My cat has created a big mess with his p. harmala seeds.

He ground them up with a coffee grinder.

He was careful about the heat being made by grinding.

100 grams we're ground in 2-3 batches. The powder was placed in a 2 L HDPE bottle and 500ml 3% acetic acid (diluted 5% vinegar with distilled water) was added, allowed to settle and remove top layer. Repeated two more times. On the last one the mix was filtered through a tea towel. The ~1500ml was then left to settle and a good amount of crap did settle. The clear liquid on top was removed very carefully. The crap on the bottom was placed in a coffee filter to drip for hours. all the clear liquid was reduced to 500ml. To this added salt while boiling. He was going for excess salt and intended to filter it out then put the stuff in the fridge to crash out the goods.

As soon as the pot was taken off the stove it started to crash out I guess. It was impossible to filter. The excess of salt caused the haramla to crash immediately?

Kitty didn't know what to do so he gave up on filtering and let everything settle. Then removed the top layer of brown water/salt/vinegar/whatevver else and saved it. Took the brown goo and dried it.

So now what? The stuff he dried is probably the goods plus lots of other crap. The liquid has some stuff in it too.

My cat was thinking that defatting with xylene while everything was soaking in vinegar would have been helpful but I don't see info on this. It seems to make sense. Next time he wants to try that.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Sounds like its going right to me, and I dont see why you would mess with disgusting xylene in an extraction like harmalas where you can keep it all food-safe and no-smell (thats just me though).

You did right to decant, now redissolve, filter plenty and base to precipitate cleaner alkaloids. Follow the harmala extraction guide in the wiki and all will work good

Good luck

In the future, if you use this easy caapi extraction TEK and apply the Manske TEK after the acidification step, you can avoid all problems related to filtering rue “mud”.

Ive had the same problem..and find that if you put the brew in the fridge for a day or so before you add the salt, you can then decant and filter it leaving behind alot of sediments, resulting in a clearer tea of which you can then salt.