Another Top Question we get here at ShamansGarden is “How Do I Extract Kratom?” We’re happy to answer this here as this botanical can be a fun plant to practice extracting with. And, Kratom Extract follows standard extraction procedures, which can be applied to a wide range of plants you wish to extract. Kratom is such a hot topic, I simply chose my plant material to be Kratom leaf, but you can apply this formula to any herb you want to extract for research purposes.
There are many benefits of making a Kratom extract as it’s much less plant material to work with once its extracted, it takes up far less space if traveling, and it can be ground into a fine powder so it easily blends with anything you wish to blend it with. The below steps will turn anyone into a Kratom Extraction Expert after your first try! The wonderful thing about working with botanicals is if you don’t get it right the first time, you can change and modify and adjust your procedure until you get the extract extract you’re looking for. Some like very resin-y extracts, some like to defat their Kratom extracts and have a product that contains more mitragynine than anything else. It’s really up to you and how you want to adjust the below technique.
The Kratom Extract Recipe:
- 100 grams of powdered Kratom leaf
- 8 ounces of water
- 1 lemon or lime
- 1 muslin cloth of bag
- 1 pot to boil it in
- 1 pot to strain it into
The Method:
01. The 100 grams that this recipe calls for is just a random number to make everything neat and tidy. The more powdered the leaf, the better it is for extracting. If you have crushed leaf as a starting point, I highly recommend further grinding that leaf in a coffee grinder as you will get a much better finished product. In short; the more surface area you present to the water and the lemon, the more alkaloids will be presented to that water or lemon.
02. Put the 100 grams of powdered Kratom leaf into a pot with the 8 ounces of water. Before adding any heat, let this mixture soak in for at least 1 hour, stirring at least every 20 minutes. If you’re lucky enough to have a lab stirrer, stirring the mixture for at least 20 minutes really helps with the extraction.
03. Once the Kratom seems to be thoroughly and evenly soaked by the water, it’s time to add 1/2 of the lemon juice. You will be boiling twice, so you’ll use 1/2 of the lemon each boil. By the time you get to the final product, the juice from the lemon will be completely evaporated, so there will be little juice residue left in the final material. Stir thoroughly and turn on the heat.
04. Bring to a gentle boil. You want to slowly bring the water up to the boiling point as this will further ease the alkaloids out of the powdered leaf material. Since mitragynine has a melting temperature well above the boiling point of water, you cannot break down the alkaloids by boiling too hard or too long, so fret not. Once you’re at an even, gentle boil, let this boil for 30 minutes. You may need to stir along the way to stop powdered leaf from sticking to the edges. But, a careful eye will ensure as much of the powder is gently rolling in the boil.
05. Great. You’ve boiled your powdered Kratom leaf and now need to strain the Kratom. This is where a muslin bag makes it so easy to proceed. If you’ve got a muslin bag, simply pout the liquid and powdered Kratom leaf mixture through the muslin bag. Make sure you do it slowly and carefully, as the mixture is still going to be scalding hot. I highly recommend using safety gloves, work gloves, or something to protect your hands from any accidents.
06. Once it cools enough, work the material inside the muslin bag like clay. Knead the powdered leaf until you’ve squeezed all the liquid out that you can. You should be left with a good size lump of powdered leaf that should easily come out of the muslin bag by turning the bag inside out. Turn it inside out into the pot the powdered Kratom leaf was originally boiling in.
At this point, you should have one pot that has only liquid in it from your first boil. The second pot will have the powdered leaf mass in it, ready for a second boil. Add enough water to cover all of the material, and stir it until it’s thoroughly soaked again. Don’t be shy with the water; you can add up to 8 ounces for this second boil. Then, add the other half of that lemon or lime, and start the above steps all over again.
07. You should now have added the liquid from the second boiling to the liquid from the firs boiling. At this point you can discard the muddy, clay-like material that used to be powdered Kratom leaf. It doesn’t serve much purpose at this point as all of the alkaloids are suspended in the water.
08. Take this second pot and now bring this liquid to a boil. CRITICAL POINT: Do not leave this boiling unattended. You are working to get to the exact moment all of the water boils away, but BEFORE the point where the resin extract burns on the bottom of the pot. The resin that forms at the bottom of the pot will turn thick like molasses when it’s ready to removed from the heat. Again, don’t dry it out too much and don’t let it burn.
09. Pour the liquid out onto a plate, preferably a Pyrex container that has been treated to withstand heat. This step isn’t required, but it does make it easier to collect the resin and to work with it if you’ve removed it from the pot before it completely dries. You might think it would be easy to remove the resin from the pot after its dried, but it’s actually a scraping nightmare, so save yourself the trouble, and get it out of the pot while it’s still a warm, thick liquid. This is definitely an acquired skill, so have patience as you’re working with this material, knowing that it will take several times to get it just right.
10. If you want to put the resin under a heat lamp, or even just an incandescent bulb, this will help it dry out. When it gets to a consistency you like, simply roll it up into whatever size chunks you want to work with for your research project. If you want to have a powdered resin that’s soluble in water, then let it throughly dry. Gather the crumbly pieces from the Pyrex container, and drop them into a coffee grinder. Whichever method you choose, you’ll have about 14-18 grams of material. This ends up being about a true 5x material, which is likely very close to the 20x materials that you see advertised on the internet.
Enjoy!
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