Hi All,
in my quest for freebase harmaloids to make changa with I have tried following this tek: https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...lkaloid_Extraction_Guide using 25g of caapi vine said to be used for ayahuasca as a trial.

I got a decent precipitate out after basifying the clear solution from the second acidification (counting the initial boils as the first). But it's a lot darker than shown in the tek. Reddish brown, pretty much the same colour as what was left over following acid boil. The wash water above it is now colourless after a couple of rinses though.

Is that anything to worry about?

Many thanks,
frac4

I have tried several different vines and it is always something different... some vines are very clean, other very dirty! Sometimes you just need to filter a bit, basify/acidify twice and you get fairly clean harmalas. I am doing an extraction right now and it has been a pain in the ass! Took a long time to filter and the first precipitate was so dirty that I had to do around 5 acid/base cycles to get it to a mud color. I tried Manske but by the looks of it... its not gonna go very well either!

25g is a very small amount though... I wouldn't do less than a 100g, not worth the trouble! Anyways, filter the precipitate, acidify again, see how dark the solution is and whether it is transparent or cloudy. If it is not transparent, do a few more acid/base cycles. If you had larger amount, I would have suggested doing Manske once the solution is transparent, but with 25g... just do the acid/base cycles until it's clean enough.

Thanks!

I might go more "full spectrum" on this one anyway as it's an experiment to compare with just smoking whole vine in the changa. I know what you mean about the small quantity, but I've only got 100g of vine to start with and didn't want to blow it all At least I got *some* precipitate on basifying, unlike my first trial with alleged full spectrum rue extract! (see previous thread).

Early days on my journey, thanks for helping.

Cheers,
frac4

P.S. forgot to say, the liquid was transparent before basing, so I guess I just got some colorful alkaloids too..

I've never extracted from caapi yet. But i've extracted from rue a number of times, and i tried everything from red-brown harmalas to near white harmalas, both in changa and orally. They all worked well and were ok to smoke.

Thanks, that's heartening news

Cheers,
frac4

So I just found out, Manske works even if the solution is too dirty, and it probably works far better than the acid/base cycles. I should have done that right after the first basification.
There were concerns about THH not precipitating via Manske, but I have crystallized it that way! if you are unsure, you can filter out the crystals and basify the mother liquor to see if there's anything left.