I used horsetail for one of my planetary elixirs, and working with this proved to be most interesting. As you can see from the first image, it is still very dark. This is after days of calcining at around 300C, and despite this the ashes remain quite dark. The literature says we must calcine until the ashes are a very light gray to white, but this proved extremely difficult with horsetail. Other plants are quite easy to calcine to white. So, I decided to try leaching anyhow. What happened was quite remarkable: After mixing with distilled water, the ashes settled within a half hour (normally it takes a few hours for this to happen with most other herbs). After continuing with the rest of the ashes, the Salt it yielded was whiter than snow - the last picture doesn't do it justice, as it is a lot whiter than this. So, from my experience, if you cannot get your ashes to light gray or white, try leaching anyhow, as it may very well turn out well anyhow.
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