The idea came from SWIMs last Aya journey.
He did something different. Prolonged boiling of whole seeds.
To his surprise this made a big difference because it was devoid of any body load, it also lasted longer.
Some reactions happened after he drank the mimosa, but it was limited to yawning, mild case of runny nose which is nothing strange for all psychedelics. Point is, it feelt REALLY clean.
Because SWIM doesn't want to be boiling the seeds for hours on end each time he trips, he wanted to do it all at once.
This is the basic idea.
-grinding the seeds and cooking it for couple of hours -filtering -reducing the amount carefully till there is nothing more left except a thick sludge or a wet paste. -dissolving it in 100ml ethanol and putting it in a dropper bottle.
SWIM doesn't want a pure powder extract, and doesn't care if he loses 0.1-0.2 grams of harmalas because he has plenty left to activate the rest of his mimosa without any waste of bark.
His sweet spot dosage he can somehow calculate in his head, has worked in the past well after weighting the materials
Couple of questions still arise...
Does the tea need to be acidified? SWIM is confused if this makes the brew more potent or not.
Would that even work, is there a risk that the tea could evaporate just like water leaving nothing behind?
If the ethanol is used purely as a carrier and preservative, never exceding the amount of a couple of mls, could it still react with the harmalas causing unwanted reactions?
Is there anything else that could improve the TEK?
Any help would be appreciated, but SWIM would prefer to keep it simple and "fool proof"
|
|
|
I don't know for sure if the alkaloids would totally evaporate if you completely reduce it. With aya brews you can boil for a pretty long time though, without the brew becoming inactive.
Another thing is that, if the seeds are realy very finely powdered, the harmala alkaloids dissolve quite easily and you don't need to boil for hours.
You don't even need to boil the water at all. You can heat the water to 80 or 90 degrees celsius/176 to 190 fahrenheit, stir a little, and then letting it sit for a few hours and repeat that procedure for 24 hours, and just the duration of that procedure will make most of the harmala's dissolve. After a good night's sleep, you will already have a quite potent brew that way, without any boiling.
|
|
|
I wouldn't grind the seeds. Not if you want the filtering to ever end The tea will definitely not evaporate without leaving a trace. Of course towards the end, you'll have to reduce the heat and watch, or you might burn the harmalas and/or the tannins/fats/sludge remaining with them. Acidifying the tea isn't strictly necessary. It can help the alkaloids move into the water quicker, but i'm pretty sure it'll work without - maybe boil the seeds for a few hours more. I know it's doable without acid for mhrb, don't see why it wouldn't work for rue seeds. Idk about the alcohol thing. Harmala freebase doesn't dissolve very well in anything including ethanol, but since you'd have some salt form, maybe it would work better. Tbh, if you want foolproof, why not just boil seeds for a few hours, strain the tea, let it sit for a day or two, pour through a coffee filter, add a base, let the harmala freebase settle? I know you said you don't want a pure powder, and this is nearly pure powder. But i don't think it gets much more fool proof than that.
|
|
|
Answering one more of the questions, ethanol will not react with harmala alkaloids over any meaningful timespan. The boiling process could be helping to degrade and remove a component responsible for the undesirable effects, however. Maybe a slow cooker/crockpot could help with this? It seems likely that, when evaporating a brew, once it starts to become syrupy it's best to switch to gentler heating (i.e. no bubbling) and increased airflow to avoid losses though splashing or aerosol formation. [I'm not sure about thermal degradation or evaporation of the alkaloids; acidity should help prevent the latter if it's even a thing. It would be relatively easy to test this experimentally.] I'd definitely avoid grinding the seeds beforehand - but just to be contradictory, I do on occasion put single doses of ground, raw seeds into a fine-mesh filter and brew them like coffee. It's mostly a short-term time saving strategy but, again, the resulting brew is repugnant to the degree that I haven't done this for many weeks now. “There is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work." ― Jacques Bergier, quoting Fulcanelli
|
|
|
What you are describing is basically strong alcoholic tincture of harmalas. I have never tried something similar, but would say that it can work. It's likely that after addition of ethanol to your paste, lot of sediment will form and you will need to filter it. Solubility of harmala alks in ethanol is also a question, but I believe you can do this also with 50% ethanol to still have some.water in the mix.
|
|
|
I'd evaporate the filtered tea extract completely and then pull with the ethanol, discarding the gunk. The ethanol should contain the beta cabolines?
|
|
|
downwardsfromzero wrote:Answering one more of the questions, ethanol will not react with harmala alkaloids over any meaningful timespan.
The boiling process could be helping to degrade and remove a component responsible for the undesirable effects, however. Maybe a slow cooker/crockpot could help with this? It seems likely that, when evaporating a brew, once it starts to become syrupy it's best to switch to gentler heating (i.e. no bubbling) and increased airflow to avoid losses though splashing or aerosol formation. [I'm not sure about thermal degradation or evaporation of the alkaloids acidity should help prevent the latter if it's even a thing. It would be relatively easy to test this experimentally.]
I'd definitely avoid grinding the seeds beforehand - but just to be contradictory, I do on occasion put single doses of ground, raw seeds into a fine-mesh filter and brew them like coffee. It's mostly a short-term time saving strategy but, again, the resulting brew is repugnant to the degree that I haven't done this for many weeks now. I suspect that it's the boiling of the ground seeds that causes it to have this unpleasant taste. I usually soak powdered seeds in warm water for a day, and i find the taste of such a brew...well, not great but tolerable. But i still get the full effects. Maybe a cold brew is possible as well even, if you just let it soak for a couple of days. I haven't tried that yet. I must say though that i don't filter and just drink everything, so maybe it's just the powder itself that gives me the typical harmala effects.
|
|
|
Thank you all for your commentary. Preparation was messy, long and at times confusing. Loses have been minimal but with such a syrup expected. The tincture is still thicker than water, consistency of Baylies (or whatever the drink is called) Tried the final product diluted with ethanol and it tasted supper bitter but in a warm and familiar way. Dose used was 40 drops, equal to 1,5 grams seeds. IT WAS MORE POTENT it started with stomach heaviness and walking felt different. Followed by a natural mood boost. At times I thought it was a placebo till I took a look at the mirror and saw dilated pupils, an obvious sign a drug is working no doubt. As time passed it felt more like a sedative dose of kratom but without being annoyed and no mental fog. Headspace feels a lot like being sober, but feeling good. I consider this experiment a win.
|