I have an extract that I did on syrian rue seeds months ago sitting in my fridge. It was a manske precip, and after placing it in the fridge I forgot about it and kinda didnt know what to do with it once I found it again, so it continued to sit in there.

It is now months down the road, and I still have this jar of salt saturated water with a bunch of solids formed on the bottom. Probably caked on there pretty good now.

My question is if this extract is still good after sitting there for many many months? I dont even remember the exact date that I did this. I assume that because of the high salt concentration that nothing could of molded, but I could be wrong.

Also, could I filter all this out of the solution, and add it to some very basic lye/water mix, so that the salt will dissolve but it will create the freebase harmalas and leave them behind as solids? I would then further wash with clean water to make sure there are not any traces of lye, and once filtered again place in the oven on a glass dish to evaporate to dryness.

Does anyone know why this perhaps wouldnt work, or if it would be bad to use this old of an extract?

i am no expert.
but i would assume lye is caustic enough to prevent microbial life of any kind.

I would take the solids and dissolve them in hot water, filter it through some coffee filters, let it cool, then base it.

I don't think it sitting in the fridge will matter much, as Parshvik said, lye will kill anything that lives

I had the same thought that basifying it with lye would kill anything that could have grown. I shall have to get some more lye and try it out.

Since there is also salt in the mix, will that dissolve into the basic water solution? I am trying to not have any salt left in there.

Also, I have heard that syrian rue alks have some unwanted crap in there that can make you sick. Is this something I have to worry about with this? Or since I already did the manske process, and will strain that and collect the results, then re-acidify and base, these unwanted alks wont be in the final product? I believe the whole manske process is to precip just the harmalas and not this extra gunk, correct?

when you precipitate the alkaloids with salt, you separate from these other usually unwanted alkaloids.

So if you strain, redissolve the precipitates in acidic water and base again, you should be fine.

If you dont see anything weird in your extract and it doesn't smell very weird, chances are it's fine, specially after redissolving and reprecipitating. The salt probably has served to preserve the brew against mold/etc too.

Thank you Endlessness, that clears up everything I had questions about.

I shall give it a go when I get some money for Lye next week and post the results. I do not remember what amount of Rue I started with however, so I do not know how to determine the yield. I think I had used an ounce, but it could of been 2, maybe even four...

So I filtered out the solution through a bandana, and it does not look like there is much crystals caught in the bandana. The liquid that was strained through it still glows VERY bright under black light.

What have I done wrong? Should I use something different to strain through? Did I possibly not add enough salt saturated water during the first process that I did months ago?

Dont add salt saturated water, add the exact amount of salt to the boiling solution itself. Otherwise you're not gonna know exactly how much salt and liquid there is in the first place.

So yeah, its possible you didn't add enough salt. Bring it to a boil and add some more and let it cool again.

also maybe a bandana doesn't catch all the alkaloids, im not sure. Better filter through coffee filter.

Thanks Endlessness, I shall give this a go and report back after.

So I had two jars of this solution, I just heated up one and added salt til no more would dissolve and poured it back into the jar. There is some salt sitting on the bottom of the jar that will not dissolve, so it is safe to say it is completely saturated. It is now cooling, while the second jar is being boiled and having salt added to it. This will be poured back into its own jar as well and allowed to cool.

The alks should start crashing out once it cools completely correct? Once it is cool, and it is strained through a coffee filter into another jar, anything that the coffee filter collects will have some bits of salt contaminating it, but this should dissolve into the acidified water in the next step before basing the alks correct?

I am excited to have some harmala alks to experiment with!

Yep... hopefully something will precipitate.. Otherwise there probably werent many alks there in the first place

I used a lot of rue, at least an ounce if not four. So if there is nothing in there, then it was some very weak rue.

Would also make me wonder why it glows so brightly under black light, and makes my hands glow for days under the black light...

I guess we shall wait and see. The one jar has a decent amount of sediment in it, and its not in the fridge yet. The first jar is in the fridge but still very warm, and not much has happened. Still looks more like salt chunks then anything else.

Only time will tell. Will report back in the next day or two, maybe with some pictures.

So one jar now has a whole bunch of crystals in it, a pretty thick layer on the bottom. Going to filter it tonight once I am finished starting my wine making.

The second jar, even when placed in fridge, has nothing but salt in the bottom of it. What could of happened to this second jar?

Jar with crystals was filtered through two coffee filters at once, with good results. Took a couple hours to drain it all though. The resulting liquid that was collected through this straining still glows under black light though, not as strong as before however.

Could the other alks in rue cause this glowing? Or should I reheat and add more salt to the liquid? I am going to try this with the second jar since nothing precipitated out yet.

Were the two jars frmo the same solution and just divided in half? If so, its strange that one precipitated and one not.. I guess you can always try adding a base if no harmala HCl precipitates, and then redissolving the precipitates, if any, in acidified water and try again the salt thing.

Im not sure if vasicine/vasicinone/etc also grow in black light. I think possibly its just some small amount of harmalas that for some reason don't precipitate. Even a tiny amount of harmalas are enough to make it glow under UV. The process doesn't precipitate 100%, but maybe 90-95% or something (guesstimate from previous tests). As with the other jar, you can always base the jar after retrieving the salts and try to work with whatever precipitates, to see if you can get more harmalas out of it one way or another (redissolving and resalting, or whatever)

Good luck

Yes, both jars were from the same solution, just divided in half so it was easier to work with. The one that precipitated alks had gotten kind of low in re-boiling it, so I added more vinegar to it...it resulted in the liquid becoming more clear, while the other jar that did nothing is still very dark. Maybe the addition of more acid had an effect on it?

I am going to try to salt out the other solution again, whenever time allows. Maybe I will reduce it and add more acid to it, to see if this does anything. If not, then I may just base it, redissolve the precipitates in acidic solution, and re-salt the solution. If nothing comes out again, then there must be something wrong here...

Will report back when I get the chance. Will also be buying a new mg and g scale since both of mine got destroyed, so until then I can not base the second jar, nor weigh my HCL salts or even freebase these salts. So for now it seems this extraction is being put on hold...again...

When things get rolling again I shall write up what is going on. Thanks for the help so far, it is greatly appreciated. Clears things up that were otherwise unclear in the tek.

I scraped it all off the filter and onto a piece of paper. Cut up all the chunks and mixed everything together, some was clearly sparkling little crystals, other parts looked like dirt. Mixed it all up to make what looked like a sparkly dirt.

Scraped it all into a pile and poured into a pill bottle for storage. After this, I scraped up the small amounts of residue on the paper, which was maybe 5-10mg TOPS, and placed it onto my finger. I rubbed this around on the inside of my lips and gum line, and felt some effects after maybe 5-10 minutes. I feel somewhat warmer, and am a little spacey. My head space feels different as well, its hard to describe. Coordination feels slightly off as well, and my thoughts are a little more difficult to put into words.

Again, all of this is just a slight effect. It is barely even noticable, and could even be placebo. I know that sublingual takes a smaller dose then oral though, and hits quicker. A proper dose for sublingual is around 30mg, right? Correct me if I am wrong please, for this will probably be the way that I explore these.

Going to freebase the HCL salts that I have acquired now. Still only the one jar.

Once dissolved in acidic solution, and based with lye solution, these then need to be washed with clean water a few times correct? So to get rid of any lye contamination? They will not redissolve in neutral water once they are freebased?