First and foremost I would like to thank Endlessness for maintaining this amazing forum and all other members who contributed from their experience and knowledge to the benefit of all travelers.
Seems that quite a lot of the tek information on the forum is by now few years old, so the following is probably sort of "old news" but maybe some forum members will find it relevant in their endeavors. I tried to answer here some of the questions I had before performing the process myself, so maybe there is a bit of new information here after all

So here goes: After reading few times the relevant teks ( see references at the bottom ) I decided to take the plunge and extract some harmalas myself, and let me tell you... it is easier than baking a cake!

Here is what I did so far:

1. 100g of ground Syrian rue seeds boiled for 40 minutes with 75ml of vinegar and 1.5L of tap water (filtered with Brita but I am not sure how important that is).
2. Liquid filtered through a regular kitchen strainer few times and kept a side.
3. All solids went back in the pot and steps 1&2 repeated 3 times. I ended up with 3L of brownish liquid. Solid matter was discarded.
4. Resulting liquid of all boils was combined and filtered via a series of DIY filters: an old t-shirt first, then regular tissue papers stuffed in the bottom of the funnel and eventually paper coffee filters.
5. Liquid went into a clean pot and gently boiled and reduced to 800ml.
6. Filtration process from step 4 was carried out again on the 800ml of liquid. Here I had a little surprise: The filtering here was much harder than the first time around.
7. Sodium carbonate added gradually to the liquid (it was now in room temperature, but I don’t think it matters), which started to turn milky (Woohoo!). As the teks said, I added more and more sodium carbonate "Until there is no more color change" but to my surprise at a certain point the liquid turned back to brownish again. I had a little panic moment there but then I realized that maybe the excess of sodium carbonate made the alkaloids fall out of the tea quicker (???)
8. I put it in the fridge for a couple of hours and when I came back there was a nice layer of alkaloids at the bottom of the jar (Another woohoo moment!) with a brownish liquid on top.
9. I siphoned the brown liquid off the top, added fresh water ( Amount doesn't really matter as all I want here is to wash an excess of sodium carbonate, so I just filled the jar to same level as it was before siphoning) and stirred. Put the jar back in the fridge and now waiting for the alkaloids to sink to the bottom again.

Few notes:

- From step 6 onward I kept all used coffee filters and I plan to put them in some water/vinegar solution and see if I can recover more alkaloids.
- Step 9 was taken from Gibran2 Caapi tek and performed in order to get rid of excess sodium carbonate and other soluble stuff ( the harmalas are insoluble in water so they remain safely in the jar). The siphoned liquid was then filtered with a coffee filter and the used filter kept.
- I plan to perform step 9 few more times to get the harmalas cleaner and continue with the Manske step.
- Since all ingredients are food safe I used my regular kitchen equipment so no need to keep special pots and jars for the extraction.

References ( All on dmt-nexus site):
"Harmalas Extraction and Separation Guide"
"Easy Caapi Vine Alkaloid Extraction Guide"
"The Tao of Rue Extraction"

The Traveler is actually the one who runs the forum. Although the Nexus owes much to Endlessness.

What was your yield from 100 grams seeds? I like to start my harmala extractions with a Manske. Take the combined reduced tea and put on the stove to warm. Add salt until no more will dissolve into the solution. Then put in fridge. The alkaloids which crash out will be (supposedly) free from the alkaloids which are dangerous to pregnant women (vascicine, vascone?). Then I dissolve these alkaloids in water and base to retrieve freebase alkaloids like you've described. Good work have fun!!

Harmala alks have really convenient properties, sedimentation and time do most work for you, and need just water as a solvent.

I do 3 steps - first base precip, Manske, second base precip.
Preferr use of less water in the beginning, there is no need for reducing before basing then, at least with KOH, my preferred base.
Also initial fine filtering could be skipped, it's annoying and not necessary, I think cloth is enough here. Harmala water does not need to be very well filtered before basing.
I fine filter just before Manske, so much less volume.

Good luck, monomind, rue extraction is very rewarding.

OK - No disrespect intended For some reason i assume it was Endlessness so thanks for letting
me know.


I cant really tell since process is not completed yet and end product is not dry, but I attached here a photo after 1st basification and few water washes. Will do the Manske next and will post results once i have dry alks.


Thanks for the tips, I think next time I will try the shortest possible process, will not even ground the seeds and see what is the difference in yield.

Part 2

Process finished at last! It took few days because I let time and earth gravity do most of the work.
Did altogether 2 basifications and 2 manskes ( photos below ) with lots of washing in the basification stage. After last basification I kept washing with water till ph strip showed same color as my tap water ( so no sodium carbonate in final product ) and no salty taste in the water.
Final yield ( not including whatever I will be able to recover from the used filters I kept ) was 2.25g of light beige powder.


Oh, and I had a small accident where my glass jar shattered inside the water bath... I just evaporated the mix of bath water and alkaloid red liquid to the original volume and continued from there.

Notes:
1) the water I siphoned off the alks during washing have a yellow/green tint to it that didnt seem to fade with more washing ( or maybe just a little ) Any idea what that is ( photo in post above ) ?
2) 2nd Manske:


3) My hands glow in purple and green now under UV light , no matter how many times I wash them.

The green/yellow tint in the solution is indicative of harmala alkaloids still in solution. It glows in sunlight, under fluorescent lamp, I'm guessing under UV lamp also. I've noticed this in my own extractions when basing with sodium carbonate. The sodium carbonate does not crash everything out of solution. You can add a little sodium hydroxide to the still glowing solution to retrieve the rest of your alks. Or, use sodium hydroxide from the beginning, which is what I do now.

It really seems that carbonate is not the best choice for basing as your yield is not that high.
I also use hydroxide and extract more than 5% with it.

Tony and doubledog, thanks for the tips. I will give hydroxide a go next time.
Do you think that my alks are therefore not full spectrum ( maybe the weak base got only a certain type of alks out ) ?

Cheers

My guess would be that ratio of harmine is higher in your alks than in your rue, so some harmaline was lost.