DIY Poppers formula

Topic created by Messenger
on Tue, 3 Dec 2024 at 10:08

Messenger said on Tue, 3 Dec 2024 at 10:08...

(This was posted on FetLife.com by a member in the Poppers group forum. I thought that maybe some of you might be interested...)

You can make your own slut-in-a-bottle. It's not hard.

TOOLS

A food scale is necessary

A thermometer is useful

Pipettes are essential. Just search “plastic pipette” on Amazon or Ebay. They’re cheap, so get a bunch. SYRINGES are another way of pipetting but get the all-plastic kind.

Glassware is pretty simple. Spice bottles, pickle jars, baby food jars, medicine bottles, mason jars, plasticware for food (so long as it’s polypropylene – recycling group 5). No need to spend money here.

A magnetic stirrer or stirring rod is needed. Cheapest is a simple 1/4" stainless rod.

goggles and gloves are a good idea, though I often go without

An exhaust fan is essential. This reaction can make some very nasty fumes if it goes wrong. I have a cheap bathroom fan set up to blow fumes out the window.

You also need a food processor that can grate ice, or a mallet and the leg of some old jeans.

MATERIALS

Base alcohol - I use about 75% isobutyl and 25% butyl alcohol - both from amazon. The iso hits hard up front and the butyl is a slow slutty build. Isopropyl sucks - don't use it. Amyl is the original poppers, but it is expensive, no better than the butyl combo, and the shelf life of the poppers is shorter.

Sodium nitrite is readily available on Amazon as well, as it is used in sausage making. $18 plus shipping gets you 2 lbs of 99% pure food grade sodium nitrite. This would make 1000s of bottles of poppers but oxygen kills it fast. I immediately pack into the smallest available mason jars with layers of 4a molecular sieve beads, and vacuum seal with a foodsaver setup.

Then you need an ACID. I use muriatic acid from the hardware store (with the paint solvents). The concentration should be 32-34% and reasonably close to transparent. Sunnyside is the brand I get, if it helps.

Then you need a drying agent. I currently have epsom salts that I baked the water out of to make them anhydrous. You can also use sodium sulfate, available as "damp rid" and as pickle crisping agent for canning. Sodium or Potassium carbonate work too. Any anhydrous salt that sucks up water.

You also need a preservative that scavenges nasty byproducts. I get 4a size MOLECULAR SIEVE beads. Look for MS4a or MS5a on Amazon. You want beads, not powder.

PROCESS

Wash the glassware. You will want to have some clean, dry popper bottles already prepared with some molecular sieve beads in them. This recipe makes a 30 ml bottle of poppers, though I like to use a pair of 15 ml bottles so I can leave one totally unopened with almost no air in the bottle.

First measure out 62 mL of muriatic acid and pre-chill in the freezer. Pouring acid is probably the most dangerous part, so this is a good time for gloves and goggles. Pipetting it is safer.

Measure out 100-125 g of crushed ice. Then add 37 g of your alcohol - any mix of butyl and isobutyl because their molecular weight is the same. Swirl to cool the alcohol. You should have a weird smelling slushie. (Don't drink it!)

Fold a piece of paper, put in on the scale and tare the scale. With a small strainer measure 38 grams of NaNO2 onto the paper. Throw away any NaNO2 that has clumped up, since it is probably moist enough to be degrading to NaNO3. Add the NaNO2 to the alcohol-ice mix and swirl it in.

Slowly dump the acid in and gently swirl or stir. On a warm day, you'll want to pipette it to avoid a violent reaction. This should result in deep blue nitrous acid and some bubbling. If you get brown or orange colors you went too fast (temperature got too high) or your NaNO2 has degraded to NaNO3, yielding nitric rather than nitrous acid. The nitrous acid reacts with the alcohol to make the poppers.

Your reaction should not get above 2 deg C. If it does, you need an ice bath to keep it down.

Once the bubbling stops stir for another few minutes and let it separate and pipette the pale yellow goodness off the top and into a spice bottle with a teaspoon or so of drying agent. This should make it a little paler colored unless your reaction was perfect to begin with. The separation should happen fast, like oil and water. IF it doesn't, your NaNO2 is probably degraded.

Swirl for a minute or two on the drying agent. The dried poppers should smell like very dry ginger ale. Pipette into clean, dry bottles with maybe ¼ teaspoon of molecular sieve in each. Cap tightly.

Elvis said on Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 04:10...

This guide isn't particularly accurate...especially when the guy is talking about the brand of HCl mattering. Might as well be a meth cook.

woodman said on Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 14:18...

Don't shoot the messenger, Pride of Tulepo. I briefly read it (sorry, Kip) and have formed no opinion.