Uncle has successfully produced xtails from the well filtered vinegar brew without performing the basification step... so why is it needed?

Just to get a greater concentration of alks??

Seems a lot of effort especially since it's not so easy to reduce PH with the water washes after the basing step (as is indicated in the tek) as well as the extreme amount of time it takes for it to settle after each wash...

Uncle gave up washing after about 6 times considering it was taking litres each time to reduce the PH of half a litre of brew by .5!

Last time he did an extraction with the basing step, washed once then figured the vinegar would neutralise it so much quicker anyway... excellent results as well!

Just food for thought.

Peace, love and light.

There are a couple of reasons for the basification steps.

The first reason is when you do the initial base, it releases impurities that won't redissolve when you acidify the brew again.

The second reason is when you are finished with the tek, the final basification allows you to tally your true yield at the end.

When you have the harmala hcl crystals (the result after you add the salt), there might be some salt contamination in there so it's hard to tell exactly what you have.

I really don't like all of the cleanup steps either but for really clean yields, they do seem to be mandatory.

Also, you're right that after that first base, once you decant most of the basic liquid off, it's fine to use vinegar to neutralize the remaining base.

Thanks for trying the tek and I'm glad you got good results. How much rue did you start with and what was your yield??

Welcome to the Nexus!