When I read posts about acacia tea, or mimosa, or even syrian rue, I get frustrated when I see people being told to boil for a very long time. ex. 3x pulls at 1 hour each

I think suggestions like this show a fundamental misunderstanding of diffusion. When you boil powdered material the water has very quick access to the alkaloids. with effective stirring, within minutes the distribution of alkaloids is uniform across the entire volume of water(including water that is now inside the hydrated plant material).

All you need to do to get about all of the alkaloids is to boil for 10 minutes in a volume of water that makes the volume of water trapped in the plant material insignificant, so the alkaloids left behind when you strain out the solids are less than 5 percent of what is in the water you keep.

I make acacia tea in ten minutes with 4 grams of acacia powder, in about one liter of water. Boil and stir, maybe squeeze a bit of lemon in. I think there is a tendency to make things more complicated then they are. We dont boil coffee grounds for hours to get the caffeine, there is no reason to do it with acacia either.

Safe travels my friends

Are you speaking hypothetically or from experience with regards to this claim for larger extractions?

Based on the volume of water you outline for 4grams of acacia...the amount of water for, say, a kilo extraction, would be kind of comical.

Ime, it is easier to work with smaller amounts of water and utilize methods like pressure cooking or extended boils to maximize alkaloid yield. The goal of extended boils, pressure cooking, freeze/thawing, etc is to maximize cell lysis, which doesn't happen in 10 minutes when dealing with larger quantities of material, ime. This may be due to smaller volumes of water than what you are discussing...I don't know...but I do know that working with the volumes of water you seem to be presenting, is less attractive to me than doing an extra round of PCing.

With regards to your coffee example, most people who brew coffee are not looking to extract 100% of the alkaloids present in the beans...which I think most everyone would agree is the goal when extracting from DMT-containing material. Conventional means of extracting the entirety of alkaloids from coffee beans, e.g. extended percolation, would yield an incredibly acidic brew that would be less enjoyable on both the tongue and stomach.

I am talking about making a tea for a few doses, not large extractions. For large extractions it makes sense to do multiple pulls because there is going to be a large amount of water trapped int he plant material. I never measure the water, I just use an amount that makes the plant material insignificant. It probably is less than a liter.



You notice that your plant material swells like 2-3 times in size while boiling? That is your water and alkaloids being left behind. If you do not use enough water to make that insignificant it doesnt matter if you boil for 7 days. Diffusion brings everything that is soluble to an equal distribution. Whatever percentage of water volume is absorbed by the plant material is going to contain the same concentration of alkaloids as the water you pull. You could pc for a week and with liter water and lliter(lol measuring solids in volume) of plant material, and you would still lose about half of the alkaloids when you pull.

Afaik, most of the advice regarding extended and repeated boils (or multiple PCs) deals explicitly or implicitly with larger extractions.

I don't understand the point of your PCing example, as that's not how a PC would be used. If the point is to acknowledge that it's not a "large enough" volume of water...well yes...that's why multiple boils are utilized.

When talking about brewing a single dose, it still makes sense to do multiple boils, rather than a single boil of larger volume, ime.


Ime, this is not really the case. There are a number of factors that can affect this, including the nature of the material in question, the temperature of the water, the acidity of the water, etc.

This is why I ask whether these comments are coming from theory or practice. If you do a second boil, even on 10g, you might be surprised to see what's still in there (even when using larger volumes of water).

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."

The more alkaloids and other dissolved ions are in the water, the slower the alkaloids will dissolve. It is certainly more effective to do multiple cycles, it´s like clearing up the entrance to a room to let more people go in faster.

Why are there repeated cycles with washing machines and not one long cycle?

Did you ever do a side-by-side and extract the alkaloids from a single-boil brew and a tripple-boil one (with equal total water volume) ? If you did, I`m certain you would see that while most alkaloids may have been dissolved in water, it`s possible a significant amount is still trapped within plant cells and are not yet in the water (Even if you discount the water that is trapped with plant material.)... Hence the need for multiple pulls, and ideally also lysing of cells or at least thorough shredding.

Yes I am sure for large extractions, you want to get every last bit. But clearly this method is pretty effective, if I have great and strong trips off of 4 grams of material, which is kind of on the low side of reccomended dosages from what I have read. I have even had success just steeping the powdered bark in a mug with hot water from a kettle.

But this is really about people making a tea for themselves or a few people. Often the advice I have read on here, and other sites is to spend all day at the stove and it is really not necessary or worth it at all. I have seen a study(I will try and find it to link)
about the diffusion of caffeine while steeping tea, left to sit alone it achieves equilibrium in 15 minutes, and with stirring in just 3 minutes. The only yield you lose is that stuck in the water that remains in the plant material.


If you are working with a kilo of bark it makes sense to exaust the material with multiple pulls and long boils for sure.

Thanks for the replys