I actually find a 50g brew at 150ml less offensive than a cup of strong black coffee. The bitterness always seems nicely balanced out with a creamy warmth.

Do you think you were boiling it too hard perhaps?

Hahaha are you always this positeve? Will definitely come in handy if for some reason I need to live in the wild haha



No It was just simmering 2 x 3.5 hours.

But I did get it almost all down but I had to leave the last 20ml because I was starting to have a gag reflex. One more sip and I would have trow up.

And this was so what I needed The effects are slowly fading away now. I didn't get much nausea and just felt really good. Very relaxed and my mind drifting peacefully. I was lying in my bed with a warm duvet and it was very nice. Felt like I sometimes kind of started to dream but still awake. Had a bit of headache but nothing too bad.


But maybe there's something wrong with my caapi. I've only once before had caapi and it was from the same batch.
There's no way you guy's would have liked that taste. You could as well tell my you like your legs sawn off No one likes his leg sawn off.

Whatever you do, don't acidify too much with lemon concentrate. It tastes horrible.
Also: Better don't try to neutralize the acid with sodium bicarbonate, at least not if you want "crema di ayahuasca" *pukes*

Traditional Brazilian Ayahuasca, like in the Santo Daime, when freshly made is actually sweet. I believe it's because it's probably made with fresh leaves and vine. They don't brew it with anything but plain water

The sugar present in the Sacrament allows it to ferment when it is stored for some month . This, when used in actual sessions, if at a first try the taste may seem offensive, it is actually quite bearable. After a few sessions, one even starts to like it! no kidding!

Well next time I'm brewing I'm using pure water only. I've always squeezed a lime into the brew or make the vine soak over night in water with lime juice.
If pure water doesn't taste better that will be my last brew. Seriously. I can handle the nausea but I just can't handle this taste. I don't mind too much getting nauseous and trow up and all that but I just get nauseous thinking about the taste

Well I think I'll try this some day:
https://www.dmt-nexus.me....aspx?g=posts&t=8026

SWIM has been working on a method that makes even cactus brews nearly palatable.

Basically it works on the assumption that steam has different solubility than steam, it is basically a compromise between cold-water extraction (CWE) and 3x3 brewing.
SWIM believes that it produces results nearly identical to CWE but with solubility pretty much the same as brewing.

The process is simple and quick:

-Start water boiling in a kettle/saucepan
-Place the material that is to be brewed in a container that is boiling-water-safe. (Glass or Microwave-safe plastic is what SWIM uses)
-Once water is boiling remove from heat and wait until the boiling completely stops and the water is still.
-Add the near-boiling water to the container with the brew-subject. (Add a splash of lemon juice or vinegar, SWIM thinks this is mostly unnecessary though)
-Stir the mix well several times over 30-45 minutes. Then let it settle so there is a clear median between the brew-subject and the water.
-Decant off the water through a cloth filter (t-shirt, table-cloth, part of a towel)

SWIM has found that for caapi about 500-750ml (using 50g) is required for the color to stop changing in the water (His cue to stop for all the brew's he's done)

The mix will be completely clear and can be reduced and remain so (once filtered again) as long as the bark is not directly boiled. Though at 750ml with some mint and stevia added it tasted quite nice.

SWIM brewed caapi before and it wasn't that bad though it was slightly more syrupy than the hot-but-not-simmering-brewing-technique or HBNSBT..... needs a better name.

SWIM got strong mental effects and slight CEVs off of 25g of white from maya and 50g was starting uncomfortably strong. Plus he generally has large tolerance to everything.

That might help... Peace!

Im skeptical..I have done basically that exact same thing many times it was never near as potent as 3 proper water simmers.

If you are getting something syrupy with water boils you are burning the ayahuasca.

Honestly..I think that the whole taste thing changes when you dont use any acids..I never use acids in my brews anymore and it tastes alot nicer than when I brew with vinegar. I simply collect spring water from the bog near my home and brew that way. I have heard that pure water makes a stronger brew than with acids..but i am not sure about that..just that it tastes a hell of alot better.

SWIM experimented a lot with different Aya brewing teks including Herbal Percolator. Her problem is that she is not very sensitive to caapi. For sufficient MAO inhibition it takes 200 to 250 g of dry vine. For caapi alone journey she needs 350 - 400 g of caapi. With such quantities no matter what tek you use you end up with pretty unpalatable gooey stuff.

Dealing even with 200 g of caapi extracted and reduced to one cup is a great challenge in itself. Seeping is not an option. Decaf, cocoa, honey can do nothing to change that horrible taste. The only contender seems to be 20 g of mhrb tea (because of high tannins content).

Only slightly you can mellow that taste with multiple eggwhite cleaning. So SWIM's solution is to reduce the caapi tea to one gulp (~50 ml). Breathe deep, meditate, close your nose, down the hatch. Once the tea is down there is a retch or two. Usually there is no problem to keep the vine down for an hour or two.

SWIM likes very much to listen to what the vine is doing down there. It is quite an active process you can feel. Once Aya is finished there is an unmistakable feeling that she has to leave. For SWIM every strong deep experience means - La Purga. SWIM even learned to like it.

During the first dozen or so journeys the psychedelic part correlated exactly with nausea. The nausea was monumental and subsided only together with the visuals. Only during the last few trips SWIM learned to calm the nausea down to enjoy the better part of the journey.



SWIM definitely can relate to that. She could puke from just looking at the cup from which she drank the tea a few days ago .

Don't despair, my friend it is worthwile to persevere a bit more.

Bumping an old thread rather than start a new one for my question, lots of good info here.

I'm about to start some Caapi tea using The Herbal Percolator, and after overdoing it on the vinegar last time, I'd really like to avoid using that if possible. But after reading the thread Here I'm convinced extracting with acid is more effective than plain water. Snozzleberry says somewhere that baking soda will neutralize the vinegar taste, but earlier in this thread obliguhl says it's no bueno. Using food grade HCL as suggested on the first page sounds OK, but I don't want to wait to order it and am not sure where to find it locally. However I DO have food grade Phosphoric Acid.. Does anyone know if this would be a good or bad thing to use?

I used phosA so far but think little too much of it.
3 Boils with each start ph3, always end at 5.
But when reducing large amount of tea ph5, the phosA does not damp off like vinegar and get concentrated, then it becomes real acid tasty to gulp down.
So it was overkill.

If you boil long, I think start ph 4 is way low enough.
I've not tested this (3 acidified boils with ph4) so far because of other new testing strategies witch are:

1) to only acidify first boil. The strained bark is kindof acidified from the 1st boil on its own and will acidify the second added batch of water anyway.

2) to use distilled or demineralised water, my demin water has ph 4.5 already
This saves amount of added acid/taste. This allows the 3rd boil to be acid enough without adding acid there.

At the moment I'm performing 1) with vinegar, it took 20ml 5% vinegar to lower ph 4.5 to 4 on the 1.3 liter demin water (for 50 gram vine). So will not add any acid in 2nd and 3rd. I use 1 week cold soak before 1st boil so results have to wait.

About *only plain water cooking* b/c they do it in amazon: seems (hear-say) that water there is already ph4 from plant decay activities. Copy catting with city tap water might differ alot.

Thanks for the info! That all makes good sense.

I did a little more searching and found some people have used phosphoric for some types of extraction without major problems, but This thread has me thinking I'll find something else to use. The fact it gets concentrated during reduction is scary. I've got some powdered lemonade that has both citric and ascorbic in it, might see how well that works. I have reverse osmosis water that comes out about ph 6 so that's not very far to need to lower it.

CocaCola is ph 2.6 due to phosphoric acid, and the sugar masks the acid. Go figure.
In reasonable amounts its really okay, just don't overdo.

I think to keep using it for cold soaked rue and mimo tea's , as there is no reduction and so no concentration effect, start ph3 also ends at 5, no problemo, no bad taste at 5 at all, except for the rue and mimo of course .
Even there I might change from start ph3 to start 4, just let it soak little longer.

Can caapi be reduced to a resin?

That is what I like to do with rue. Once it is down to a pretty small volume I put it in a small dish that sits in a double boiler. It evaps down to a resin after 30 min to an hour. Scrape up the residue and throw it in a gel cap.
I'm telling you, gel caps are probably the best entheogenic technology.

Although, some folks say the caapi tastes good, so I think I may get some and see. I have a pretty good taste for bitter things. I never put anything in my coffee and I brew that stuff strong! The bitterness of Rue is still a bit much though...