abom (a buddy of mine) just finshed his first extraction of harmalas and it seemed to go pretty well, not too many problems with filtering. A little more time and effort compared to the spice but interesting with the color changes and ph level stuff.


quick synopsis, no pics yet

+/- 230 gs of "sadaf esphand" brand seeds from the local middle eastern grocery / convenenience store (really!)

ground them up coarse like coffee grinds (from what abom hears this was a good way to keep from having filtering problems)

boiled 3 times with enough water to cover seeds (and a nice drop of vinegar in each boil)

did not reduce, was just enough liquid to fit abom's container (bought a glass coffee press at ROSS'S for $6 worked very well and abom could use it for filtering/adding salt/carbonating/decanting. Worked Great)

filtered thru upside down spray bottle (cut bottom) and +/- 3-6 cotten balls stuffed in the neck

let each filter sit until finshed (+/-10-20 minutes each time) and then refilter immediately (3 times overall)

warmed up the waer, poured into coffee press, salted and left in fridge (peaking the whole time)

next morning pressed the crude extract with the press (worked perfect) discarded leftover water. When abom spooned out the crude extract it was crumbly and only took about +/-1 hour to dry completely.

mixed with warm water and did 3 more filters exatly as above (water was coming out a new light brown red color with much more clarity)

abom got some sodium carbonate from a pool supply store (soda ash $12-5lb jug - I know, I know, he could have oven baked it - but he don't have a stove, he's in the middle of a kichen remodel and it's in the garage)

added a few spoonfuls slowly and whala!! very cool orange and yellow precipitates swirling around - really gives abom some satisfaction to see this happen

let it sit overnight and pressed again (material was a little finer and some came up the sides, but not much, will get back to that tho)

took the bottom fine sludge (looked like fine wet sand - lite tan color) and put in on a dish and set in dehydrator)

dried in less than 2 hours and broke it up and weighd (+/- 2350 mgs - a little lite but abom saved the liquid with the escaped alks and it currently resalting them as we speak - looks like he may get +/- 1500mg out os that as well)

overall not difficult at all, though abom read very tek about 3 time over. the coffee press really made a difference from what i can tell from others experiences

abom tried it out today, very relaxing he said, weird feeling at first (a mild but welcomed jolt) was a little suprised about the effects.

when he was smoking the harmalas (lite tan color- 2 salts-one base) wouldn't burn very quickly and blackend up. any ideas or advice?

congrats!
glad it worked fine for you !

regarding the smoking, im not too familiar with smoking harmalas like that. When I vaporize it, I use the vaporgenie and its usually dissolve in changa, it works perfect. I would guess it has to do with your smoking method.

thanks for the encouragement endlessness, it is appreciated

how are you changafying the harmalas? with the spice? or on their own?

abom put a little tan powder on top of parsley and lavender, but the harmalas didn't smoke very easily took a little effort

oookaaay


just coming back from the inner reaches to share the first journey with a pre-harmala smoke out.

full intensity was about +/- 15 minutes with closed eye vis for 30+ mins - full back to baseline +/-1 hr

wasn't feeling all that great because of a certain misstep made earlier (you may have read about it), but decided to go ahead anyway.

smoke a couple of bowls of the harmalas and then threw it down (estimtateed +/-20mgs of spice)

I don't seem to hav similar trips as some others (never heard the ripping sound or entity contact yet) even with +/-50 mgs ( my technique and tools may not suffice - bong and one hitter are what I've got - maybe a gvg in the future)

most of my trips are about running thru some interspiritualgalactic wormholes and portals all the while seeing gnashing teeth and eyeballs while i feel like I'm battling for my life (or what I think is my life)

this time it was a lot more coherent and I felt more in control of myself, although I felt like I was going deeper than I had before, really felt like there was progress.

first time before this that I had asked for knowledge and guidance, when things got rough and a little crazy i would say to myself "I asked for this, I want to learn" and i was able to move on.


this was also one of the most satisfying voyages that I had made, felt like a full circle movement, usually I want to keep going, but the knowledge that I felt and the afterglow feeling is really working for me right know. Think I need some time to digest.

see you inside