"No Boil" mescaline cactus question

[wildman]

If one were to follow the no-boil method, would adding alot more water to reduce the viscosity to speed up the separation, help or hinder the process?
Keeping in mind the NaOH and xylene amounts were kept the same, I assume.


Here's the beginning of the no-boil tek:

"n the large 5L glass jug, 250g NaOH are dissolved in 1900ml tap water, wearing protective clothes all the time when working (be careful; heat is evolved during NaOH dissolution). Then 350g of dry, powdered peruvian torch cactus were stirred in as good as possible, resulting in some ugly, green slime with very high viscosity ("elephant snot"). To this were added 2L of xylene, the jug was stoppered and the hell shaken out of it until no xylene layer could be seen anymore.

Then the elephant snot was left to settle for about 2 days, until the upper yellowish-green xylene layer appeared to be clear; and not cloudy anymore (cloudiness means cell fragments floating in the xylene, they settle if one waits long enough). The xylene layer was then drawn off using a big-ass pipette, and put into the second bottle."

Thanks in advance for any/all help.

[Marsofold]

Use more lye. A minimum weight of lye equal to the weight of the cactus powder should be used. For best yields, the amount of lye should be increased to around 140% of the dry cactus weight. For 350 grams of cactus powder, roughly 500 grams of lye should be used. Also, using potassium hydroxide (KOH) in place of lye significantly reduces emulsions. While the 2-Liter volume of the xylene is correct, it should be divided into at least four equal 500ml "pulls" to improve the yield. And SWIM finds the smell of toluene to be much more tolerable than xylene...