Difference between revisions of "Washing Spice"

Revision as of 21:05, 25 March 2009

Note:

This page is a transcription of Acolon_5's Washing Tek [1].

1. Get a glass and put a teaspoon of baking soda (or 1/4 teaspoon of sodium carbonate) in it. Fill with about 100–150mL luke warm/room temperature water. Stir, stir, stir. It will not all dissolved, but we are making a saturated solution so that is fine. Let all soilds settle.
2. Dissolve freeze preciptated spice in enough warm naphtha that is does not cloud upon cooling. Less is better, but use enough to prevent precipitation. I use 1/2 pint canning jars for this. For 1g of spice I would use 200mL of warm naphtha or bestine.
3. Take a baster/syring/nasal aspirator and suck up some of the saturated baking soda water … do not get any solid baking soda in the baster.
4. Add until the volume of baking soda (or sodium carbonate) solution is about 1/4 the volume of naphtha.
5. Swirl around for about a minute, do not heat. You can shake.
6. After swirling I usually take my nasal aspirator (I like it better than a syringe or a turkey baster) and suck up some of the naphtha layer and squirt it into the baking soda layer … not sure if it helps or not, but it is what I always do. It just mixes it up a little better and it separates pretty quickly.
7. Remove naphtha layer (top layer!) save and recrystalize normally (freeze or room temp, your choice)
8. Trash baking soda layer (bottom layer!), or add more naphtha and attempt to recover any lost yield (I've tried without success, just not enough spice in there).

I imagine that this would work with naphtha just pulled from the basified mimosa juice (uncrystalized) … however, I like to freeze precipitate first. It seems to get a much cleaner product.

With the method I have outline above I have taken yellow oily freeze precipitated spice that badly burns the tongue and turned it into clear spice that no longer burns (just a little bitter). My best batches of spice were made using this technique.

The taste and vaporization also seems to be improved.

Total yield loss after washing AND recrystalization from a gram is about 80mgs. I've read some threads about how yellow spice is better/smoother than clear spice. I am not in that group of people. I think that crystal clear/white spice gives the best experience.

Also after final recrystalization I will put my mason jar containg my spice (no solvent, just spice) into a hot water bath and melt it down. I then put it into the freezer for about 10 minutes. The spice that comes out is denser, easier to vaporize, and for some reason more potent. I highly suggest trying the spice meltdown method … you will be suprised at the results!

Reference

1. ↑ Washing your Spice[1]