Hello everyone,

I brought some ayahuasca-paste from peru and want to extract the active alkaloids....or in other words I want to separate the alkaloids from the plant matter.

Can I just dissolve the paste in warm water and filter the plant matter out with some cotton wool in a fennel?

Hi, the problem with aya is it isn't the same extraction to do to extract harmalas and DMT.
So nowyou got ayapaste, the best is to take aya. I do'nt know why you would wantto ruingoodaya. I know someone who tried and only ruined all and didn't got anything...
Now You can freebase the harmalas and maybe try extractthe DMT but you may ruin a lot.
Ilove aya so for me its like if you would tell me "hello I broughht good red wine from france, how could I separate the alcohol so I could just sniff those ?"
SO you'll say am biaised. but yeh DMT and harmalas don't really work the same way for an extraction... not sure you can just crude extract the aya either. YOu can microdose it if you're scared of using it. I' d understand.

Just dilute the paste a little bit with some water to obtain liquid consistency and drink it.

If you really want to extract alkaloids, base the liquid to precipitate harmala alkaloids, separate them and extract remaining liquid with something nonpolar (toluene) to obtain dmt.

Thank you for your messages!

I have no issues with drinking that aya....but...

I want to use this aya paste also as admixture in my changa blend. Not sure how I could do this!
So my idea was to dilute the paste in alcohol, filtrate it and then use this alcohol (wich carries the psychoactive compounds) as base for the changa.
Would this work?

I would say not very well or not at all, alkaloids are in their salt form in that paste, not the best for smoking.

....what is the point then to add ayahuasca into changa anyways .....?

That's a good question... I agree with doubledog that turning into freebase will make the alkaloids more soluble in (though for harmalas still not very soluble) but also probably be more effective for vaporization. In some cases of salt forms (like fumarate), smoking is undesirable due to breakdown into irritating or toxic products (like maleic anhydride) Im unsure what is the natural salt form of alkaloids in P. viridis or B. caapi (tannate? oxalate? ), and neither if that form would potentially have negative health effects.

Regarding the health, I think smoking anything probably isn't a good idea (better vaporizing if possible), but I'd also put into perspective that the regularity in which we are exposed to many other toxic compounds in daily life is way more significant than a small amount of smoke from a once-in-a-while changa smoking session.

In the case of changa, some people, apart from the caapi leaves, also add extra harmalas in freebase form, not in the salt form.

In the case of changa with no extra freebase harmalas, I think that the harmalas in caapi leaves might still have psychoactive effect, though likely less effective than if they were freebase.

. Also, I think for a lot of people there is a mystique regarding adding caapi leaves, sort of like a spiritual belief that it "balances out" the trip or that the mix is meant to be or something of the sort, which is an idea you can decide to entertain or not.

Me personally, I've experimented with changa, had good experiences, but over time I've generallly rather chosen to vaporize some pure DMT, sometimes pre-dosing some oral harmalas or small dose of mushrooms if I want a longer duration and easier integration of the trip.

If I had ayahuasca I'd just drink it.

Edit:

As others said regarding the original question in the thread, I think that you could dilute, precipitate harmalas with base and filter to retrieve them, and then do non-polar pull for DMT

I'd just drink it, but if you insist on making changa, I'd basify, collect the precipitated harmalas and pull the DMT with an NPS.

If it's indeed a thick, spoon-bending paste, you need to dilute it before basification.

Also, the harmala precipitate will probably be very dirty and depending on how concentrated your basic soup is, a lot of harmalas will stay in suspension. I'd add at least 2x the volume of water.