Next, he takes the top/opening of the bag and places it over the top/opening of the carboy. He lifts the carboy beeing careful to keep the bag over the opening, and slowly turns the carboy upside down. He tapes the bag to the carboy, makes sure its properly propped up, and takes a half hour break whilethe liquid drains. Think ahead, logistically when you do this! When he comes back, he removes the tape, picks up the carboy with the bag still in place, and then he takes a long scrapeing tool and empties the grb into the canvas bag. It can bee quite a chore! When thats done, he takes a little bit of the extract, pours it back into the carboy and cleans out any remaining scraps with it into the bag. Next, he takes a thin, strong metal rod, and threads it through 2 opposing eye-holes at the top of the bag. He twists the bag until there isnt any further slack, and then he uses his bare foot to both pin the bag down while he is squeezing the bag (by twisting the metal bar), and it also serves to help him balance and use his bodyweight to wring out as much extract as possible. His feet look like hes been making grapes when hes done. Discard the grb.
Next, its on to filtering, combine extracts and:
- carefully decant into 4 liter sep funnel (or whatever ya got), so as not to disturb sediment on the bottom.
- he has a near 4' stand that he sets up his sep funnel, and 3 filters on. The stand itself can bee placed on a 2 foot STURDY box/shelf so that a carboy or similar type container can bee placed underneath. Both ring stands and regular clamps can serve to hold regular funnels, as well as buchner funnels if you are really careful about it. Double check yourself by wiggling them around once attached. Swim sets them up in this order: #1 funnel filled with cotton balls, #2 funnel with 2 coffee filters, #3 funnel with 3 coffee filters.
- the sep funnel is situated above the three filters, and when the stopcock is opened, the liquid hits the cotton filter first, the 2 layer filter second, and finally, the 3 layered filter.
- the stopcock is opened, and the liquid is allowed to come out at a moderate speed until swim sees that the third filter is getting soaked. At this time, swim shuts off the sep funnel until he sees how fast the driprate is for the bottom funnel. He then reopens the stopcock so that its driprate is slightly slower than the bottom filter. This is slow, painstaking buisness. You also need to keep an eye on the bottom (slowest) filter every once and a while to make sure the driprate is proper, or youll end up overflowing.
One can also forgo this set-up and vac filter everything X3, but swim prefers this method, as he doesnt like using vac pumps unless absolutly nessisary.
Collect the extract in a large container, and begin your defat. Two washes is probably all that is nessisary, when swim defats X1, its a crapshoot whether or not he will end up with crystals, or gooey shit (fat). So do it three times. Preheat the naphta in a flask, just put it in a warm water bath for 20-30 minutes, luke-warm, maybee a little warmer than that. First wash, make certain to add the naphta GENTLY. Ya dont want alot of turbulence when the naphta hits the extract, as an emulsion will likely form. After the first wash, the danger of forming an emulsion drops considerably, and even more on the third. Swim doesnt let the defatting process take longer than 24 hours. He adds the naphta (try using a funnel with a narrow, long spout that so you can try and have the naphta hit the wall of your container, and then drop down onto the extract. Once again, add about 1/4 of the total volumes worth, when doing a larger extraction, swim will use even less. No sep funnel needed. Cover the container, and gently rock it back and forth. Do that for a few minutes every once and a while. Let it sit for an hour or so, come back, siphon off (its ok if you accidentally pull off a little extract when your working with big quantities). If your doing smaller quantities (~400 grams rootbark and less), use a sep funnel. Repeat 2 more times, but these times, its ok to shake a little more vigarously...a little more!
After the defatting is done, its time to basify. Swim will take a gallon jug filled about 1/3 of the way with DH2O, and saturate it with NaOH. He'll let this cool for a bit in the fridge. Next, add the NaOH solution and watch the pretty colors! Pour a little, rock/shake a little. With the bigger carboy, it can bee a pain to get the solution mixed. You will clearly bee able to tell if its mixed properly or not, because there will be very strong visual indication (color change) where the NaOH is and where it isnt. Keep going until you see that it has turned a soapy, brown/black/maroonish color. Its ok if you over basify a little (or alot actually!). No need for pH papers (if you must, shoot for 9.8-10ish).
to bee continued...
