You can boil the methocel pills in water and screen off the scum that floats to the top , then freeze the water and filter , this works well.
The scum is methocel and with lots of E, so save the scum, boil it, freeze, and filter again. It is safe to taste the scum for the presence of the bitter taste of E.

One item rarely listed as an ingredient , even though it is the main filler of the pill is CaSO4
gypsm(wallboard), It is so commonly used as a filler it is not listed. It is not very soluble in water and alcohol, but it is a fine powder that can easily slip through coffee filters. For this reason, letting the pill solution settle, before filtering it,  allows the gypsm to settle to the bottom, this helps the reaction and keeps your product  sulfate free, which makes it much better.

Some brands of  E are not found OTC, but are BTC behind the counter, in your dreams. SWIM will  ask for it. These are the thin white tablets 60 mg /120 tabs or in each bottle.  You will dream about them in pharmacies, Indian smoke shops, HEAD SHOPS, convenience stores, super markets,. vitamin stores.
Dream of walking into a head shop and asking for "ephedrine", they will take care of the rest.
When asked, what kind?  Simply reply "What is the best selling?"
If asked how many?  reply, "As much as I can get"
Remember that your whole family has nasal congestion, so it best to get as many as possible.
Be prepared to spend about $2-$4 / gram -
There are restrictions on amount of E you may purchase a day,  It  is approximately.
4 bottles of 120 tablets  60 mg/tablets / store/day.  (4btl x 120tab x .060gm) = 28.8 grams = $75  Chili sells for $60 /gram

Extracting from pills

It is only necessary to do one of the following methods,  Don't need to do both
Use either the
1) Solvent extraction or
2) A/B extraction
 

Solvent Extraction of Ephedrine - Method I

There are many ways to clean up the ephedrine pills depending upon what is in them. The following method is rather generic and will do the trick 85% of the time. It removes Waxes, solid fillers(Calcium-SO4)
, magnesium stearate, Micro crystalline cellulose , lactose, Sodium starch glucolate, and numerous other things.
        1) common funnels - buy a set of various sizes plastic is usually OK
        2) cotton balls - a bunch of them - one or two are put in the neck of the funnel
        3) coffee filters - 4 are stacked together in the funnel
        4) Denatured alcohol  or Methanol
        5) Acetone - Hardware or beauty supply 1 gallon
        6) Distilled water several gallons
        7) Vision ware cook ware by Corning or  Stove top safe glass bowls.
            Porcelain crock pot or Teflon pans may work
        8) Several Carafes or flasks -glass bottles
        9) heat source -  hot plate or warming tray, stove, electric skillett or woks
        10) Small fan- Clip-on anywhere type or whatever you have
 Evaporating is safest with Corning Vision ware. Vision ware will not break when heated or chilled. Corning also makes Pyrex. Not all pyrex is temperature resistant .Unless you use Vision ware you have a 90% chance that a bowl will shatter under the heat (very dangerous). Corning ware for use on the stove top is excellent but it is not clear(see thru)
Avoid washing your glassware with soap, unless you rinse it over and over and over again.
Use water, or acetone, or acetone and salt, the soap leaves a residue of sulfates

This is the most dangerous part of the entire process because of the fire hazard when evaporating the methanol or denatured and because of the acetone vapors.
Look at it this way , It is not a matter of "if" you have a fire, it is "when" you have the fire. Will you be prepared.

^{Safety - Keep a wet towel handy, to smother  fires or flames on volatile liquids,.
Water & hoses only spread the fires of liquid petroleum distillates. You must cut off the oxygen supply.
Remember, you promised to to the safety thing,  this is your turn to pay me back, get out a wet towel.}

Removing the red coloring
If using red or other color coated pills, begin by testing a  coated pill in acetone to see if the color coating comes off.
If the red comes off with acetone then wash them in acetone to remove the coating. Acetone will not dissolve away any ephedrine.
If the color coating does not wash off with acetone, then place the pills in a stainless steel strainer or a colander. Spray or toss  a very small amount  of water on them , shake  to loosen up the red , you don't want it so wet that the red color is dripping off, yet , You want to loosen  the red but not dissolve the ephedrine out of the pills,  do more with mechanical shaking,  Now take  acetone and rinse away the red you loosened up with water . repeat as needed. A little  red  on the pills,  is not a problem.

1. Crush or powder the pills, use a blender,
        Usually done dry, if you over-blend  when  wet, then the air bubbles become a problem

2. Methanol or Denatured Alcohol
 

Soak the powder in methanol or denatured for at least several hours.

Filter
Standard Filtering with a funnel,   cotton balls or piece of a paper towel is pressed in the neck of the funnel and 3-4 coffee filters added on top,  wet the filters with a little clean solvent, first.
After  allowing  time for the  mixture to settle,  decant (pour off) only the supernatant (top liquid) into the filter, leaving the solids in the container, otherwise you will plug up the filter. And some of the gunk may come through the coffee filters producing a cloudy solution. If a solution is cloudy after filtering, it should be set aside, until it settles then re-filtered.
There have been increasing problems using coffee filters , they are too porous and  pill blockers are added that will slip through these pores, it would be best to acquire a buchner funnel, filter papers( medium), and a vacuum source,
Decanting the supernatant, and a cotton plug or paper towel plug in the neck of the funnel,  is one good way to insure success, this means it has to settle  before filtering through a coffee filter. Those solid fillers can cause  the reaction to  fail.
Vacuum Buchner funnel - If you have one hook up the vacuum , wet the filtering plate, place your paper flat on the bottom, nothing should be on the sides, wet the paper, be certain of a good seal. Pour the pill  liquid and fillers into the  funnel , allow some of the pill fillers to coat the bottom about 2 inches deep . The pill fillers can be used  as a filtering medium,  just  like  diatomaceous earth ,  no need to wait for it to settle , just mix it up and pass the fluids through the filter repeatedly until it comes through crystal clear,
Sand Filtering - excellent, I suggest you build one sooner or later,

Save - the alcohol and ephedrine (liquid),    set the solids (junk) aside to dry and test later for additional E ,

Evaporate -the alcohol and ephedrine (liquid) until it dries to a solid white powder.
   Safety --To evaporate volatile compounds, use  a   fan  to blow air around flammable fuels ,disperse the fumes and prevent a fire.

3.  Distilled water,
 

1. Dissolve the solids from the evaporation of methanol or denatured in distilled water     heat the water up so all the stuff dissolves very well
2. Chill  Then put the solution in the freezer for 1/2 hour to 2 hours (this solidifies the waxes so they can be filtered off.)
3. Filter  the colder the better. I wait until it is a semi solid, toss it in a large funnel and come back 30 minutes later
4. Evaporate the liquid  until dry . Supplement the stove with a hair dryer, especially when evaporating water.
5. Use the stove's heat  let it come to a full boil, then back the heat down,  you loose ephedrine when it is in boiling water.
6. Run a hair dryer blowing on the surface this will save you a bunch. The hair dryer actually cools the solution and promotes evaporation.

4. Acetone (optional)
 

1. Soak - Do a final rinse  with acetone it will remove any brown caused by too much heat. Acetone does dissolve Ephredrine when it is warm or at room temperature, Keep acetone in freezer and well sealed , else it absorbs water (dry acetone contains no water) and will dissolve some of the ephedrine.
2. Put the powder in a bowl  add  enough dry cold  Acetone, to cover the powder and have an inch or so of excess acetone above the powder.
3. Crush -up the chunks with the bottom of a glass container
4. Filter  Pour off the acetone only through a filter to catch any E that tries to escape,  leaving the solids in the bowl,
5. Wash the powder  with acetone until they are almost white or are white.
6. If you  place the waste  wash acetone in the freezer 12 hours later a few  E crystals will  form
7. The browning of ephedrine is a sure sign that there may be sugars present.
8. SAVE the solids
9. DRY     Let the E  sit out so all  the acetone will evaporate before using.

Extra tips.To Increase your Yield of ephedrine and Chili

1. Take your time,  let things settle well,
2. Pre- treat the filters by wetting them  down first with the clean solvent. then pour your solution through it. this prevents the filter from soaking up very much of your solution containing E
3. Allow your powdered pills to dissolve in methanol or denatured alcohol, for 4-8 hours,.
4. Coffee filters are really for shit, they work only sort a kin da. The better filters are Melitta brand, green and red package, they are cone filters and have smaller pores use two of them and fold them at the perforations The new improved Melitta filter sucks they now have flavor pores in them (not good)
5. When evaporating notice all the slick vapors coming off, maybe even a little bit of smoke.  Some of that vapor is ephedrine or chili, Say good bye, as it boils away into thin air.
6.  IF YOU WALK AWAY , TURN OFF THE STOVE.  or you may burn the shit out of the  E
7. When you get near the end of the water, turn off the stove, turn it on for only a few seconds or a minute ,at a time, if you brown or burn the E the yield will suffer some. asnd the taste will suffer, major.The brown can be removed with acetone washes or an a/b extraction
8. 
   If unsure if you have fully extracted the ephedrine is? do a taste test. Take some of the original pill sediment, let it dry and taste a small bit, if it has a lingering bitter aftertaste it still has ephedrine in it. The alcohol is bitter but you won't taste it after a few seconds. The ephedrine will still leave a bitterness in your mouth  for several minutes

   ---

Ephedrine Acid Base extraction - Method II

This is the full blown Acid base extraction. Many short cuts in the A/B can be taken, once you have the general procedure down. It is an an effective method. This works with pseudo-HCl and pseudo Sulfate
It should be mastered if you expect to be good at this Chili business. Why?
Because unless you steam distill, the final extraction and purification of Chili itself is a variation of this procedure.
The common error is not a high enough pH, so the goods stay in the water layer, run it up past pH 12.5 even past pH-13+ until you are experienced.

Contents

1. Equipment
2. Reagents
3. pH of solutions
4. Procedure
5. Acetone wash
6. The coffee pot
7. Safe Siphoning
8. Calculating and improving Yields
9. Caution Emergency - very important

Equipment

1.  Use only use glass and plastic, metals might dissolve in the lye and acid. (when evaporating neutral solvents you may use an aluminum, stainless steel  or Teflon coated pan)
2. Coffee pot - glass
3. Coffee Filters
4. Cotton balls
5. Separatory funnel or an empty 2 liter clear plastic soda container - use the top from a dish soap bottle as the stop valve on the coke bottle, or just poke a small hole in the top of the coke bottle, and use your finger.
6. Glass bowl "Vision ware or Corning ware"  by Corning is best, It must be able to be heated on a stove, There are many types of Pyrex also by Corning, some pyrex can not withstand temperature extremes This must be premium quality.
7. Plastic funnels 6" or so
8. Eye dropper or empty eye wash bottle (label as acid) with muriatic or HCl.
9. Carafes or flasks 1 liter
10. 
     
11. * these  items are not essential
12. * Glass stirring rod (martini stirrer)
13. * Aquarium air tubing 2 feet clear
14. * Coffee pot heater or 1 hot plate

Reagents

1. Pseudo ephedrine
2. Table salt or rock salt
3. Muriatic acid (HCl) swimming pool type Hydrochloric acid
4. Red Devil Lye or Sodium Hydroxide
5. Distilled water
6. Acetone
7. Non-Polar Solvents (any one of the following)
8. 1. Toluene
   2. Xylene
   3. Charcoal lighter fluid (naphtha)
   4. colemans camping fuel

Procedure

1. Powder the pills, in  put in blender "dry" or wet
2. Soak in distilled water  60 to 360 minutes
3. Filter Press a cotton ball (or piece of paper towel) into the  tip of the funnel, . Add 3-4 coffee filters, put funnel on top of wide necked flask.
4. Pass some d-water through to wet the filter first.
5. Wait until  the pill solution has settled,  then carefully, to not disturb the sediment,  decant (pour) off the supernatant (upper solution) into the filter. This prevents filter plug up
6. It should be clear as it drips out of the funnel . The rate of dripping  is set by how tightly the cotton material is packed.
7. If too slow set up another funnel with a loose cotton pack.
8. Taste a drop, coming from the funnel, if bitter you still have lots of E coming out.
9. When finished lightly spray the inside of the filter paper with distilled water to wash down any remaining E .
10. Taste for bitterness. Some save the filters and the old cotton balls, you can rinse them all out at a later time and refilter if you want a few grams of ephedrine. But saving that type of thing is a bust.
11. optional -Chill the mixture in freezer for thirty minutes and filter again to remove the waxes.

Adjust to  pH 12.5-14 moves E into non polar solvent

• Put your sudo/water solution in coke bottle (Separatory funnel)

1. Raise the pH  to 12.5 - 14 by adding  NaOH or use lye,  use a premixed solution of lye water 200 grams of lye in 1000 ml of water,
2. First you will see the water layer turn milky white. When you swirl it , it returns to clear , add more lye,swirl, eventually the water layer stays milky white for quite a while even with swirling. Add a little bit more NaOH ,  the solution will, clear somewhat and you may  see the E float  to the top as a whitish waxy substance.
3. Add   fuel to the water (Toluene, Xylene , ether, or naphtha( charcoal fluid- warm up the naphtha first), one reason for adding fuel is to be able to collect the E easily
4.  Some solvents may not be pure so the less you use  the better.
5. 
   It is possible to do this without any non-polar (fuel )solvent. if over 1 ounce of  E is used.
   Shake it moderately, try to not get a lot of air mixed in.
6. Hold the bottle upside down, The water is  on the bottom, the fuel and the E are  on top,
7. Wait, allow the  solutions to layer
8. Carefully, drain a sample of the water (lower layer) solution into a small beaker (squeeze bottle a little, before opening it.)
9. Test the pH of the sample. At pH 12.5-14 the sudo is a free base, and  is in the fuel.
10. If pH is less than 12 add more lye.
11. Return the  sample, to the separatory funnel
12. Continue until  you are absolutely sure the pH is 12.5-14
13. 
    

Separate layers pH 12-14

1. The ephedrine is now in the fuel (upper layer).
2. Flush the lower water/lye layer and any  emulsion (funky middle layer) in the into the coffee pot. Squeeze the plastic bottle lightly.,
3. Save everything, until you have the product and have weighed it.
4. Leave the fuel/ephedrine in the coke bottle,  separatory funnel .
5. A note of caution, be observant, some brands of pseudo will remain in a semi waxy state depending on the solvent. This sudo wax resides at the bottom of the fuel layer is brownish to yellowish to whitish but it is definitely part of the top layer it looks smoother than an emulsion, the emulsion has course bubbles that are a mix of oils, air, waxes, and water.

Washing the Non polar/Ephedrine with water

1. Add a portion of  distilled water (1/2  amount of the fuel volume).
2. Shake well ,  let it separate,
3. Flush water and any middle emulsion layer into coffee pot.
4. Continue washing with portions of water  3 times is enough
5. you want the interface between the layers to look like a mirror, when viewed from the correct angle.
6. This step removes Na+ ions and prevents NaCl from forming.

Final Step Removal of Ephedrine from the Non polar solvent.
You now have very pure Ephedrine in the free base oil soluble state. You may either use the free base E or the Salt of E.

1. Free base
2.          Fush the water and
3.         Evaporate the fuel to get the E free base. The free base is tricky to react with and requires cooling when reacting
4. 
    

   
    
    

   Salt of ephedrine   Slower safer  reaction
              Again Add Water - about half as much distilled water as fuel / ephedrine to the separatory bottle
              Then add 30% HCl(muriatic acid) to re-make the Ephedrine HCl salt - about 4-6  drops HCl/gram of sudo,   this  moves the ephedrine down into the water layer
           Shake
           Check water to pH between  7 to 8
            Separate, place water/sudo in evaporation bowl.
            Evaporate away the water
           Discard the fuel layer

   Too much acid
   If you add too much acid - pH less than 6, do NOT try to adjust with lye, you will end up with a major amount of salt
   Go ahead and separate the layers , evaporate the water, you will smell the very strong HCl gas boil off near the end (don't breathe too much of this), when you have the solid, then let the pan cool,  add acetone, crush up the crystals. lett it settle then pour off the waste acetone through a filter, try to keep the crystals in the bowl and rewash.
   crystals with acetone until they are white
   Acetone Wash

   1. Powder the pseudo
   2. Put cold acetone on the dirty sudo, , pour off excess acetone into a filter
   3. this will remove some oils and excess acid. Acetone really cleans it up nice.
   4. Vaporize a sample of the crystal  E  look for residue, rinse with acetone again if needed.
   5. Always keep the acetone sealed or it will absorb water, once the acetone contains water it will begin dissolving your ephedrine and chili and you loose product
   6. 
      Acetone is the most dangerous of these chemicals because it is a fire hazard. The acetone vapor will crawl out of a container and flow invisibly along a counter top until it hits fire then Poof a hot rapid fire begins.

You may return to the coffee pot to reclaim more E from the emulsion.
The emulsion often has very little E in it , so don't be too concerned with it unless your missing more than 25% of your E

To figure How much E you should have
Number of pills times the miligrams / pill

example 1
60 pills that  are 30mg /pill
60  x  .030 grams = 1.8 grams

example 2
4 bottles,  each has 120 pills,  that are 60mg /pill
4  x 120 x .060 grams = 28.8 grams

example 3
10 packs of time release E,  240mg/ pill, 5 pills/ pack
10  x  0.240 gram  x 5 = 12.0 grams

Safe Siphoning

  Siphoning can be very dangerous,   using these volatile and caustic chemicals . This is a safer way to get the siphon started.   If there are vapors in the plastic bottle,   even this can be harmful if the vapors are inhaled. Hold neck of coke bottle in left hand, run aquarium tubing between index and middle fingers of left hand, and into bottle several inches. Place other end of tube in the fuel of coffee pot,. Hold coke bottle at a level lower than the coffee pot (for siphoning) one hard suck between finger and thumb of left hand to start siphon. Drain only the fuel into bottle, no emulsion should go in.

The Coffee Pot -  Emulsions
The ideal interface between the two layers is almost undetectable, when viewed from the proper angle it should look like a mirror. The middle layer is an emulsion of oil and water and junk, plus sudo and wax. A thick emulsion, that won't separate, may mean un-acceptable loss of of product, here are some fixes.
Place emulsion in coffee pot on a hot plate,
 Add toluene, works well
Add more lye, not a good idea, above pH 13.
Add acetone ,very carefully, it will effervesce violently.
Add ether, works great, but who has ether?
Add lots of  salt , works good
Add hydrogen peroxide (capfull at a time it will effervesce violently)
Stir, stir ,
Wait it out, hours ?
One  or a combination of these, will help take down the emulsion.
Remove the fuel And proceed as mentioned above "Separate layers at pH 12"

YIELD calculate return examples
if you use 10 tablets that are  240 mg each
Initial weight = 10 x 240 mg =  2,400 mg  this is 2.4 grams
Final weight - if you recovered 2.0 grams
Yield =   2.0 / 2.4 x 100% = 83 %

If you used 4 bottles each with 120 tablets each tablet is 60 mg
Initial weight  = 4 x 120 x 60 = 28,800 mg  this is 28.8 grams
Final weight  - if you recovered  26 grams
Yield  = 26 / 28.8 x 100% = 90%
You should get a 80%-90% return on the sudo. It is possible to get 95% but not easy,. with each operation you loose 5%,

CAUTION
The danger is fire from evaporating the alcohol and acetone
Remember  water will only spread the fire and flames on these fuels
ALWAYS Keep a wet towel within reach in case of fire. this will smother the flames.

If you panic and flee, the fire  will get out of control, once it reaches your cans of solvents it will blow, you may injure those who are unaware of the danger, and you will soon be arrested.
The fire department looks for this type of thing as cause for a fire,
If  the friendly fireman enters your house, your rights are shot to hell, he will fuck you up.

Wear safety glasses, the hot lye will erupt when adding to it. keep a water source for eyes and hands nearby in case the acid or lye gets on you.