As the title says. I've found a simple 4x alcohol and water extraction on Caapi leaves to yield a useful product. But, it takes 7-8 hits to work well.

Would a simple STB work well to get something a little more pure to add to the 4x product?

7-8 hits? Of evaporated material, presumably? And I guess by STB you mean precipitating from harmala or caapi tea with soluble base?

If you're going to be precipitating the harmala freebase from aqueous solution, you might as well add at least some of the 4× extract to that solution beforehand for a bit of a clean-up. It depends how much you value any possible "full-spectrum" nuances from it.

STB in terms of pulling freebase with some kind of solvent is difficult to the point of most probably being a waste of time - for one thing, the freebase is insoluble in naphtha [can't remember if you already know that, so I've mentioned it for good measure]. Crashing from water is so much easier.

Caapi leaf tea taste pretty mellow..
Why not just make caapi leaf tea to drink... before smoking?
the tea can be as concintrated as you want it...

If you simply crash with a base, then clean up with a few water washes, and forgo the final a/b cleanup, will the result have lye in it or be too basic.

For vaping, I assume you do want the freebsse?

Caapi is quite a bit different than Rue, but I'm assuming that all the alkaloids would be crashed out? Thus you would preserve the higher THH and low to non-existent Harmaline. I'd guess that's the only full spectrum difference.

If you're particularly concerned about lye contamination you could always crash with ammonia instead.

Brennendes Wasser has done the most extensive comparison of vaporisation properties of various substances, harmalas included, and their salt forms so I'd suggest checking that particular thread.

Caapi contains a broader range of unique secondary alkaloids that may or may not contribute to the spectrum of caapi's effects but I would expect the glycoside like ones (i.e. those with sugar-like molecules attached) to be less suitable for vaporisation, for example. It's perhaps a question of whether you noticed any specific 'caapi-like' quality from the crude extract that you'd like to preserve. One way of homing in on this would be to compare the effects of the precipitated freebase material.

Another way of taking this further might be to examine the qualitative and quantitative anylyses of caapi and determine whether any of those secondary components appear to be of pharmacological interest to you. That may turn out to be an endeavour equivalent to writing a doctoral thesis, however!

Interesting. So, most Harmalas don't vaporize well (fully, anyway) but THH does. That might be why the Caapi leaf is so nice to smoke. Dunno. No info on salts of Harmalas, darn, but no biggy.

Would a number of water washes likely reduce any lye to acceptable levels?

As usual



Seriously. You da man.

Caapi leaves are easy to extract using common method for harmaloids, although yield is not very high. I did it once and got 0.25%.

Remaining lye should be washed away by multiple water washes.

What you get from extraction depends on what species of caapi ...is being used..

The black caapi leaf is said to be one of the highest in THH content...

used as a tea the taste is very mild...

Funny coincidence. I was just thinking about how to use caapi leaves correctly. I use them to make changa of course, but never tried caapi leave tea or extracting the alkaloids further.

Since I live in a temperate climate, I abolished the idea of harvesting some wood here one day, without opting for a heated full glass greenhouse with enough space.

Anyway, I was able to care for several caapi plants that became huge and I was able to make a lot of cuttings of these. If the leave could be used instead of the chunk to make an Ayahuasca like analogue, this would be good news.

So 0,25 % of alkaloids? Isn't that bad either.

I will give the black caapi a try. All I have for instance is the Tucunaka strain, grown from seed.

What I'll mention here is that there doesn't seem to be much scientifically definite about smoking Harmalas. What I do know is that, if you are aiming to change and potentiate something that works on it's own (does not need gut MAO inhibition) such as mushrooms and smoked DMT, it doesn't seem to require much at all. Smoking a healthy pinch of Syrian Rue will do the trick. Caapi leaves at 4x or straight Syrian Rue at 4-6 inhalations has a quite definite effect on those things. I know that Syrian Rue orally at that dose wouldn't do much.

Caapi unimproved and even 4x Passionflower, both of which would be pretty low in effect, even seem to change things to a smaller extent.

As to me at the moment, I'm just looking to decrease the amount of inhalations.
I've gotten a lot of good answers but haven't had a chance to mad scientist them yet.
But, smoking Harmalas is a subject which would be interesting to get perspectives on as well. That vs oral, etc., etc..

Donfoolio, I think I read that Caapi leaves have more purgative properties. Extraction may alleviate that, I don't know.
It seems easy at the basic level. People don't seem to require the "salt step" used with Syrian Rue to eliminate undesirable alkaloids with Caapi. Maybe someone smarter than me could weigh in on that.

Starway7, thanks so much for your input. Caapi tea is definitely on my list, but not for a while. Right now, I'm using this as medicine. Less often and less "playing" (and experimenting) If it ain't broke, don't fix it... yet.