. There was a little left. I maybe vaporized about 7 mg of the 10 mg. I’m not sure. Immediately I began feeling a slight prickling sensation in the back of my head. This spread throughout by body and became a pleasant tingling sensation. After about 1 minute I was having extremely intense visuals. Everything was melting and swirling around me. After about 3 minutes I was higher than I’d ever been in my life, and I’m very familiar with large doses of LSD, DMT, mushrooms, etc. This was extremely intense. I’m not sure of the exact time of the events. I tried taking notes but could no longer concentrate after 3 minutes. Everything was pulsating. Colors were spinning around me. I was seeing all sorts of abstract shapes, faces, places, all superimposed onto reality. I could not see reality the way it was.

The open eye visuals were extremely intense, more intense than anything I’ve experienced before. The visuals were stronger than reality was. I could barely see reality with my eyes opened. After about 5 minutes, I began hearing all sorts of voices and sounds that weren’t there. It was awesome. I had visions of mostly people. These did not look flat. They looked like they were there in front of me. Like I could reach out and grab them. They weren’t your typical open eye visuals. But they didn’t look real. They were constantly morphing and twisting. It was totally awesome. After about 1 hour the effects started fading and I could concentrate a little more. The comedown was VERY PLEASANT. I felt on top of the world. All throughout the entire trip I felt very strong aphrodisiac effects.

This was a very intense experience. Bufotenine is very powerful. It’s stronger than DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, LSD, mushrooms, and peyote. During the trip I didn’t feel any of the side effects people say you get from bufotenine. Apparently you only feel side effects from bufotenine if you take it orally, snort it, or inject it.

The effects are unique. Towards the end of the trip it feels a little mushroom like. But the come up and peak are nothing like anything else there is. The visual effects are super intense and very electric. There’s a strobe like effect to the visuals with is really cool. Things look like they are flashing. With each flash, the colors were changing, objects were morphing, etc. The visuals were very rhythmic in nature, almost like they were dancing. The only unpleasant thing I felt was the prickling sensation right before the trip started. It lasted about 40 seconds and became a pleasant tingling sensation. My sense of touch seemed heightened during the trip. I found it very pleasant to touch thing and move my body around. All of my senses were revved up.

All it all, I really enjoyed the trip. It was like a trip through wonderland.

I must say that I don’t recommend that people inexperienced with psychedelics play around with freebase bufotenine. The intensity of the visuals and auditory hallucinations could be very frightening for those not familiar with psychedelics. Also, you need a very accurate scale to measure the dosage. I think some people would totally freak out from bufotenine if they took more than they could handle. Its like DMT times 10. It’s that intense.

Exp Year: 2007ExpID: 67680
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 29, 2011Views: 20,598
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Bufotenin (62) : Glowing Experiences (4), Preparation / Recipes (30), Unknown Context (20)

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