This is only an interactive companion to the full write-up. Read the CIELO TEK in detail before starting.

Safety

  • Ethyl acetate -flash point -27°C / 38°F. No open flames. Ventilate. Goggles.
  • Food grade acid -some ends up in product.
  • Dust -mask for sensitive lungs.
  • No aluminum -acid corrodes it.

Grow your own

  • Over-harvested -San Pedro in Peru is threatened. Never buy dry powder online.
  • Live material -start from seeds, cuttings, or rooted plants.
  • Avoid PC + citric -risk of zero precipitation at low yield (<0.15%).

Materials

Setup

Set your powder amount, acid type, and EA volume - all quantities below adjust automatically.

1× EA, 5 pulls = 250g x 1 + 150g x 4 (~850 g total). Expect ~88% EA recovered and ~91% pull efficiency.

2× EA, 3 pulls = 634g x 1 + 533g x 2 (~1700 g total). Expect ~94% EA recovered and ~97% pull efficiency.

Both recover nearly all EA - pick whichever you have on hand.

Starting a new batch? Reset extraction clears all checkboxes, pull weights, timers, and saved inputs back to defaults.

Consumables

  • 100 g dry fine cactus powder
  • 130 ml water + 70 ml reserve (max 200 ml)
  • 25 g Ca(OH)₂ (lime)
  • ~850 g / ~977 ml ethyl acetate (“MEK substitute”)
  • 3.0 g fumaric acid
  • Optional: pH strips
  • For solvent reclaim: washing soda (Na₂CO₃)

Equipment

  • Knife, paper bag, dehydrator, food processor, coffee grinder, flour sifter
  • Metal gram scale · Large bowl + spoon or gloves
  • French press (stainless steel, 34 oz+) · Coffee filters + funnel
  • Quart mason jars with lids · Milligram scale

Upgrades: grain mill, stand mixer with flat beater, magnetic stirrer

1 Powder 2 Crumbs 3 Extract 4 Crystallize 5 Collect 6 Reuse

1 Cactus Powder

Grow, harvest, dry, and grind cactus to a fine powder. Don’t harvest under 90 cm / 3 ft. Cut top half for processing, leave bottom to regrow.

Stressing -recommended

Store live cuttings in the dark for 3+ months (paper bag). Can increase mescaline content.

  1. Chop into ~1/4″ slices
  2. Dehydrate at low temp (~50°C / 120°F) -prevents chlorophyll breakdown
  3. Coarse grind (food processor)
  4. Fine grind (coffee grinder / grain mill)
  5. Sift through flour sifter, regrind coarse bits

Result: uniformly fine, flour-like. Clouds of dust when handled. Store sealed.

All parts usable. Outer skin yields more per mass but mescaline is in both. Spines/wax optional to remove.

2 Wet Crumb Mix

Target: “wet crumbs” -sticks when squeezed, crumbles when broken apart.

actual water added ml target 130 ml; leave empty to match target, deviation feeds the pull efficiency calc

Dry spots? Add small amounts from your 70 ml reserve. Stand mixer at low speed is a great upgrade.

Too wet? Dough/paste still works but needs a sodium carbonate partial dry before crystallization.

3 Extract

Pull wet crumbs with EA in the french press. Complete all 5 pulls within 60 min - after that, plant matter may begin to congeal. Squeeze the plunger firmly each pull -excess EA left in the crumbs reduces pull efficiency. EA volume is set in the Materials section above: 1× EA uses 5 smaller pulls, 2× EA uses 3 larger pulls (both achieve 90%+ extraction efficiency). Ph strips can optionally track mescaline in EA.

Before EA addition tare french press, weigh poured EA over scale. After stir and rest, tare collection jar, weigh pulled EA over scale.

Partition coefficient updates for advanced users. Change to Kwater = 2 if using cold EA.

Watch final trickle -don’t squeeze water into solvent. Target most of Pull 1’s EA back in the jar. Compost spent crumbs when dry.

Particles? Crumbs had dry spots. Filter everything before salting. More water + mixing next time.

4 Crystallize

Fumaric acid reacts with mescaline freebase → insoluble monomescaline fumarate.

Method

Slow -no stirrer

Diffuse without stirring. Sealed, room temp, 3+ days. Large crystals possible.

Fast -magnetic stirrer

Fumarate: ~30 min. Small/powdery crystals.

Crystals can look like undissolved acid. All acid reliably dissolves. Mescaline salt floats and snow-globes; acid doesn’t.

5 Collect

Collect, rinse, dry. Don’t store salted solvent in metal.

Typical yield 0.3% - 3%, common range 0.6% - 1.5%. Bridgesii > pachanoi generally.

Reuse filter upside-down next time -residual crystals act as seeds for faster crystallization.

6 Reuse Solvent

Regenerate for reuse. Green color is stable, doesn’t interfere. Unlimited reuses. Check for new crystals first.

Option A -Magnetic Stirrer (recommended)

Option B -No Stirrer

No salted solvent in metal. Neutralized solvent can go back in the original can. Mason jar with EA-resistant lid also works.