Hello/cool ideas/exciting stuff

[djulain]

Hello! I've been playing with kratom for some time now (6ish years) and kinda got lazy and found a smoke shop selling $10 oz's that they imported from indonesia and packed up themselves, and so have not been as active as I could have been in hunting down good sources. So, I just ordered a like 6 different strains from BB and I'll write some reviews when that comes in. Should eclipse this smoke shop's stuff but ya never know, past five years have been pretty steadily kratom-y so maybe I just don't notice much. I did notice some stuff from moon kratom gave me the euphoria I've been missing so it's entirely possible that shop was selling junk. They're just really cool guys and my friends never minded picking up an extra oz from them when I was too broke to do it so idk. Just figured I'd give some background. Kratom's always been there for me when hard drugs needed to go so I'd love to share what I've learned.

Anyway, I started a CBD company recently and we're working with a big ol' lab who found a way to make most water-insoluble compounds soluble (like fully soluble, 20nm particle size for cbd, this ain't some nanoemulsion shit) so you can bet one of the first things I did was test to see if I could dissolve some shitty "brand name" kratom extract and get that bioavailability up from like 0.3% to mid-90%s (don't quote me on that). Anyway, it worked I think, but this is obviously a recipe for disaster, so this will never be a thing available on the market. A good friend of mine has a "lab" for his hemp extraction company that he more or less built and has free reign over--any experiments people are curious to see carried out? Again, for obvious reasons this stuff will never go live. But you know, science calls. I want to start dumping time (until I have money to dump) into mitragynine pseudoindoxyl because that's a fucking gamechanger.

I've got background in molecular biology and neuroscience (and shortly /finally/ some degrees to back that up) so if anyone wants to shoot the shit about those topics and specifically their application in phytosciences I'm always game. So that's my introduction--figured it'd be wisest to post before I start posting reviews. If anyone has any recommended vendors, especially for green and white strains (or semi-pure extracts/isolates of any kratom-related compound if that's allowed) I'm game to try anyone, and have a whole fleet of friends who seem game to try anything I'll try.

[whiffypants]

Welcome, djulain, and thanks for the introduction! Look forward to hearing your reviews.

[BallzDeep9]

.. background in molecular biology and neuroscience ..

Welcome! Most of us here are originally from Reddit, and I've been amazed picking up on some of the experience of fellow kratom-ites there. Now over 45K subscribers, however we started this place to discuss sources, and other non-censored topics. Reddit is still a good resource on things like extract making.

I'm doing a "quick" daily extract method that involves freezing, re-freezing, and filtering .. Entirely water based, but the cell lysis as you know, is a mechanical process that will separate alkaloids from base plant matter .. It's somewhere between extraction, and coffee brewing! I'd be interested in learning more about CBD isolates, and possible combo with Mitra.

Your best resource for both pure alkaloid Extract, and Tincture, right now, is MOBO = Magnum Opus Botanicals: https://www.magnumopusbotanicals.com/

Freeze & Filter: Green Alkaloid Smoothie

[djulain]

I'm doing a "quick" daily extract method that involves freezing, re-freezing, and filtering .. Entirely water based, but the cell lysis as you know, is a mechanical process that will separate alkaloids from base plant matter .. It's somewhere between extraction, and coffee brewing! I'd be interested in learning more about CBD isolates, and possible combo with Mitra.

Your best resource for both pure alkaloid Extract, and Tincture, right now, is MOBO = Magnum Opus Botanicals: https://www.magnumopusbotanicals.com/

right on! do you find you get much with just a water extraction? i was under the impression that most of the alkaloids are not very soluble in water but then again, caffeine as a freebase isn't either and i'm not about to deny the role coffee plays in my life.

i'm playing with a couple herbs right now on top of kratom and really digging skullcap--might be worth checking out if you haven't already! it should potentiate kratom on top of its own effects--hard to say for sure but I do notice I can pull my dosing back quite a bit. seems to up the duration, but again that could be due to its own effects. however the active components do have some significant cyp450 enzyme activity so i'd assume that is partially responsible. it's got some dopaminergic effects, GABAergic, and most importantly, neurogenic stuff. i'm hoping i can get some of the flavanoids isolated when I get back to colorado because, while natural is great, a lot of them counter-act each other to some extent and I can see a lot of potential in each on its own or in combination with one or two others. either major type of skullcap has the alkaloids, though down the line i'm hoping to do some work with Baikal skullcap instead of the north american type I have now. though this north american type is absolutely killer in terms of anxiety reduction now that i'm quitting benzos for the 800th time.

[djulain]

Welcome, djulain, and thanks for the introduction! Look forward to hearing your reviews.

thanks d00d you got a killer site up and running here i'm sending all my friends over since most of them are kratom connoisseurs in their own right.

[whiffypants]

Welcome to all your connoisseur friends as well! And it's very interesting what you had to say about skullcap: I've loved it for years as a relaxer and anti-spasmodic, and though I know next to nothing about the chemistry, based on personal experience alone I can see how they'd be incredibly synergistic, kratom and skullcap together.

Speaking of extracts, I did an alcohol tincture a few months ago with some kratom odds and ends I had, and it ended up being far more potent than I'd ever have guessed. I used kratom, lemon juice, most of a liter of Everclear, a teaspoon of pure stevia (because I had read that steviosides effectively extract kratom alkaloids) and six weeks in the freezer, shaking it up as often as I remembered to do so. It was SO powerful that I didn't even bother reducing it when it was done. I just strained it and then backed away... slowly...

[BallzDeep9]

It was SO powerful that I didn't even bother reducing it when it was done.

Interesting, whiffy, without reducing or evaporating the alcohol, wouldn't you be ingesting a lot of booze with your kratom?

What is your final yield then, from powder to fluid ounces. I've never done a Tincture but sounds like it would be fun to try!

[whiffypants]

Interesting, whiffy, without reducing or evaporating the alcohol, wouldn't you be ingesting a lot of booze with your kratom?

Nope. No more than in any other herbal tincture, anyway. That's what I'm saying: it was extract strength -before- reduction. Hence, no reduction.

Put it this way: I got SO blitzed on less than a half cup of the rinsings (where I saved the clear water I rinsed my nearly dry jars and filtering utensils with, about 8 ounces total) that I didn't dare reduce the extract further. This was the first kratom extract I had made, but I have decades of experience making other herbal tinctures: when the rinse water is that strong, you don't reduce further. I had actually saved it to add to tea, but just 2-3 ounces of mostly clear rinse water was like taking a couple of Ambien.

If you try it, you'll see.

What is your final yield then, from powder to fluid ounces. I've never done a Tincture but sounds like it would be fun to try!

It -was- fun, and pretty easy. The hardest part was remembering to shake the jars at least once daily in the freezer. Filtering wasn't easy, but in the end I used my old salad spinner and "nut milk" type filter bags: the centrifugal force did it all, and when I was done I couldn't press anything else out. I also froze the kratom twice: when it was just kratom and lemon juice mud, I froze it solid for 48 hours, and then thawed it completely, added the stevia and Everclear, and froze it for a further six weeks.

Amounts: I had 150g of kratom, various strains, about two cups of fresh lemon juice, a bit of stevia and enough Everclear to fill two quart size Mason jars with approximately an inch of headroom in each. After all was said and done, I ended up with close to a quart of extract. So let's call it 150g of kratom to 28-30 oz of filtered extract.

Check out the link in my last post if you want more info; Mariospeedragon is the guy whose tech I used and who helped me immensely when I first started. Apparently the freezing method he shared with me is a cannabis tech that he adapted for kratom, and I adapted a bit further. Most of our conversation was on that thread, and you know where to find us both if you'd like to know more.

[djulain]

damn tho. how did the subjective effects compare to raw leaf? if i'm being entirely honest if i'm looking for opiates i'll just shoot some opiates (though now with my business and whatnot I'm really shying away from that lifestyle these days) but kratom gives me a unique euphoria that opiates don't. i may have to try this out and toss it in the water soluble-izing liquid i have.

i wonder if i could run that classic orgo lab subcritical co2 extraction experiment on kratom. i managed to get some beautiful d-limonene from orange peels when i did it the first time. plus subcritical/supercritical co2 looks like the melty dude in terminator 2

[whiffypants]

how did the subjective effects compare to raw leaf? if i'm being entirely honest if i'm looking for opiates i'll just shoot some opiates (though now with my business and whatnot I'm really shying away from that lifestyle these days) but kratom gives me a unique euphoria that opiates don't.

It's not much like raw leaf. It's like the heaviest red that ever was, what I would liken to xanax washed down with vodka: full head-nodding couch lock, but without falling asleep. No euphoria at all, just complete relaxation. It was delightful.

So delightful, in fact, that I have stayed way the hell away from it. I finished the extract in early March, this is late July, and I think I've hit it -maybe- three times -- lightly -- in all that time. I enjoy regular kratom too much to amp my tolerance up with tincture like that.

...subcritical/supercritical co2 looks like the melty dude in terminator 2