Hi fellow explorers, newcomer here. Thank you for this beautiful community.
I have been working with plant medicines for over a decade now (Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Mushrooms...), and I am now exploring the preparation of Juremahuasca (MHRB + Syrian Rue).
To be closest to the traditional approach of Jurema, I want to do a cold water extraction (CWE) of the MHRB (and also to preserve yuremamine): so no heat and no acids to extract DMT and other components.
I started very simply, by letting about 6-7 grams of shredded MHRB soak in tap water for 2-3 days, then filter it through a coffee filter. For harmalas, I let 3 grams of ungrinded seeds simmer for about 1 hour. I drank harmalas tea, and 20 mins later, took the MHRB. The first results were quite interesting, even if a bit mild, and I wanted to see if I could improve the recipe to make it more potent. So in further experiments, I:
- Grinded the Syrian Rue seeds with a coffee grinder
- Grinded the MHRB into powder
- Used distilled water for CWE
- Let MHRB soak for 5 days
- Cooked the MHRB remaining material (after filtering) with the Rue seeds to extract as much remaining DMT as possible.
But strangely, the more I experiment, the less intense the experience seems to be. So I had a few questions please:
1) 6.5 gr of MHRB is usually considered a pretty strong dose, but I suppose it is in the case of cooking. Does CWE require more material? (like 10gr?) Can CWE actually offer a regular 2% extraction of DMT from MHRB?
2) Is grinding plants really better? Some people say it's better not to grind the harmalas seeds, for example, to avoid some unwanted compounds. Powdering MHRB seems to make it more soluble of course, but I don't know if there is a point in doing it (and ungrinded MHRB is a bit easier to strain, btw)
3) I know it is commonly accepted that it is better to drink harmalas around 20-30 mins before taking the DMT. However, this is not what we do with Ayahuasca, for example, and it works fine. I even read a few posts from people saying that taking both plants at the same time led to more intense experiences. What do you think of this?
Thank you very much for sharing your experience!