Well since you asked, but don't say I didn't warn you....
- Michael Valentine Smith: Psychedelic Chemistry
From pages 105-107:
The Culture and Extraction of Ergot Alkaloids
Make up a culture medium by combining the following
ingredients in about 500 milliliters of distilled water
in a 2 liter, small-neck flask:
Sucrose .................................... 100 grams
Chick pea meal .............................. 50 grams
Calcium nitrate .............................. 1 gram
Monopotassium phosphate ...................... 0.25 grams
Magnesium sulphate ........................... 0.25 grams
Potassium chloride ........................... 0.125 grams
Ferrous sulphate heptahydrate ................ 8.34 milligrams
Zinc sulphate heptahydrate ................... 3.44 milligrams
Add water to make up one liter, adjust pH 4 with ammonia
solution and citric acid. Sterile by autoclaving.
Inoculate the sterilized medium with Claviceps purpurea
under sterile conditions, stopper with sterilized cotton
and incubate for two weeks periodically testing and
maintaining pH 4. After two weeks a surface culture will
be seen on the medium. Large-scale production of the fungus
can now begin.
Obtain several ordinary 1 gallon jugs. Place a two-hole
stopper in the necks of the jugs. Fit a short (6 inch)
glass tube in one hole, leaving 2 inches above the stopper.
Fit a short rubber tube to this. Fill a small (500
milliliter) Erlenmeyer flask with a dilute solution of
sodium hypochlorite, and extend a glass tube from the rubber
tube so the end is immersed in the hypochlorite. Fit a long,
glass tube in the other stopper hole. It must reach near
the bottom of the jug and have about two inches showing
above the stopper. Attach a rubber tube to the glass tube as
short or as long as desired, and fit a short glass tube to
the end of the rubber tube. Fill a large, glass tube (1 inch
x 6 inches) with sterile cotton and fit 1-hole stoppers in
the ends. Fit the small, glass tube in end of the rubber
tube into 1 stopper of the large tube. Fit another small
glass tube in the other stopper. A rubber tube is connected
to this and attached to a small air pump obtained from a
tropical fish supply store. You now have a set-up for pumping
air from the pump, through the cotton filter, down the long
glass tube in the jug, through the solution to the air
space in the top of the jug, through the short glass tube,
down to the bottom of the Erlenmeyer flask and up through
the sodium hypochlorite solution into the atmosphere. With
this aeration equipment you can assure a supply of clean air
to the Claviceps purpurea fungus while maintaining a sterile
atmosphere inside the solution.
Dismantle the aerators. Place all the glass tubes, rubber
tubes, stoppers and cotton in a paper bag, seal tight with
wire staples and sterilize in an autoclave.
Fill the 1-gallon jugs 2/3 to 3/4 full with the culture
medium and autoclave.
While these things are being sterilized, homogenize in a
blender the culture already obtained and use it to inoculate
the media in the gallon jugs. The blender must be sterile.
Everything must be sterile.
Assemble the aerators. Start the pumps. A slow bubbling
in each jug will provide enough oxygen to the cultures. A
single pump can, of course, be connected to several filters.
Let everything sit a room temperature (25 C) in a fairly
dark place (never expose ergot alkaloids to bright light -
they decompose) for a period of ten days.
After ten days adjust the culture to 1% ethanol using 95%
ethanol under sterile conditions. Maintain growth for another
two weeks.
After total of 24 days growth period the culture should
be considered mature. Make the culture acidic with tartaric
acid and homogenize in a blender for one hour.
Adjust to pH 9 with ammonium hydroxide and extract with
benzene or chloroform/iso-butanol mixture.
Extract again with alcoholic tartaric acid and evaporate
in a vacuum to dryness. The dry material in the salt (i.e.,
the tartaric acid salt, the tartrate) of the ergot alkaloids,
and is stored in this form because the free basic material is
too unstable and decomposes readily in the presence of light,
heat, moisture and air.
To recover the free base for extraction of the amide of
synthesis to LSD, make the tartrate basic with ammonia to pH
9, extract with chloroform and evaporate in vacuo.
If no source of pure Claviceps purpurea fungus can be
found, it may be necessary to make a field trip to obtain
the ergot growths from rye or other cereal grasses. Rye
grass is by far the best choice. The ergot will appear as a
blackish growth on the tops of the rye where the seeds are
and are referred to as "heads of ergot." From these heads
of ergot sprout the Claviceps purpurea fungi. They have
long steams with bulbous heads when seen under a strong
glass or microscope. It is these that must be removed
from the ergot, free from contamination, and used to
inoculate the culture media. The need for absolute sterility
cannot be overstressed. Consult any elementary text on
bacteriology for the correct equipment and procedures.
Avoid prolonged contact with ergot compounds, as they are
poisonous and can be fatal. ----------------
The whole part with the pump is unecessary, you can get
micropore 1-gallon jugs from
www.fungi.com, and alot of
the gear you would need, obtaining a pure strain sounds
like the tricky part, culturing and selection of
pure-looking samples a couple times should do it.. LSD
must be synthesized, it's such a beautiful molecule...
