Having never prepared an extraction before, my goal for my first experiment with creating a salvia extract was to get something. I was to stop and test the potency of the tar I would doing very little to filter out impurities. I started out by putting 1/4 cup (.06 liters) of packed, dry leaf dust into a .4 liter bottle of 91% isopropyl. I shook this up on and off throughout a night of websurfing and left it to settle for half a day of sleep and errands. I then poured most of the liquid (excluding the leafy sediment at the bottom) through a coffee filter into a wide teflon-coated dish. The isopropyl solution evaporated nicely with the help of a fan, not even leaving behind any water.

What I was left with was a little disappointing. Scraping the surface clean with a plastic scraper, I produced a glob of tar aspiring to be the size of a bb. It's currently sitting in a tiny ball of tissue wondering if anyone is brave enough to smoke it.

1) Is there anything in my techniques that caused a drastic loss in quantity? I know a proper extraction should take multiple solvent washings, not to mention purification, but I would expect at least more garbage from this.

2) How much leaf do you need to make X amount of crude tar? I'm looking for something simple and cheap to take sublingually, and the taste does not bother me.

Links to any extraction guides would be helpful. Thanks!

Reportedly the salvionrin content of leaf is about 0.1%.

If an extract was only 10% pure, but recovered all the salvinorin, then the yield would be 1%.

Suppose you started with 50 grams of leaf, then you would expect to recover only 0.5 grams of extracted material.

However, as you correctly pointed out in your post, multiple extractions are required for efficiency, and selective washing is required for purification.

Thus your results do not seem to be faulty.

To make a sublinngual tinture, desolve your bb into some 95% Everclear.

Did you see this simple extraction thread?

Basic Extraction

Welcome to the forums.

Welcome...I would add that by your parameters you set for yourself, to get "something" you did really well. Winders figures are rought on the money, and 50 grams( a fat two ounces) is a good place to start from.

Using isopropanol your extract should have been pretty non-selective, and you should have ended up with much gunk (wax, etc.).

Did you agitate. Was the solvent too cold?

I shook the solvent lots during the first couple hours of soaking. It was room temperature for most of the time, but the evaporation involved an open window. For that part I would guess fifty degrees farenheit, don't know how much the evaporation would reduce the temperature. But yeah, I certainly expected at least more garbage.

I'm going to see what effects I get making a tincture out of it.

And hi, everybody! Thanks for the info.

You messed up with the filter big time.
using a filter will not JUST filter impurities but also the salvinorin A, i havent tried it but i have seen it documented on the internet try getting a eye dropper and letting the mesh sit in the jar (this will replace the straing the crushed leaves with a coffee strainer) but take the eye dropper and fill the eye dropper up with the liquid thats closest to the top then let it sit (in the dark for several hours letting the mesh settle even further then take the eye dropper and take out the rest of the liquid then if wanted for a more pure extract do the same process with the stuff you got with the eye dropper let it sit it the dark for 12 hours and then then impurities will settle even more and take the eye dropper to ge tth eliquid then let it dry. then if you want use the cofee filter on the left over mesh for a more impure extract (using the filter on the mesh you have left over will get the last bit of salvinon a yet will have SO much more impurities in it than the other original extraction)
remember the whiter the stuff you are left with the more pure it is the impurities in the extraction makes it black or brownish green if its white its pure salvinorin a, i hear one tenth of pure salvinorin a is too strong for some of the most experienced people. but i would love to have some powdered salvinorin a to mix with another powder to put in drinks or even snort or put on food or just to try the diffrent ways of indigestion.

hi all im new to the board
first off i want to say thanks to everyone for the excellent info on SD
2nd i have a couple questions regarding the basic extraction method that TSTT reffered to
the background: 2oz of dried leaf & 750ml of 190 grain alc
1 will the 750ml of alc be enough to extract an acceptable amount of salvinorin a?
2 i forgot to leave any leaf aside can i mix the last bit of evaporting alc in with something else(i.e. tobacco, MJ,any other smokable herbs) and still have a decently potent smoke?
i have had some exp with SD already(may post trip reports in an appropriate thread) this is just my first foray into extraction and im not comfortable with acetone or naptha