I started up an extraction on about 70 grams of banisteriopsis caapi vine from a source that has yielded good results in the past. However, this time its not giving me anything it seems like. I will outline my process so far.

I boiled the caapi vine in water for 2 hours, then filtered and boiled again for a total of three boils at two hours each. So six hours total boiling.

Once everything was filtered, I reduced the three boilings down to a couple hundred milliliters, maybe 300-400.

To this, I added a 100ml solution of sodium hydroxide (lye). There was a total of ten grams dissolved into the 100ml. This did nothing more then turn the whole solution black, which shows that there was a raise in the pH of the overall solution. However, nothing seemed to precipitate. So I added more base.

This time I dissolved maybe 15-20 grams of sodium hydroxide to another 100ml of water. I poured this into the already basified harmala solution, and again nothing changed. So I did it a third time, with even more of a concentrated solution. This time I did not measure the sodium hydroxide, I just kept adding it into another 100ml of water until I had no more left. The bottle was already getting low anyways.

After adding that much base solution, there was still no noticeable change or pricipitation of alkaloids.

What could I have done wrong? It it possible that this batch of vine was just that lacking in alkaloids that nothing is crashing out? I have used this vine before from the same supplier with good results, but now this is happening...

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated greatly. I hope this wasnt just wasted time and effort.