Okay, sorry if this has been covered before but I couldn't find anything on it. so SWIM is in the process of making 10x caapi leaf. The leaf has been sitting in the menstrum for about 3 weeks now and is ready to evaporate. Since SWIM does not have a rice cooker or food dehydrator he plans on using a fan to help speed up the evaporation process hoping this is adequate enough to get the job done.

The question is when adding fresh leaf to the menstrum at the end of the procedure, should SWIM grind up the caapi leaf or try to use the whole leaf and let the menstrum evaporate on that? SWIM was thinking to grind up the leaf a little thinking there would be more surface area but just wanted to run it by some Nexians here to make sure. Thanks!

Using a fan works but I kinda prefer to let it slow evap.
It seems like the fresh leaf soaks it up more efficiently and you end up with a dryer product.
In my experience, it just kinda ends up sticky on the outside and less consistent when you fast evap.

I'd say it's definitely better to chop up the fresh leaf pretty good.
It doesn't have to be completely powderized but it shouldn't hurt if it was.

Okay, got it! I would imagine a slow evaporation would result in a lot less dust and lint in the final product also as opposed to having a fan blowing on it. Thanks!

I am also making 10X caapi, but i have dry leaf... ? im confused by the word fresh here!
my menstrum is also being made from dry caapi leaf. unless your growing it though.. im guessing its always dry no?

why breaking/cutting it up do people get rid of the stalks? i find the leaf quite fibrous and tends to dust ball up a little. that or be very dusty. hard to find a middle ground.

cheers for the info though anyway, very helpful, as well as making me feel happier about my slow evap!

I dont think you need to go as far as powderising it. Chop it up to smoking consistency.

I will always chop/break up my dried caapi leaf in my hand, then a final snip with scissors to cut any fibrous material. Then make the infusion.

Enjoy

cheers gammagore.

also what do people tend to evap their mix in?! 500mg of leaf is very little, im thinking just a little bowl. does around two shots of menstrum seem like too much?

I break it up with my fingers into little pieces. Works fine... I evap it in wide mouth half pint jars, but a flat bottomed dish or small bowl would probably work better.

I've seen it mentioned somewhere else on the forum about removing the excess chlorophyll from 10x caapi menstrum. Since I'm still restricted to the nursery I couldn't comment on it.

Has anybody as of yet been successful at achieving this?

Also, would this even be necessary?

Sure one could always do an alkaloid extraction on the vine itself. It's just that a certain SWIM has quite a lot of caapi leaf laying around and figured he would use that up first while trying to get the most pure product as possible.

After two days evaping my first im surprised at the amount of thick green stain around the edge of the bowl. looooovely

Yes the color is actually quite beautiful. I'm sure a lot of chlorophyll gets carried over into the final product.

I just wonder if it were possible to remove most of the chlorophyll without removing any of the active alkaloids along with it.