Hello all,

Feeling thourghilly unsatisfied with the 45 Litres of water required to extract harmala using the herbal percolator method,
I resolved to come up with a tek which utilises a more sensible solvent, such as IPA.

Tihkal uses MeOH and DCM to dissolve THH. (harmine and harmaline will also dissolve im sure) IPA should also work.
however, they must be as the free base for this to work.

after an acid soak, base the caapi up with lye water, then add IPA, and salt. grab the IPA and evap.

SWIM is testing this theory today, I think this is workable almost straight away but i'll need to test the harmalas in IPA. Phlux-
reports that they are not soluble as the salt form in IPA, as expected... theory says they should work as the free base.

all I need is appropriate volumes and a few people to test the tek.
Thanks for your help working this one out guys

Doesn't alcohol produce the inactive harmala red ?

Thats something I don't know about. I read breifly 69Ron's post that theorized that harmala red was an oxidation product of harmala. Im not sure though, im just asking some friends about the possible oxidation products of harmine as we speak.

its harmaline that degrades.. nobody knows yet what it is, harmala red might be some active compound.. I have yet to read of people bioassaying it

but, anyways, there is the possibility that acidified IPA will prevent this degradation (oxidation?) from happening, like in whiterasta's tek.. its something interesting to test

I have some harmaline at home but am travelling now.. when I get back I might try to play with it and see if I can answer this question

Since discovering whiterasta's method, that's the only route I've gone. I acidify my alcohol and (aside from my first extraction, when I didn't use enough acid) I have never encountered harmala red, even when evapping with a computer fan. The end result has always been fairly pure and is well within my standards for consumption and desirable effects.

Aside from the substituting of lye for ammonia, how does this differ at all from whiterasta's tek?

EDIT:
Oh, I see, you're going A/B before the IPA...is this necessary? I'm sorry, my chemistry's not too good, I just don't really get the advantages of this method over an acidified IPA soak, evap of IPA, redissolving in water, and basifying/crashing em out.

this strategy does not really sound amazing.

IPA is not amazing at dissolving either harmine/harmaline salts or freebases. It does dissolve them to some extent however. Prolonged stay in the IPA also causes the alkaloids to turn to something reddish. And on top of that, the separation of IPA from the basic solution (no matter how much salt you add) is not going to be complete. A good portion of IPA that will float on top of the water but will have water and salts in it as well.

I smell trouble, but I hope things will not be as bad...

AFAIK ethyl acetate is the solvent for F/B harmaloids

So do you have experience with ethyl acetate and harmalas? If so do you have any info on solubility, degradation etc?

Ethyl Acetate is cited in several articles as solvent for F/B harmala alkaloids. here is one example.
Isolation of harmala alkaloids from Passiflora

As stated this might be a bad idea...

Have you tried mixing 99%+ IPA with Lye water? You only get about a 90% separation, that's a 10% loss each time you do a pull.

Try making some lye water, mixing it with IPA, collecting the IPA and doing an Evap on it.

Maybe it will come out clean, would be worth an experiment. Odds are you will be left with a little white powdered Lye in your dish. Not something you want mixed with your Harmala, especially if smoking it in Changa!

Sodium carbonate is much safer, and food grade. Not to mention it works EQUALLY as well as Lye for harmala extractions.

Another note on Harmalas.

Lots of the THH\Harmaline tinctures sold online are NOT alcohol based. Many are Vinegar based. This means the commercial producers must be aware of some connection between Alcohol & Harmala degradation, whether it exists or not.

But as Shoe says he also adds salt which makes the water less/more polar (can't remember off hand) and therefore the IPA does not mix as well giving clear layers.