Just wondering what others thought would pull more of the harmalas into the menstum more efficiently?

I've only used 99% IPA in the past it seems to work quite well. SWIM has access to Bestine and Naphtha also. Anyone have thoughts on using one over another?

naphtha and bestine are pretty poor solvents for harmala.

As ive already expressed before, Im doubtful even about IPA. I know in practice a lot of people do it and it seems to work well, but chemically I wonder how much of the alks are actually being pulled. I say this because I've tried dissolving freebase harmalas in IPA, and they dont dissolve too well, and in caapi, the alks are probably in some salt form. AFAIK we dont actually know which salt form the harmalas are naturally in caapi, but there is the possibility that the salt form is even less soluble in IPA than freebase. This would mean that people are losing a lot of alkaloids if they just soak the caapi and then throw it away.

I would love if someone would do an A/B in supposedly 'spent' caapi to see how much more alkaloids can be retrieved.

So summing up: Between your options, def use IPA. But if you do this, then at least do more than one soak with IPA to hopefully get more alkaloids.

Check these out Ice house, your sister has been doing a little research on the subject of Harmine and Harmaline solubilities

http://books.google.ca/b...20solubility&f=false

http://www.chemicalland2...ialtychem/nd/HARMINE.pdf

The 1st source has a great way to isolate the two compounds as well. These sources seem to indicate that hot MeOH would be the way to go.

The Merck Index also suggests hot alcohol for Harmaline

http://www.caymanchem.com/pdfs/10010324.pdf says harmine is only soluble 1.5mg/ml of EtOH, which means you need a lot of EtOH (660ml) to extract one gram

Acetone is a little better 4mgs/ml or 250mls of acetone for 1gram of Harmine, but it a poor choice of solvent to use indoors.