Okay . . .

Got a few hundred grams of b. caapi shredded vine. I put 114 gms (they came in 114gm bags) into a pot to boil for nine hours (3x3).

A few questions:

1: Is it necessary to filter into three separate containers, or can I just filter it all into the same mason jar? I'm using a coffee filter.

2: When the nine hours are up am I supposed to pour the 3 filtered jars into the pot containing the caapi sludge, or a fresh pot to reduce? Or is that even necessary? Could I just take the filtered jars and stick 'em in the fridge for use?

3: How much of this stuff do I have to drink? My intention is to use the caapi as an MAOI and freebase dmt in my GVG (as I'm having trouble breaking through, the MAOI route seemed nice). A shot glass? A regular glass?

4: Thanks for your help.

SWIM passes the boils straight into her reduction vessel, and has it all going in parallel; saves a bit of time. Would switch to an old cotton t-shirt instead of the coffee filter. You don't want to reduce with the sludge still in the pot.

Highly suggest putting a lightly fried egg-white into the reduction vessel as well, to pull out tannins, reducing nausea.

Since you're using it to potentiate vaped DMT, you're not going to need much at all. A few sips, if you reduce the 114g brew down to a cup or so.

Thanks a lot, that helps. But why a shirt instead of a coffee filter?

A lot of the sludge that a coffee filter catches has been verified by a few of us to contain many, and maybe most of the actives. Olympus Mons was kind enough to pioneer the egg-white method after getting frustrated with the weak brews that resulted from decanting too many times.

Edit: to clear this up a bit, the egg-white method already existed for use with mimosa brews, and Dagger was a big proponent of that. Olympus was the first person I'm aware of to apply it to aya as well.

Ah, I see, thank you.

I just put the coffee filtered sludge back into the main pot and will do the remaining two filters through a shirt.

Dont forget to throw some citric acid or vinegar in the water!

And yes, you use fresh water each time you perform a boil on the shredded material, combine, and reduce. Dont be afraid of the sludge! Its the heart and soul of el madre..

On the ayahuasca.com forum, it seems like not many people used egg white tanning binding for ayahuasca but some do. I don't think that it makes a big difference. Drink with sediment and eat a couple of grams ginger beforehand to lessen the nausea a bit.

And DO NOT use citric acid!!!
It makes the brew taste even more horrible. Use vinegar.

In my haste I just used plain tap water. Will this render the whole thing inert? I hope I didn't just spend 9 hours for nothing! I do have more caapi for future brews in which I will use vinegar. But will this tap water brew still act as an MAOI (as I am brewing for potentiating freebase only)?

yes it will work just fine

unless your water is very very basic for some reason, but even so its possible the natural tannins and plant acids in caapi will lower the pH enough for the alkaloids to be water soluble.

I've brewed ayahuasca plenty of times with plain water and it worked just fine, potent stuff. Traditionally in the amazon indigenous people neither use an extra acid.

Some experiments in the nexus suggest, though, that if you dont use an acid then you better powderize the caapi to increase surface area and help with alkaloid solubility, and/or that you do more soaks/boils.

Im sure yours will be fine though

It will be active, don't worry. Vinegar helps to extract more alkaloids, so i would start at 50g perhaps.

edit: Or better start lower to test your sensitivity.

For the record i had success with no acid used at all. It was much easier to drink that way and just as effective from what i could tell.

Can someone please explain the egg-white thing to SWIM? SWIM's to put a gooey (lightly fried) egg white into his reduction pot and then it binds to "bad stuff" sediment or sludge to which he then removes and trashes the egg white, sediment and all after a minute or so? Or just leaves it in? Or Something? He doesn't really want to mess with this step at all to be honest but keeps reading about it, maybe SWIMs over-complicating it in his mind and any extra measure to reduce nausea is good to him but this egg-white thing always confused him.

Here's a discussion of how to use the egg-white tek with ayahuasca. Here's also a discussion of the tannin binding process where dagger describes a gelatin tek as well.

In my experience, taking MAOI before smoking fb does not lower the breakthrough dose very much. Maybe ~20%, or so. It does extend the journey duration significantly and somewhat takes off the edge from straight unadulterated spice journey.

GVG or similar smoking teks are very efficient. I suggest to work on your smoking tek. Although I do not use GVG, 25 mg of good quality spice, vaped in a dry bong with a heat gun, launch me into hyperspace 100% of times, MAOI or not.

Please note, that caapi-only experience may be very rewarding. One of my most memorable journeys was with a huge dose of caapi. I still remember how glad I was for not drinking the mimosa part.

Here is my egg-white procedure, based on 6+ experiments
- Apply it BEFORE the final reduction; I used to do it when the volume was ~1L or less.
- Separate your whites from eggs. I used 3 eggs for 1L of brew.
- Whip up the whites to thick froth. It makes tannin binding more efficient.
- Cool your combined caapi extracts to ~85-90C.
- Slowly pour in the whites while stirring the brew continuously.
- Start heating the brew slowly until it starts boiling.
- Keep the heat just above the boiling point and watch the egg-whites. Approx. 15 min.
- Once the eggs completely coagulate, stop heating the brew.
- Filter the brew and discard the dirty whites.
- Continue reducing the brew to the required volume (~100 - 150ml).

Thanks ragabr and trickster!

Just a bit of an update from ground control:

First time with caapi used to potentiate freebase was a success. It extended the trip, which is what I was looking for, plus it enabled me to examine what was going on a bit more (not like I have any clue as to what this stuff we call DMT is, but more of a clue than freebase alone). I had a great night, smoking throughout to keep me in the zone. Caapi was amazing to help hold back the curtain. The whole night did what DMT so often does to me: leave me with more questions. Smoking with an MAOI gave me many more questions and the overall night left me baffled and determined to go deeper.

Next night. I dissolve an unweighed amount of freebase in a shot of grapefruit juice. I take two shots of caapi, wait ten minutes or so, then take the shot of dissolved freebase. A few minutes after that I take a small hit from the GVG. I lay back, feeling a bit ill . . . The next hour or so (I'm not looking at a clock, but I started at nine at night) is spent lying in bed not enjoying this feeling at all, vowing not to try pharma again . . . but I never purged . . .

I Decide to watch a movie to change my mindset. I watch The Office, and I'm glad I did. Turned out to be just the thing I needed. I felt much better a few minutes into it and went to get my "tools" (GVG, torch lighter with refill container, and my vial of spice. And my blanket.) and took periodic hits. Time spent watching the movie was time spent laughing and feeling great joy and connection and appreciation for everyone in my life and all parts of my life . . . your basic catharsis.

After the movie, and partway into another one, I decided to take a shower. So I puffed on the GVG a few times and went to shower. Now it was your classic rebirth as I stripped away the layers of clothing and stood electric before the mirror.

I spent the rest of the night in bed, in the dark, occasionally hitting the GVG as I relived and reviewed various parts of my life. But as 5 in the morning loomed it was like, "Okay, whew, I need to sleep . . . " I think I dosed somewhat around six in the morning, but I was up like clockwork at 7:30 to begin my day (starting with tending to my dog). I'd planned on just testing the waters and wound up on an eight hour ride. Very happy I did, though.

After that trip I took a break for five days or so. I was called back. This time I did freebase alone, without any apprehension at all for the first time. That was a big problem for me my first several trips, the anxiety, but after the night spent with pharma I no longer have ANY nervousness about DMT. I go into without fear or hesitation. But with great awe and respect, believe that.

I spent another 3 days in a row working with the spice, the last of which being another oral dose, but more, and I went deeper (communing with my dead brother, uninhibited laughing and crying, y'know, that kind of thing), and puked for the first time, but not unpleasantly, and only a little bit as I ate very little the day of (and only during the first hour before things got rolling).

Took another five day break, but yesterday I felt compelled to come back (been seeing closed eye visuals including perhaps self-generated far off shadow things with long long arms waving like, "All right, breaks over, we have work to do!" and so tonight I plan another deep journey with pharma and freebase, going further (to be read, Ingesting More DMT) and hopefully putting together a proper trip report at some point. GVG's all clean and ready, my night is of course free (as are my days), I haven't eaten for a good six hours (I'll have a bowl of cereal probably three hours before liftoff), and I am full of wonder.