I've been skeptical about soaks being effective at pulling alkaloids from tobacco largely due to the co-extracted material making it necessary to dilute the extract to such a point that any alkaloids extracted would end up at a low concentration. After testing a cold ethanol extraction myself, it's obvious enough to me that I've looked too closely at the limitations due to the required dilutions and not closely enough at the actual alkaloid recovery which is actually not all that bad.
I will interject here my reply to the statement, "I am simply calling out the audacity to the claim that WTA (whole tobacco alkaloid) is something that only DVap can produce." There is no evidence to support this assertion, and to the contrary, ample evidence that this assertion lacks merit. While I am not associated with WholeCig in any way, I maintain a cordial relationship with their public facing individual (JFresh), and I have never claimed that the product is not WTA. It is well-known to anybody who has paid attention that I have always accepted their product as meeting the criteria of WTA. While I believe that Aroma makes the best WTA, it is up to the customers to decide that, each for themselves.
A lot of people say a lot of things and there is a bumper crop of unsupported assumptions floating around, but one thing that I find exceedingly rare around here is somebody doing the work to produce and present actual numbers. I don't much care for the mad google-fu skills a lot of folks demonstrate around here. I've read a lot of good tobacco literature and I've read a lot of tobacco literature that's high-fiber nonsense. The damned thing is, it's awfully hard to tell one from the other. I've done a lot of experimentation and learned and shared a great deal over the past four plus years. Some folks assume that I'm primarily an organic chemist, but actually I'm more of an analytical chemist with admittedly a strong interest in some aspects of organic chemistry. I've been at it for over 25 years, and I try to speak up when I know what I'm talking about and keep quiet when I don't. I'm not particularly interested in proving myself to every gopher who pops out of a hole with a wad of tobacco and a set of glassware from eBay.
Though the fact seems lost on him, I've actually been quite supportive of the testing that Lastlokean is doing on cold ethanol tobacco extracts. While it is true that I am not a fan of NET extractions, it would be silly of me to simply ignore them and pretend they don't exist. That being so, while I am not a fan, I'm not adverse to the idea of making NETs as clean as possible due to the fact that there are folks out there who like them and these folks will use them. After repeating Lastlokean's cold ethanol extraction on the same tobacco, I went the extra step to challenge my belief that such an extraction wouldn't produce a decent alkaloid yield. This required cleaning up the extract to isolate the alkaloids and convent them to a free base form suitable for titration. Somewhat to my surprise, I found that this extract did extract a fair percentage of alkaloids as salts. It was only after purifying them and converting to free base that I was able to confirm this. (You think he'd thank me? Still waiting on that). I freely confess to not having spent a great deal of effort characterizing such extracts since my focus has centered on more exhaustive extraction techniques, but having given it a bit of attention, I've learned something new (though not particularly useful to what interests me).
Repeated extractions of various RYO tobaccos over the years using various techniques has given me a very clear approximation of the amount of alkaloids that can be obtained from these tobaccos. The figure I have arrived at is 1.2% by weight, and though not accepted by Lastlokean, I am quite confident in this figure. If we take a pretty standard cigarette containing 800 mg of tobacco, we see that 1.2% of that is 9.6 mg. If we generously accept the convention wisdom that a cigarette delivers 10% of the nicotine present, then we come up with 0.96 mg of nicotine delivered per cigarette. This is very generally in line with what we see in the wild (though some cigarettes do rate higher). Anyway, in my test, I figured that the cold ethanol extraction was good for around 500 mg of alkaloids or perhaps a 40% recovery. Not terribly bad. Anybody who doesn't care for my figures or who thinks they can do better is quite welcome to shut up, do the lab-work, and prove themselves right.
On 6/27/2010, I posted the following in a blog:
As far as getting flavor, that's a pretty easy question. If you soak and get a result that you like (either as a liquid in itself or as a flavor additive to regular eliquid) and you don't mind the extra wear and tear on your attys, you've done good. (Assuming you accept that anything that involves soaking tobacco will be less "safe" than good clean regular e-liquid).
Fair and open-minded enough, I think.
When it comes to alkaloids, the stronger one makes their NET liquid, the higher the alkaloid concentration will be. Though in the past I've figured that the alkaloid content of a NET would likely top out at 2 mg/mL due to the dilution required to tame the material present. Lately, I'm willing to entertain the idea of NETs perhaps as high as 5 mg/mL. And again, if some cares to prove me wrong, be my guest. If anybody's work on NETs might approach the 5 mg level, it's probably the work that Lastlokean is doing now.
When it comes to alkaloid effects, any extraction that pulls out the alkaloid spread should exhibit these effects, more or less depending on the actual alkaloid concentration. I do agree with Hittman that the NET "buzz" I keep hearing about is general not experienced with WTA liquid. The effect is generally experienced as a "calming" effect.
On what WTA means, I don't care even slightly what people think it means or think it should mean. It means what I say it means. It's the tobacco alkaloid isolate and anybody who can produce it is more than welcome to call it WTA. You're all welcome to the term "NET", it isn't mine and never was. You all can define and refine it any way you want.
Just keep your hands off of my baby.
