I collected ~160 g of fresh P. aquatica. I first thought to dry it and store it for later, and so I set a fan to blow cold air on it and let it run for a few hours until I changed my mind and decided to cook it before it dried to minimize enzymatic alkaloid degradation.

So I put the somewhat fresh (but partially dried) material in a PC. To that, I added a few grams of dry material from the previous harvest.

I did two boils with little water and reduced it. The result is a tar - see picture.

Now, I'm wondering how to best extract it? I'm only interested in a salt form for oral administration.

Here is the idea I'm considering:

1. Mix base into the tar (with a bit of water), to convert the alkaloids to fb. I have food-grade calcium hydroxide and reckon this would be preferable to NaOH, as the material looks oily/fatty and NaOH turns into soap in the presence of fats, which causes emulsions.

2. Dry it completely. Dryness increases the efficiency of NP pulls as the goodies don't have any water to (partially) dissolve in.

3. Pull with limonene. I can do, say, 3 pulls; use decanting on the first 2 and run it through a coffee filter (after decanting) on the last one.

4. Do FASI salting on the limonene.


Does this sound reasonable?

Much of the DMT in this grass may be n-oxide, would that precipitate in the FASI salting?

Also, can I use sunflower oil instead of limo? I've used it in the past on MHRB and it caused emulsion problems, but if I use lime instead of lye, it shouldn't be an issue?

Sounds entirely reasonable. That's certainly one of the approaches I'd consider.

I placed my AQ1 material directly into the freezer. Perhaps it's time to thaw it out.

What time of day did you harvest your plant material?

From what I've read, freezing doesn't seem to stop the enzymatic degradation.

I harvested it in the afternoon. At this time of year I'd have to get up at 4 am to do a morning harvest. It would be easier to stay up that late. Next time I drink Ayahuasca I might turn the insomnia into something useful

The tar smells fruity, like strawberry jam. It's almost tempting to eat it, but when I have drank Phalaris tea it has caused me great gastric discomfort, that's why I'm extracting it. I don't expect this handful of grass to yield much, it's more of a POC. I've started replacing my lawn with it (hard work removing the old grass!), if the extraction produces encouraging results the lawn replacing will get a boost.

Now, having read up more, I'm wondering if there is any advantage to using limonene (or any other NPS) over just pulling with IPA and doing FASI on that.

The problem with limonene is it mixes with IPA, so if you want to reuse it for future pulls, you have to separate them.

Using an NPS makes sense when pulling from an aqueous soup, but when pulling from dry material you can pull straight with IPA and then add just enough fumaric acid to your IPA pulls to salt your alkaloids out, right? And the IPA can be reused in subsequent extractions without the need for any separation or cleanup?

Oh, OK - I'll guess I'll just have to find out. I only have POC quantities as well so it will be good to follow your progress. I managed to harvest mine earlier in the year when getting up at sunrise was easier, although quite often I harvested at sunset - i.e. these were multiple, small harvests of fresh shoots.

It makes me smile to think of, perhaps, your neighbours seeing you innocently mowing your lawn, whereas you know you're harvesting sacred molecules
And your saying strawberry jam reminds me of the Feesey strain I've harvested at the same time.

Incidentally, my AQ1 is (of course) flowering at the moment and some of the flowers have quite a strong reddish tinge. It seems many grass (Gramineae) flowers can have a certain magic to them. It's getting late here and I'm rambling, sorry!