Thanks for the answers. I did read the tek,several times, just not the link to a different page about 3-5 posts into the thread.

It seems so far to be about the same amount on the bottom as I got with the 9.2ph but we will see I guess. At least it isnt ruined.

Ahh, I apologize for being snippy.

Good luck on your extraction!

No problem None at all. I appreciate it.

This time I did this Tek with 200g syrian Rue. It worked like a charm, the milky stage and a really thick layer on the bottom after settling. (Im thinking I got very weak caapi before because that part and the yield was terrible) Anyways my question is, Instead of being a dark clear liquid on top, it still looks like there may be some product in there? It is deffinately not clear anyways. When I separate it, do I just add more lye to try and make it clear?

Let settle the remaining liquid one night in the fridge, normaly the sediment should settle in the bottom and you discard the liquid.

I think the ph should be above 9 to preserve full spectrum harmalas, I think this is missing in the capital extraction teks, if you care to know I can write it.

That was after a night in the fridge. lol. I got it though. I separated the top layer and added another 15g of lye and it settled pretty quickly. Now I have the dark clear liquid as it is supposed to be.

Id be interested in why you say ph should be 9 Jox. Ill be using this medicinally for hopefully several issues. Thin my blood basicly to get off a script,severe stomach cramps, heart health and for anti depressant qualities along with pain issues. In a paper someone posted here it was said that an extract of ethyl acetate was used to treat pain. I havnt read any more about it but I will. I wonder if full spectrum freebase might work just as well?

tgun,

Forget what I said about the ph, if I find the treads I have in mind I'll post them.

You are intending to treat a lots of conditions with harmalas, why don't you tell is how it goes, and what are specifically your medical,diagnosis. I have tremendous improvement of my Fibromyalgia but only harmalas + DMT, harmalas alne don't do it, first few trips were painfull as hell, but improved immediately the day after, also for pain I have improvements with Kambo.

I got amazing yields! 15% with the secondary settling jars to clean up still. These were said to be organic seeds supposedly high alkaloid,they claimed 6%, grown in Syria. The liquid almost glowed without a uv light and stained my counter top. Tried some last night and got no nausea or other unpleasant effects. No manske performed.
I have many many issues I have been working on for a few years. Buergers syndrome which collapses and deteriorates arteries and causes nerve damage, hence the blood "thinner" though technically my cilostazol isnt a thinner, it makes my platelets slippery. Sounds like what harmine does. I have pain from that and fibro also but the fibro has gotten much better after working on my underactive thyroid. I have had severe depression and anxiety at times that I now take 5-htp for instead of anti-depressants. Also IBS and gerd, which kombucha has helped a lot but Ive had some bad cramping again the last month or so. Probably from my years as an alcoholic but I dont drink anymore either. I think that covers most of it. Lol. Ive cut sugars, eat better and take certain supplements and worked my way down from 9 scripts to just 3.

Oh and a heart murmur with a valve problem. Papers that people have posted here have suggested that harmine/harmline/rue have been tested in many of these areas. Not sure what to expect exactly but I hope it may help to take medicinally. Id probably take 25 or so mgs daily but separate the maoi from my 5-htp and lyrica and tramadol scripts. Id like to experiment with 5-htp and rue as one of the papers say it would create 5meo-dmt internally, possibly with certain foods, but that is a different story. Im aware that my meds would/ could react so im being very careful when I would take each.

Tgun,

That is a lot under your belt, I am glad you are constructive with your health.
Good luck, and keep us posted.

Thanks and will do. The symptoms have gotten tons better with research and care.

I've followed this tek through to the end and have had a fairly disappointing result. From using 80 g of white caapi I was expecting ~1.6g, so at least a gram for changa, plus a bit extra to experiment with sublingually. However I have ended up with a small, maybe 0.1-0.2 g by eye (don't have my scales right at this moment) of a brown powder, and a similar amount of a lighter brown/more tan coloured powder that was obtained after allowing some of the final rinse solutions (after the final addition of NaOH) to settle.

The brown powder must have a lot of plant material in it still I assume, though I thought that would've been removed earlier on after the addition of vinegar, then NaOH. In fact this was one of the only steps where I didn't quite follow the tek, as I added a lot of vinegar to try and dissolve more of the precipitate that seemed to remain. I must've added close to 200-250 ml of vinegar rather than the 50 ml the tek stated. Since a lot of the precipitate remained after this amount I assumed that it must indeed be plant material and figured that excess vinegar wouldn't matter, as long as I added sufficient base in the next step.

Looking back I feel there could be 2 things that could've affected my yield and I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on it for me. First, the white caapi I have was actually purchased ~2 years ago, though life being what it is I've been unable to experiment with changa and so it's remained in a box until now. However, I can't imagine there would be such a significant loss of harmalas from this.

Second, in the first step with the 4x boils, I added about 30-40 ml of 5% acetic acid vinegar for each boil. I wanted a bit more than 25 ml as I was using 16 g more caapi than the tek did, however my measuring jug only begins at 50 ml so trying to measure about 30 ml would've been quite inaccurate. I realise that as I was boiling, some of the acetic acid would've been boiled off as well but if I imagine that after reducing to ~400 ml I have about 4x30 ml of 5% acetic acid. I calculate there should be about 0.105 mol of acetic acid in solution and in the next step about 0.125 mol of NaOH is added (from the 5 g of NaOH). The base is still in excess, but not by much. Maybe I used too much acid/not enough base? I'm going to try this tek again with 70 g and perhaps use just 25-30 ml of vinegar for the first boil and a splash (maybe 5-10 ml) for the subsequent boils. Would this be enough? I see the tek says that some brews are done without acid, so I'm hoping so.

EDIT: wow sorry for the essay.

Keep in mind that caapi alkaloid content is extremely variable, and a yield of 2% is very high.

Ah ok, I see. It's taken me a while but I've finally found some time to do another extraction, this time with 80g. I've ended up with not too much (I'll measure the total once a final rinse has settled and I can get it all together, though certainly no where near 2 or even 1%) again. I was thinking perhaps having shredded instead of powered caapi could've been the problem but of course you did it in the tek with shredded. It must just be low potency unless I'm doing something wrong, though following the tek I can't see where that would be.

I'm considering buying some new caapi (perhaps yellow this time, just for varieties sake, though I have heard people warning of the poor labeling of caapi on the market so perhaps it makes no difference) and will try again with that. When buying would it be better to buy shredded over powder? I imagine they'll try get rid of a lot of rubbish bark by powdering it and selling it that way but I wouldn't know.

In the mean time I have differing grades of brown to tan powder. I assume the brown powder is safe to consume, and just contains some plant matter. Unfortunately it seems too small an amount to try clean up, but if I were to would that involve dissolving it in vinegar again and following the tek from the 'acidify, remove insoluble purities' step. Or is there a different method for cleaning?

Just finished extraction and got only 300mg of harmalas. Still ok though.

Maybe there is some reason why this wouldn't work but I am wondering this,

Why have two basing stages?

Why not perform the tek this way:
1. Brew and acidify cappi and separate liquids from solids.
2. Allow insolubles to settle then separate the liquid, add water and repeat until clean
3. Base the liquid and allow alkaloids to settle, and separate/wash out the solubles until clean.
4. Dry the alkaloids

Seems like a slightly simpler way to the same results or is there some other reason the tek is written the way it is...

I am currently doing what you are suggesting, I also find the second basing stage pointless. I plan to get all of the insoluble solids out by letting the acid solution settle and pipetting off the liquid. I will report back on the results.

Most people who have been failing on the NaOH basification step have worked with red or black "Caapi". I, however, think that these people have been sold Banisteriopsis muricata or Alicia Anisopetala.

These are not recommended for Harmala extraction and should be avoided. This seems to be a problem mostly for european travelers by the way since the source of most is the same...

Extracting with 100mg. powdered red Caapi yielded nothing for me unfortunately.

I'm not sure what exactly went wrong, I added 40ml. vinegar each brew, 4 times 30 minutes with 10 minutes rest inbetween.(I used more water so I increased the vinegar as well).

After my last brew I cooked it down to 400ml. let it cool down for an hour to room temperature, then proceeded to add the NaOh preparation, I used about 10 gr. in a glass of water and slowly added it while stirring.

I kept stirring for 5 minutes and repeated every 5 minutes for 25 minutes.

Nothing happened.
After an hour black residue formed on the bottom of the jar, a layer of about 4 cm, although this is mostly powdered Caapi, I assume my alkaloids were trapped in there as well.

But after diluting it for about 6 times it just kept it's dark color, so I guess it's a lost cause.

Next time I'll try it with shredded Caapi.


EDIT:After seeing THIKAL's post I know what's the problem.I used Caapi Bansiteriopsis.
I have no other sources for Caapi though, so I guess it's not an option for me.