The Improved Guide for "flake - cooked" opium.

[samuraigecko]

READ THIS FIRST >>>> OPIUM POPPY FAQ.
Otherwise the uninformed person may ask questions that have already been asked and answered a hundred times over.

Other useful threads . . .

Quick reference guide to Flake Cooked Opium
Papaver Somniferum Botany and Selective Breeding.
Laudanum, The Godzilla of HomeBrews.
Making Morphine the simple way. (Crude Morphine production).

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

The following is a fictional story compiled by a 3 toed sloth . .

Some quick background.
Poppy growers in third world countries have been "cooking" Opium for countless years. In fact there is only one tribe which is known of that does not cook their Opium before consumption. Google will show up a fair number of histories and guides which will confirm this. The bricks of Opium generally for sale in these third world countries are all bricks of "cooked" opium. SWIM makes his own cooked opium in the same way and has adapted this guide so that other starting materials can also be used such as fresh poppy pods, freshly dried poppy pods, sourced poppy pods and if one REALLY wanted to . . poppy seed. When the procedure is done properly with raw opium latex the results can be hypothetically astounding, this is also true of doing the procedure with freshly dried pods. Medical alkaloid companies all use the "water threshing" method of harvesting opium. This is to say that all alkaloids are suspended in a water solution to be shipped to a production plant for further processing. The basic theory is to return this latex dissolved in water to close to its original state . . . . leading too . . .

Cooked Flake Opium . . . .

OK, First one would like to thank everyone else's friends for the support SWIM received in the previous thread. One has created THIS thread as an improved guide at SWIM's request because he thought that the information that One provided was at some points a little vague and could be elaborated on for those whom wish to have more accurate research.

NEW IMPROVED IDIOT PROOF GUIDE FOR FLAKE or COOKED OPIUM!
- EVERYTHING mentioned in this guide will assume that one is starting with 10 grams of material and all calculation will be based on that starting amount, further calculations for different amounts are easily obtained by simple maths. This material can either be the latex (raw opium gum), poppy pods (either fresh or dried) and poppy seed. (One must mention here that SWIM says that although poppy seed can be used for this method, it produces a lower grade of resulting material. The reason it is mentioned here is because some SWIY's only have access to poppy seed.)

NOTE: At no point should ANY boiling or bubbling occur at any time, if it has then one would end up with something that is low grade at best.

STEP 1: For opium gum, cut it up into small match head size pieces - the same goes for fresh poppy heads. For dried poppy heads and / or poppy seed, grind it up into a coarse powder. The reason for this is that extraction takes place easier and quicker because alot of small particles have a larger surface area to extract from than one large particle.
STEP 2: You need a pot containing 10 times the weight / volume (W/V) of water than that of the starting material. Since hypothetically we are starting with 10 grams we will need 100ml of water. (for 1 gram you would need 10ml, for 3 - 30ml etc etc). Bring this volume of water up to 70 degrees Celsius (158 F).
STEP 3: Add your material to this liquid and let it steep for 2 hours stirring occasionally. One should notice the level of the water on the side of the pot, if this level drops down due to evaporation then water is added from a warm kettle kept on hand during this period. (The reason SWIM has extended the time period is because different densities will extract at different rates, so 2 hours is preferred to allow for this.)
STEP 4: Once the steeping period is over the liquid should have gone an amber / brown color. Take it off the heat and strain it immediately through 4 stacked fine coffee filters. One will notice (for gum and fresh material) that a lot of gray wax-like sludge is left in the filter, this is a latex by-product and is discarded because it contains nothing of use. For dry material and seeds you will have the same wax like substance along with a heap of sludge left over from the ground pods or seeds, this is also now useless and should be discarded. The reason for it being strained immediately is because of heat expansion. Heat will expand all other particles in the liquid but the filter will not let them pass through, this filters almost everything except for the alkaloids and some other water soluble materials.
STEP 5: Once filtered off into another pot allow this liquid to cool to room temperature. This is where one needs to adjust pH level of the liquid. The pH of 7.00 is considered neutral at 25 ℃ (77 F) because at this pH the concentration of H3O+ approximately equals the concentration of OH− in pure water. pH below 7.0 is considered "acidic" and it is an acidic solution one needs to proceed. Adjust the pH of the liquid to 6.5 with citric acid once it has cooled to room temperature using pH test strips available from an aquarium and garden supply stores. The reason for the pH adjustment is that the week acid binds to specific opiates making them more active and in certain circumstances binding to an alkaloid making it into a higher level alkaloid. The pH also dictates how readily available the alkaloids are in the blood, for more information on this Google for pH.
STEP 6: preheat an oven to 50 degrees Celsius (122 F). Put the resulting pH adjusted liquid into shallow glass baking dishes. Place the baking dishes into the oven to allow the water content to be evaporated off. This is a safe way for evaporation to take place because the point at which opiate alkaloids are dispersed and destroyed into vapor is 80 degrees Celsius (176 F). This is also the reason why water extraction should take place at 70 degrees Celsius.
STEP 7: Once the liquid has lost almost all of its water content turn the oven off and open the oven door leaving the baking dishes in there so that the substance in the dishes can loose the rest of its water content naturally. This will usually happen rather rapidly as the oven and surrounding atmosphere cools. It is easy to visually determine when something has lost the majority of its water content, the liquid will appear to look muddy and "stiffer".
STEP 8: Once the material has lost all of its water content one would be left with an amber / brown crystalline substance on the bottom of the baking dishes. This is scraped up carefully (it is very light and can "flick" off into oblivion) with a plastic scraper, SWIM uses an old credit card . The resulting scraped up material is still rather pliable even though it is rather crystalline in appearance and is easily pushed back into a ball. When you do this the color of it gets a little darker again.
RESULT: If one has performed this correctly then one would be left with a substance known as "flake" or the "cooked" form of opium. When it is smoked correctly it should melt and vaporize pretty much the same as H does rather than slightly burn and and sizzle like raw opium. It should leave very little residue when smoked unlike raw opium which turns into a hard little ball once it is expended. This form is also good for eating, dissolving into liquid to drink, making capsules out of, etc etc. . . This is (in SWIM's opinion a little more dangerous because cooked opium is much more potent than poppy pod tea or poppy grounds in equivalent quantity. Smoking is more controlled in his opinion because you can start by smoking a smaller quantity and working your way up.
NOTE: If one were to want this process to go a little quicker one could evaporate off a fair amount of the water before introducing the liquid into the baking trays. If one is to do this the temperature should be kept at or under 70 degrees Celsius to prevent alkaloid loss. SWIM's opinion though is "the slower the evaporation and the lower the temperatures - the better the result".
APPROXIMATES: Water can contain only a certain amount of alkaloids before it reaches what is known as the "saturation point". This is the point at which no more alkaloids will be absorbed into the water because there are no bonding points left in the water to bind to. This usually occurs at around 500mg per 100ml @ 70 degrees Celsius. Once that bonding occurs no opiate molecule loss should occur if the solution is kept under that temperature. This is not to say that the molecules are not still in the solution as the water evaporates, it is merely stating that as the water evaporates the molecules then bond back onto themselves resulting in the cooked form of opium SWIM described. SWIM's tests and experience in equivalences seems to indicate that 1 gram of cooked opium contains around 500mg of opiate alkaloids. Research shows that farmed varieties of Papaver Somniferum contain on average around 10 to 15 percent morphine in that alkaloid content. Using this scale one would deduce that 1 gram of cooked opium would contain on average around 50mg of morphine. Therefor a match head sized piece weighing in at 0.1 grams should contain on average around 5mg of morphine (not including other alkaloids remember). Using the reverse mathematics should tell one the alkaloid content of the starting liquid once cooled and pH adjusted. Happy research and remember, this is all for research purposes only. SWIM and One are not suggesting in any way to perform this operation or to perform any activity deemed to be illegal in ones own country.

Hope this has helped more . . . . cheers

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Nice Guide
	thank you very much for your well thought out posts and links- it is appreciated!! :)
	nice simple recipe to follow with good explanations
	Informative thread, SWIM really liked it.
	An excellent guide that a vast number of people have benefitted from.
	very informative guide, worked for SWIM!
	Excellent, well written, clear instructions. Thanks.
	SG is clear, consice and overall THE MAN!
	Excellent guide. Well organized.
	Easy and idiot-proof
	Excellent

[jayjohnson81]

Awesome. Nice work!

The only thing I don't like is the evaporation time. Seriously, if one wanted to use only a modest 10 grams of pod material, that requires a liter of h20! A liter does not evaporate quickly, especially at 70C...

What about if one could get ahold of a low cost centrifuge? Wouldn't that be the sort of thing to help speed things up? Would buying a small lab centrifuge be considered suspicious activity? Or maybe a gravity filter instead. Any chemists got the answer(s).

Can you just imagine alll the fun uses there are for a centrifuge around the house? eBay here I come baby!

Nice work SamuraiGecko!

[keats]

Is the ph part neccesary? SWIM seems to remember in your last guide this was mentioned as somewhat optional, and while SWIM is eager to try this he doesn't really feel like going to buy strips and adjusting the ph? Would adding a little lemon juice make the mix more acidic? SWIM usually does that when making poppy tea and has found it effective, but would adding it to poppy straw intended for flake screw it up? Also: dried pods SWIM recently purchased are actually NOT drilled for seeds as they usually are, would leaving them in the mix be advisable?

[jayjohnson81]

Yeah, it does say it is optional. But the PH adjusted according to intended use will be more effective medicinally. If one went to their local aquarium/fish store they could get an easy ph test kit. Take small sample of water, add 5 drops PH test solution. Shake it once and compare the color to a chart. Add lemon juice (which is fine) to lower to desired PH.

I don't know for sure, but I don't see how it would hurt to include the seeds. I highly doubt leaving the seeds in would do anything other than result in slightly more final product.

[jayjohnson81]

Damn I need an edit button. So it *used* to be optional if you planned on eating. However, now it is heavily advised to adjust ph for any method of injestion because "the week acid binds to specific opiates making them more active and in certain circumstances binding to an alkaloid making it into a higher level alkaloid."

That's too good to pass up considering how easy ph testing is. However, you can skip and still get working product.

Thanks again SamuraiGecko.

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

yea, it is still advisable to adjust the pH even if the end result is intended for use for smoking, the reason for this is because acidic solutions bind to lesser opiates converting them to higher opiates in some circumstances. Also the acidic binding stays even after evaporation is complete, meaning that the body more readily accepts and absorbs the material whether smoked or ingested, it is NOT a necessary step, it is just one that SWIM has found to be preferable and advantageous. If one were to do it without that step one would still achieve good results. There is no need to de-seed a poppy pod unless one wants to use the seeds for putting onto bread or for throwing in the garden, Poppy seed DOES contain alkaloids, sometimes as high as 330mg per kilo, and all alkaloid contents should be taken into account if they exceed 100mg per kilo, less than 100mg per kilo one would be dealing with quantities of material too large for an alkaloid content which is too low.

SWIM is also going to try the centrifuge thing One mentioned and will get back to people on his results with that. SWIM finds that since opiates are not light sensitive that drying in the sun on a hot day works great in summer and is also a little faster because of the circulation of dry heat.

SWIM also thinks that a dehydration unit may be a good thing for this because it doesnt produce high heat, it allows dry heat to pass through it and is well ventilated. so he has said he is going to try that also to see if he can make the evaporation process quicker while still retaining the quality of end result.

hope this has helped in some say. cheers

[fnord]

what would happen if one replaced water with vinegar?

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

too highly acidic solution, water needs to be present in a large quantity for extraction to occur by osmosis.

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

one liter of liquid can evaporate "moderately" quickly depending on ones patience. If one were to have large shallow baking trays especially glass ones (never use tin ones) then one could spread that one liter over a number of glass lasagna baking trays. if kept shallow and done in batches where the liquid does not exceed around 2mm of depth, evaporation will be rather quick comparatively. Unfortunately this technique does take time SWIM says. But also SWIM says that this period as compared to the result achieved is well worth the wait.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good poppy work

[machine_elf]

How about replacing water with a solvent? This would ease evaporation times immensely. Ethanol?

[jayjohnson81]

Ya' know what I love about this method - nothing funky. Just water and pod. No worries about adding something nasty to the opium. As much as I bitch about the evap taking so long - it is *so* clean.

[jayjohnson81]

What if one just starts with water the correct PH? Say they find that their tap water, or they can create a 6.5 ph by combining just their tap water and distilled - no adding an acid? I can't see any reason that wouldn't be fine - am I wrong?

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

One would not be inclined to use ethanol or any other alcohol or solvent based extraction for the simple following reasons.

1. It can be hard to get a hold of pure forms of these solvents in certain countries. Some countries put additives into ethanol etc to make it non drinkable. These additives are generally hard to remove and are poisonous.

2. there is no need. since opiate alkaloids are water soluble one does not have to pay money to buy sometimes expensive additional liquids for extraction.

3. extraction. alkaloids are water soluble therefor only water is needed. Once one uses a solvent or an alcohol to extract with one may find that they are now not only extracting the water soluble substances but are now also extracting solvent / alcohol soluble substances. In the end what one would be left with is a more impure result because there are alot more solvent soluble substances in pod materials or the latex than there are water soluble materials. keeping in mind that all the alkaloids one may need are water soluble in the first place, it seems like overkill which may harm ones results.

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

Originally Posted by jayjohnson

What if one just starts with water the correct PH? Say they find that their tap water, or they can create a 6.5 ph by combining just their tap water and distilled - no adding an acid? I can't see any reason that wouldn't be fine - am I wrong?

There is only one reason SWIM can think of that may not agree with that point. While it is all fine to perhaps in theory try this method One would still be inclined to think that it may not work because the alkaloid content is not yet there. When one introduces an acidic solution to the liquid in question to obtain the correct pH, as was stated previously, One will also find that some of these acids bind to lower level alkaloids making higher level alkaloids. this is the only thing that SWIM can think of that may hinder a proper result. SWIM would be very interested to find out if that actually works. Either way, one would still have to perform the step, therefor it doesn't really matter were one performs the step. It will make it no faster or easier because the step still has to be performed and it makes more sense to perform this step when the alkaloids are present in the liquid so it has the chance to bind to the lesser and inactive alkaloids.

SWIM would be very interested on how this turns out if one were inclined to do it.

[machine_elf]

Originally Posted by samuraigecko

One would not be inclined to use ethanol or any other alcohol or solvent based extraction for the simple following reasons.

1. It can be hard to get a hold of pure forms of these solvents in certain countries. Some countries put additives into ethanol etc to make it non drinkable. These additives are generally hard to remove and are poisonous.

2. there is no need. since opiate alkaloids are water soluble one does not have to pay money to buy sometimes expensive additional liquids for extraction.

3. extraction. alkaloids are water soluble therefor only water is needed. Once one uses a solvent or an alcohol to extract with one may find that they are now not only extracting the water soluble substances but are now also extracting solvent / alcohol soluble substances. In the end what one would be left with is a more impure result because there are alot more solvent soluble substances in pod materials or the latex than there are water soluble materials. keeping in mind that all the alkaloids one may need are water soluble in the first place, it seems like overkill which may harm ones results.

Ok then, it was just that SWIM doesn't have access to an electric oven and is unsure how one would gauge the right evaporation temperature using a gas oven.

[jayjohnson81]

SWIY doesn't have to use an over or heat at all. Just get some large glass dishes and just be patient. It'll just take longer. The more baking dishes, the less solution in each dish, the more surface area per ml of solution and the quicker it all is evaporated.

One could always get a good digital thermometer (a candy thermometer) to gauge the temp. I would guess that people with even electric ovens would still want to use a outside thermometer as commercial ovens may not be calibrated right or older ones may just not hold the right temp anymore.

[vantranist]

How do you think a crook-pot would work for steeping it?

Does anyone know what temp ur average crock-pot gets from low, medium and high settings?

[trptamene]

A crock pot works well from a DMT extraction SWIM says, he believes the temperature did get over 80 though on high.

I have a quick question for the OP.

You need a pot containing 10 times the weight / volume (W/V) of water than that of the starting material. Since hypothetically we are starting with 10 grams we will need 1000ml (1 liter) of water. (for 1 gram you would need 100ml, for 3 - 300ml etc etc). Bring this volume of water up to 70 degrees Celsius (158 F).

maybe im missing something...but your saying you need 10 times the weight of water as starting material... so if you were to use 10 grams you would need 100g=100ml of water (not 1L=1kg)...or is it supposed to be 100 times the volume? As a few swimmers have pointed out, it could take a LONG time to evap the water if one was using 100 times the weight...10 times the weight seems more reasonable to swim

Anyone have success with this?

Reputation Comments on this post:

always adds well to the conference at hand, cheers.

[vantranist]

Im not sure either... So ur saying if SWIM ground up a level cup of dried pods, he would need to add 10 cups of water.... that cant be....

1 jumbo pod is about the size of a tenis ball...

Can anyone give me rough estimate on how much water SWIM should use for 20 pods (near tenisball size)? We're talkin like weeks heres arnt we?

[trptamene]

Sort of....this would assume the density of your "poppy material" is the same as water...what I am saying/asking is that you need 10 times the weight of water as starting material (so if you had 1g this equals 10g of water (divided by the density of water=1g(cm^-3) equals 10 ml of water for every 1 g of poppy material...so if you had 100g you would need 1000mL of water.

[trptamene]

Well, I been thinking about it and I am pretty sure it is 10 times the weight, as the OP says.

the pharoph aquired some dried poppy pods with stems attached and weighed these to be 3.5 grams. Also, in another thread started by the same OP about this procedure, switOP talked about using 20 pods and getting 2g smoking material.

so, if the pharoph were to use his 20 pods (at 3.5 g a piece) this would be 70 poppy material...and if one were to use 10 times the weight this would be 700ml...but if one were to use 100 times the weight (100ml/1g material) this would be 7000ml=7L of water....that is nearly 2 gallons, for only 2 pods....the pharoph thinks this must be too much! And surely 700ml would do the job...perhaps one could do this twice with 700 ml? If the OP does not clarify the pharoph thinks he is going to take 10 of his pods and do this extraction using 350 ml dH20...he will take pics and post them here.

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

THIS HAS BEEN AMENDED FOR TYPO'S, swim WAS PRETTY BAKED WHEN HE DID IT AND HAS NOW PUT THE PROPER INFO BACK WHERE IT SHOULD BE. SORRY TO ALL WHOM GOT IT WRONG BECAUSE OF swim.

As SWIM has asked one to state on many an occasion the W/V ratio needed for proper extraction is 10 to 1, so ten times the weight/volume of water is used compared to the weight/volume of the stating (ground up or cut up) material. here is a quick guide for those whom do not understand this well, keeping in mind that SWIM has not only done this for 20 odd years with great results but also learned how to do this from his travels in Cambodia / Laos / Burma / etc.

10to1, 10x W/V water Vs starting material.
so this is how one would use such an equation.
1gr of water is 1ml THEREFOR:
10x equals 10ml. here is a quick chart which SWIM has prepared earlier.
1gr material needs 10ml water.
2gr material needs 20ml water.
3gr material needs 30ml water.
4gr material needs 40ml water.
5gr material needs 50ml water.

and so on and so forth. Here SWIM shows a quick chart for larger volumes.

10gr material needs 100ml water
20gr material needs 200ml water
30gr material needs 300ml water
40gr material needs 400ml water
50gr material needs 500ml water

etc etc.

SWIM says Jayjohnson is right also. if alot more shallow baking dishes are used and the water level in these dishes is kept fairly low (about 1 to 2mm depth of liquid) then it will evaporate overnight in a warm room or on a sunny day rather quickly. SWIM suggested the oven method because he has used it with success before many times and people like to have a quicker way of doing things because people in general are very impatient.
As for the gas oven Vs electric oven which was stated, SWIM finds this perplexing as he has yet to see any oven which does not have temperature settings. 50 degrees in an electric oven will be exactly the same as 50 degrees in a gas oven, the answer being . . . 50 degrees.

Anyhoo, SWIM intended to help those whom wanted to know the effective and traditional way people used to make this preparation. Since SWIM has both viewed this being done by the major opium producing countries and was shown how to perform this operation by those same people and has replicated this same procedure himself on many occasions he thought that the information may be educationally informative to people whom are so inclined to research such things.

I hope this has helped in some way. cheers.

[trptamene]

Swim understands now,

so for the volume of water (in liters) use 10 times poppy material (in grams), or (based on poppy material). for the weight of poppy material (in grams) use 100 times the volume of water (in milliliters, [or 0.1 times the volume in liters).

..swim was thinking in terms of ml as densities are around 1g/ml...

thanks for clarification...the pharoph is going to use this method on the poppy pods he recently obtained...he took 10 pods and they weighed 56 g (5.6g/pod, is this a good weight, these are supposed to be lg/jumbo pods?)...he already grinded them up forgetting to take a pic, but will do so with the intact one he has as well as his experiments...Wish him luck!! he is a bit wary about evaporaing 5.6L of H20....he may try using a rotovap, if he keeps the temperature below 50, he think's he'll be fine...will try it on a small amount first to make sure alkaloids do not vaporize at this temp under vacuum.

Thanks, the pharoph is excited

[samuraigecko]

For informational or research purposes only . . . in hypothetical situations and theoretical discussions . .

SWIM says that the rotovap may work well will be looking forward to any theoretical results one may find.
5.6L of water SWIM assumes that SWIY would be starting with 56gr of Papaver S material? . . .
5.6L will evaporate moderately quickly depending on how many evaporating trays are used and the depth of the liquid in those trays.
to keep evaporating times down use as many trays as possible if using the natural or oven method and keep the depth of the liquid in the trays at around 2mm maximum.

hope this has in some way helped. cheers.

[vantranist]

Thanks much as well, SWIM has about 36 pods to do, this may take a while ^^

trptamene SWIM lacks a scale at the moment and has jumbo pods too, do you think u can give an estimate on on how much 1 jumbo wieghs?

5.6 you say? SWIM will start off with that, mabye do a 10 pods extraction at first