Hello guys.
Im trying to follow the Tao of Rue tek and i think that i understand most of the tek until it says that i should use "cotton balls" to filter the liquid through them.
It may be a stupid question, but what exactly are cotton balls?
Does somebody know the german term for it (Wattebäusche?), where i can buy them,
or what else i could use to filter the liquid with?
Can i use a dash of normal 5 % white vinegar to acidify the water?
Should i grind my syrian rue seeds before i boil them or use them whole?


If i would be vaporizing spice, how much would the effect from vaporized freebase harmalas and oral
freebase harmalas differ from each other?
Does the effect of oral taken harmalas last longer and would it still cause nausea with vaporized spice?


Sorry for my bad englisch, i know it is terrible.

Yes some tiny piece of "Watten" put down in the neck of a funnel, not too loose and not too tight, enough to catch impurities, it makes for a very fine filter act.
If it clogs up, poor the non filtered liquid back, replace Watte and continue;
or have 2 such funnels ready and as the first clogs up, poor the non filtered liquid onto you 2nd funnel. Replace cotton of first funnel.

Yes normal vinegar can be used, a soup spoon is enough. If your tap water is not hard on calcium or other minerals, then normal tap water works, the pH drops a bit when in contact with the plant material. Or use demin water, or buy 5 liter flask water. It's rare that tap water is hard (like pH 8 ) but it happens.

Easiest way is to boil the whole seeds in a pressure cooker.

I've never been fond on vaping FB harmalas (just a personal choice), cannot comment.

Oral harmalas, if you tend to use it for vaping and you limit yourself to max 100mg then not much of nausea is to be expected in general, ymmv. Just try some harmala doses on their own to get familiar with, it's a good habit to use harmalas anyway

They're loose pieces of 'cotton' fibre that aren't spun. The 'cotton' is often a synthetic fibre nowadays, so it's possible that they're named more accurately in Germany. I think they're typically in the personal items section in large stores or pharmacies, because they're used for cosmetics and medical purposes.

Using a cheesecloth works too (they're made for straining the cheese from whey). Just progressively increase the number of times it is layered (or folded) to make a tighter filter.



The tek suggests freezing and grinding before boiling. In general, blending hard seeds tends to pit and scratch (and therefore cloud) the cheap transparent plastic of some blenders. Soaking/boiling before blending with some liquid prevents this... but it is unnecessary work if you have a good blender perhaps.

Pressure cooking sounds like an excellent idea (if you own one).



Your English is perfectly understandable, no need to apologize.

If seeds are grinded / powdered finelly, it will easier to catch the goods, but lead to to more filtering steps, as rue carry a lot.
Last time, ma acidic brew from grinded seed passed very fine in the filter, but it was still un clear. Once based, all the sludge crashed (with alk of course), but leaded to me to filter more & more until brew was clear.

Yes, it's Wattebäusche. Get them at a Drogeriemarkt like DM, Budni or Rossmann, or the personal care aisle of a supermarket.

Grinding seeds makes filtering much harder. Yields are still good with whole seeds. You can use a Schnellkochtopf - pressure cooker - to help here.

Also, after syphoning off from the seeds, you can let your rue tea settle for a day or two in the refrigerator before carefully syphoning off from the sediment. That will make filtering much quicker.

There are some good threads about this stuff here already.

And your English is better than my German

Welcome, btw!

I'm both entertained and enlightened through this thread, thank you.

For what it's worth, the alkaloids are on the surface of rue seeds for the most part; grinding truly isn't necessary for excellent yields and makes for a much easier extraction.

Good luck, rue extraction is much easier than i thought it would be and the high percentage of goods makes for high yields from little material every time. And it's super cheap and readily available.

Since trying them I’m really surprised they aren’t more popular. From the little I actually know about accurate rate of usage across the population I get the feeling it’s getting overlooked (which in my book is a wonderful thing). Maybe that’s all just a result of me overlooking it. Without a doubt they’ll be in my medicine cabinet from now on.

Didn't knew it, thank for that

If seed not grinded, can a long boil release inside alks ? Or theses should be exposed to water (or acid) to be extracted ?

You know honestly i don't know and I'm really happy with the yields from whole seeds and the ease of use as opposed to ground seeds. Where i am they are available at herb stores and are very cheap. Compared to the same factors involved with obtaining spice source material i always end up with way more harmalas than I'd need for changa or whatever.

Maybe another more knowledgeable member has a better answer for you...

Thank you all for your replies, i think there is a dm not far away from where i live.
I will look for the rest of the things i need and start with the tek as soon as i have everything.
Maybe it is not as complicated as i previously thought .