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Kavalactones Extraction

Groggy

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
verticity said:
You can do it without the Soxhlet extractor. It might not be as efficient. The boiling point of a water/alcohol mixture is less than the boiling point of water, so you would not be able to heat it to the water bp. Also you would not want to have your solvent actually boiling, unless you have a way of recovering the solvent that evaporates off (like the Soxhlet does). So heat it to just below the bp of the mixture, which for 50/50 ethanol/water would be approximately halfway between the boiling points of water (100 C) and ethanol (78 C), or about 89 C (=192 F)

View attachment 6275

You would need some way to maintain and monitor the temperature, like a heating pad and an accurate thermometer. A heating pad that can power a magnetic stir bar would probably be a good idea, so you can let it stir for a long time while maintaining an even temperature.
(This kind of thing:
Amazon product)

After extracting, you would then need to filter the solids out using the finest micron filter you can get. You can get 5 micron filters from Duda Diesel.
Amazon product
Click to expand...
Do you think a 50/50 mixture is a good idea for this purpose, or do you have another suggestion on the ratio?
 
Groggy

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
I do have a food thermometer, not sure it's adequate for this purpose (I use it to make Mozzarella), the heating pad you mentioned is making more and more sense vs the stove top.
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Winpig said:
I do have a food thermometer, not sure it's adequate for this purpose (I use it to make Mozzarella), the heating pad you mentioned is making more and more sense vs the stove top.
Click to expand...
A food thermometer might be OK if it is a good quality one. You can also make sure the solvent is not boiling. If it is boiling, turn down the temperature until it stops boiling. And, yeah, you really do need accurate temperature control, which is hard to do with a stove top.
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Of course another alternative is just to do "cold extraction" with ethanol: Put some kava and everclear in a bottle and shake for a while at room temperature, then filter. Heating might not be necessary at all.
How long should you shake for? I have no idea...
 
Groggy

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
I was looking around and found out the ban on the stronger everclear (95 proof) was lifted in NYS, which is good news, and I am guessing a digital thermo might be the way to go too.
 
Groggy

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
verticity said:
Of course another alternative is just to do "cold extraction" with ethanol: Put some kava and everclear in a bottle and shake for a while at room temperature, then filter. Heating might not be necessary at all.
How long should you shake for? I have no idea...
Click to expand...
Hum, that's a good point, I can try that first...here is another question, which I am guessing will raise more questions than answers.
How do I accurately test KL content once its done?
 
kavadude

kavadude

❦ॐ tanuki tamer
Winpig said:
Hum, that's a good point, I can try that first...here is another question, which I am guessing will raise more questions than answers.
How do I accurately test KL content once its done?
Click to expand...
a used HPLC machine on ebay?

send it to Deleted User?
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Winpig said:
Hum, that's a good point, I can try that first...here is another question, which I am guessing will raise more questions than answers.
How do I accurately test KL content once its done?
Click to expand...
You can't do that cheaply. But you can get an idea by letting the solvent evaporate completely so you are left with the "resin". Taste a little of it and see how numb your mouth feels...
 
Groggy

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
verticity said:
You can't do that cheaply. But you can get an idea by letting the solvent evaporate completely so you are left with the "resin". Taste a little of it and see how numb your mouth feels...
Click to expand...
Yeah looks like I missed the boat today to buy it, most liquor stores in NY close at 5pm, I am gonna pick it up tomorrow and try the cold extraction first and go from there, the more I think about your advice(s) the more it makes sense to get the equipment (minus the HPLC, I can't afford that) The Soxhlet Extractor, looks a bit intimidating, like anything I am sure there is a learning curve. I am not doing this for personal use only, I would like to have a product within a three month time frame. The flavors are easy, I am using 100% natural & organic cold pressed flavors.
 
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)

Zac Imiola (Herbalist)

Kava Connoisseur
The only reason I don't recommend heating above 130 is because that's the temperature that we go up to when making our kava the way we do traditionally.

My largest intent when creating extracts is to make alcohol second to the traditional prep .. so I can capture the essence of kava as we know it.
Hell I even kneaded my kava a little into the alcohol water mix and added just kava water ( a little )to the candies for more glutathione.

Lol those machine probrably in the hundreds or thousand range right.? Haha

Verticity that machine thingy by definition is made for kava ...
It said on wiki ... for when your desired chemical is not soluble in water (Kls) and when your not wanted chemicals are not water soluble (FKBs) and such.
That's practically the situation itsef. Haha I wonder how I would work with just water prep
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Mrbinx69 said:
...Verticity that machine thingy by definition is made for kava ...
It said on wiki ... for when your desired chemical is not soluble in water (Kls) and when your not wanted chemicals are not water soluble (FKBs) and such.
That's practically the situation itsef. Haha I wonder how I would work with just water prep
Click to expand...
I don't know if it would work with just water, because when you knead in the traditional fashion you are forming an emulsion of small droplets of resin in the water; the kavalactones do not actually dissolve in the water. These emulsified droplets would be difficult to filter out. You would need to use a coarse filter instead of the usual kind of "thimble" used in a Soxhlet apparatus, which is a very fine filter.
Oh, it's not really a "machine" either, because there are no moving parts (unless you use a stirring rod..). Just a clever arrangement of glass tubes.
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Oh, another thing: instead of filtering (for extraction without a Soxhlet, either cold or hot), what you can do is just let the mixture settle for 24 hours, and then remove the liquid from the top, leaving the settled solids. (The same way as when you do the acetone test) You can use something like a pipette (or turkey baster) to remove the liquid, or just pour it off. If you use a centrifuge, it will go a lot quicker. You can get a centrifuge pretty cheaply, but the capacity of them is not very large..
 
Groggy

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
verticity said:
Oh, another thing: instead of filtering (for extraction without a Soxhlet, either cold or hot), what you can do is just let the mixture settle for 24 hours, and then remove the liquid from the top, leaving the settled solids. (The same way as when you do the acetone test) You can use something like a pipette (or turkey baster) to remove the liquid, or just pour it off. If you use a centrifuge, it will go a lot quicker. You can get a centrifuge pretty cheaply, but the capacity of them is not very large..
Click to expand...
I have some syringes with blunt needles I use for my regular E-Juice, I can probably use that to extract the top layer of liquid.
 
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