Hello dear worshipped Nexians,

Here is Bonaventure's first question to the oracle. Very exciting indeed !

So - qualitatively speaking - I was wondering about the harmala's extract spectrum versus which base is used to precipitate the freebase alkagoodies. Actually I dreamed of a food-grade extraction using only vinegar and sodium carbonate. Alkagoodies did precipitate using sodium carbonate, but the brew left behind remained rather milky/cloudy. So I guessed some alkagoodies were still in solution. So I filtered to remove the precipitate, then added some lye to the remaining brew, and I checked that some more precipitation occured while the brew became rather dark but crystalline (I mean no more milky/cloudy).

The first precipitate (following addition of sodium carbonate) and the second precipitate (following addition of lye) had very distinct colors. The first one's color was a nice light brown (let's say like light mud), while the second one was dark brown (like dark mud). Based on this stunning color difference, I presume the spectrum of the 2 precipitates was very different too... (?)

That being said, the really question is : which extra molecules does lye precipitate when sodium carbonate doesn't ? Would it be good ones or nasty ones ? Do you please have a clue ? If not, maybe 2 cents ?

I did my TEK with NaOH, however, I believe it would work with Na2CO3 as well. The yield was excellent. I couldn’t believe how much salt I managed to make.

Principles:

1. Save yourself a few hours of pain, and don’t grind the rue. The only reason to grind the rue is to make the filtering much worse than it could be.

2. Use a lot of vinegar. I put the rue into vinegar only without adding water. I don’t know how strong the vinegar was because I bought about twenty bottles of budget vinegar in the grocery store, and it’s not written on it. I guess it was somewhere between 2% and 5%.

3. Put it into the oven on 115-120C degrees for five to six hours. It should not boil but almost. I guess the liquid has a boiling point of around 120C degrees. When I write for six hours, I mean it. It’s much better to make that part long than do even more filtering.

4. Remove the vinegar, and add new vinegar, and boil it again. Do it 3-4 times in total. I tested it with basic methods, and after three rounds, I believe the rue had no harmaline left in it. (Tests were: tasting a few seeds, adding NaOH and see no more precipitate).

5. Put all the liquid together.

6. Add NaOH to it until all the alkaloids turn into precipitate. Use your heart or a pH meter or both.

7. Here comes the trick that might or might not work with Na2CO3. Wait until the precipitate goes to the bottom. This happens in maybe half an hour. It’s awesome as it saves you from a lot of filtering. (It still will be a pain though).

8. Remove the liquid from the top. Remove it as much as you can. Get a pipette. Then, add vinegar again to make all the precipitate solved. It’s okay if you add more than needed. Then, add NaOH (or Na2CO3) again.

9. Repeat steps 7-8 a few times.

10. Add vinegar again but not more than how much is needed to make precipitate solved.

11. Filter it as many times as you can without going mad. You can use a tea filter or a simple kitchen cleaning paper. The more times you filter it the better.

12. Make it warm but not too hot. Add NaCL to the liquid, stir it until it gets solved and put it into the fridge. Use 100-120g NaCL for one liter liquid.

13. You should get a brownish-yellow precipitate. Unlike when you added NaOH, it won’t settle to the bottom, or it will take ages. The reason might be that NaCL is heavy. So, you need to filter it. I built a vacuum filter using two pet bottles (came with the vinegar) with a hole on their caps glued together. The advantage is that you can remove a bit more of the NaCL if you do it. You can filter it with a funnel too but more NaCL will remain in it.

14. Dissolve the harmaline-HCL in distilled water, and repeat steps 12-13 three-four times.

Voila. You get quite pure harmaline-HCL. I don’t know it yet but if I will have time, I will take it to a laboratory to have its purity measured.

Not grinding the rue and removing the top layer of liquid above the precipitate are the keys to making the filtering a less horrible experience than what it can be.

To answer your last question, I believe both NaOH and Na2CO3 will turn some toxins into precipitate.

The part with the NaOH/Na2CO3 is to remove physical contamination. The part with the NaCl is to remove the toxins. I did not test it myself but read it in the Wiki.

There are no toxins in Rue, there are merely a couple compounds in there that shouldn't be consumed by pregnant women due to potential for abortion, that's all. Rue is not toxic.

As my chemistry teacher used to say, "Everything is toxic. The only question is in what amount."

When I got my rue, I used to chew 1-3 g of it. I never felt sick on it, but compared to the extract I made of it later, it was nasty. On the other hand, I read people survive drinking tea made of 50-100g rue.

The difference in colour is normal, at higher pH more harmaline deposits. By manipulating pH one splits the fractions of different molecules. I tend to reach pH 12 to get all or max molecules solidified. NaOH goes there more easily than sodium carbonate.
Happy trials..

Thank you Anonymous2. The tek you described here is pretty much what I did on my 1st attempt, which was mostly inspired by the 'Tao of rue extraction' tek I found here on the Nexus. On my 1st attempt I used NaOH, but on my 2nd attempt I just thought I would try a food-grade extraction using Na2CO3 (obtained by cooking food-grade sodium bicarbonate) instead of NaOH.

I totally agree with you about not grinding the seeds and removing the top layer above the precipitate to save some filtering pain.


Thank you Jees, I think you gave the answer I was looking for !