Okay so I have a question about changa. Changa is essentially DMT, harmalas, and herbs infused together with IPA or other solvents.

But what if you just smoked the DMT, harmalas, and herbs together in a bowl without infusing them with IPA. would the effects be the same compared to infused herb?

I have tried this combo once but it didn't compare to changa experiences I have read about so I am just curious.

Thanks for your time!

Safe and Happy Travels!

From what I've read, the DMT and harmalas at least need to be intimately fused together. Somehow this aids co-vaporisation, it would seem.

Thanks for your reply downward!
That would seem to make the most sense.

I have decent luck smoming DMT free base with cannabis, I'm sure other herbs would work fine, at least for the DMT, I'm not sure if it would be as efficient for the harmala alkaloids.

-eg

The 'sandwich method' works. Put a layer of herb in the pipe, then a layer of dmt/harmalas, then more herb. That way, the heat from the top layer will melt and/or vapourise the middle without burning it too much and the bottom will absorb any molten alkaloids, essentially becoming changa.

How does this method compare to a changa experience?
How can the same ratios of harmala, spice, and herb differ from the same ratios being infused?

You have to account for the mechanism of the processes involved.

Freebase dmt melts at a relatively low temperature. Freebase harmala doesn't. When hot gases from a lighter are drawn past the dmt and harmala crystals, the dmt melts and pulls the harmala into its liquid. The combined freebases are then absorbed into the herb.

Next, the herb will get so hot that some components start to vaporize and very soon, parts of the herb start to decompose from pyrolysis. The hot vapors that are the result of this, combined with the hot gases from the lighter, will pull dmt and harmala vapors along.

Even though dmt and especially harmalas have quite high boiling points, they have a certain vapor pressure at lower temperatures too, so they are always evaporating a little. The closer you get to the boiling point, the higher the vapor pressure is, resulting in more vapor being given off -- while they are still technically below their boiling points.

When a direct flame touches dmt or harmalas they are more likely to decompose from both the high temperature and from the ionized gas in the flame.

Pitubo, thanks for the explanation. This is very interesting but aren't you just explaining something like the sandwich method? What AlchemicalGnostic and I are wonder is why is the acetone/IPA soak for changa necessary? What exactly does it do and why is it supposedly better than not soaking in acetone/IPA? I have been very curious about all this too. Thanks.

Sandwich method is decidedly not better than a properly prepared changa. BTW, for preparing changa, ethanol or methanol are the solvents of choice, preferrably methanol. Isopropanol and acetone are not very good solvents especially for harmala freebase.

When the alkaloids are fully dissolved into a solvent and then evaporated onto and into herbal carrier material, the alkaloids are mixed and dispersed to a much higher degree, this helps to achieve efficient vaporization. Globs of alkaloids have less surface area and thus give off less vapor.

Another reason why sandwiching is inferior is because the process of melting dmt and harmala freebase into the sandwich herbs is far from perfect. A lot of dmt is still burned by heat before it is impregnated onto the herb, and harmala freebase is very powdery and easily blown away or burnt before it gets a chance to be caught onto the herbs.

If heating by lighter flames was such a great method, wouldn't it be in common use to prepare changa? Obviously it isn't, as people use the solvent soak method instead.

Thanks pitubo! Would ever clear be a good solvent to use to make changa? I don't think I can get methanol readily around here.
I have some Calea ternifolia that I feel would make a really nice changa.

So what I would do is warm up some ethanol dissolve a gram of spice and around 333mg of FB harmalas and then mix until completely dissolved. And then pour the solution on to a gram of herbs and then mix some more. then let out to dry til fully dry.

Am I missing Anything?

Everclear would be fine as a source of high proof ethanol.

some preliminary WARNINGS about the use of ethanol as a solvent in thye procedure described below:
- Ethanol is flammable and ethanol vapors are potentially explosive. Keep away from open fire and other sources of ignition (even static sparks), especially ethanol vapors.
- Obviously, all evaporation should be done in a highly ventilated area, preferably outside, and away from any sources of ignition.
- Other handling of hot ethanol should also be done in a well ventilated area.
- Additionally, breathing ethanol vapors that accumulate in an enclosed small space may cause loss of critical faculties and coordination of the operator.
- Be careful. Think ahead of what could go wrong and take adequate precautions.


Use no more ethanol than you need to cover the herbs with. Fill your mixing container with the herbs to measure its height in the container. Then remove the herbs again and fill the container with the ethanol. Now heat the mixing container with ethanol in a pre-prepared hot water bath. Try to use a container that you can close with a lid while you are not stirring. Otherwise too much water vapor might get into the ethanol and too much ethanol vapor gets into the atmosphere while you're working.

Add the harmala freebase first, it is the hardest to get to dissolve. The ethanol probably needs to be near boiling before the harmala freebase will dissolve completely. You may also need to stir or swirl a lot. When the harmala freebase has fully dissolved, you can add the dmt freebase, and this should dissolve readily. If any of the alkaloids will not dissolve fully, despite heating and stirring, only then add more ethanol and allow for the added ethanol to heat up. When all alkaloids have dissolved, then finally add your herbs, but leave a little bit (about 5%) out for later use. Now you are ready to evaporate the ethanol off.

Ideally, you should evaporate the ethanol as fast as reasonably possible. To do this, make sure the water bath is close to boiling again and cover it with some plastic wrap with a hole in it just wide enough to fit your ethanol, alkaloids and herb container. This stops the evaporation of the water in the bath, which would otherwise cause the water bath too cool down unnecessarily and it would deposit water vapor into the ethanol mixture, slowing down its evaporation.

A small fan can help speed up evaporation. Change the water in the water bath with fresh boiling water when the bath temperature too low. Keep stirring regularly to ensure good mixing and even deposition of the alkaloids on the herbal matrix. This gets more important as the amount of ethanol decreases to a small layer below the top of the herbs.

When almost no ethanol is present as a liquid, take the container out of the water bath, dry the container's outer side from water, and dump the still hot and ethanol-wet changa onto a preheated dish. The larger exposed surface should aid in getting the final bits of ethanol to evaporate quickly.

Now you'll probably notice a lot of residue sticking on the inside of the container. Use half of the herbs that you saved earlier to scrape the walls clean. Add these herbs to the dish and mix it in with the drying changa. When the changa in the dish has dries sufficiently, put it on another clean dish. The other dish probably also has accumulated some residue. Wet the last bits of clean herb that you reserved with ethanol and wipe the residue from the dish with it. Add this herb to the bowl and mix thoroughly.

The last step is to place the bowl in an oven preheated to 140 degrees Celcius. The oven must be turned off before you put the bowl inside it. I cannot stress this enough, the oven must be turned off before placing the ethanol-wet changa mix inside. When ethanol vapor comes in contact with anything hotter than 365 degrees centigrade, it spontaneously takes fire (or perhaps even explodes). The heater element when red hot, or even a spark from the thermostat switch, are hotter than that. Make sure that the oven is turned off, so that none of this can happen while there are ethanol vapors inside the oven.

With the bowl of almost dry changa inside, leave the oven door slightly ajar to let ethanol and water vapor escape. You can only do this oven drying when the changa has only minute traces of ethanol present or else the amount of vapor given off would be dangerous. After an hour of drying, the oven will be sufficiently cool to take out the bowl with changa. Smell test to check for the presence of ethanol. If no more smell of ethanol is discernible, store the changa in a closed jar and smoke and share as you like.

I repeat one more time that all evaporation should be done outside, well away from sources of ignition. Other handling of hot ethanol should also be done in a well ventilated area. Ethanol is flammable, ethanol vapors are potentially explosive. Additionally, breathing ethanol vapors that accumulate in an enclosed small space can cause loss of critical faculties and coordination of the operator.

Be careful. Enjoy.

Pitubo, thats got to be the clearest and most comprehensive recipe for changa Ive ever read. Thanks for posting.

Awesome! Thanks for the thorough explanation! I'll report back here soon to let you know how the finished product turns out

Pardon me to barge in like this, i know nobody asked for my advice but there are a few things i want to point out here:



No offence intended to any of the above changaleros btw, i just find the evaporation shortcuts recommended here to be not the most optimal for the tryptamine admixture in the blend.

I used to take the water bath route myself only to figure out later that it's not such a wise idea. Yeah of course one could use a thermometer and measure the temps in the submerged etoh vessel, keeping it under 50C, but is it worth it in the end?

The only time when i'd get my alks(especially freebase dmt, harmalas not at all) close to heat (low or high, doesn't matter) is when i'd be vaping/smoking them.

Wouldn't you think that the speeding up of the evap process in this way would actually start to degrade some of(maybe even a small part, but not worth it imo) the dmt in changa?

I am referring to exactly these bits of text right here:



The etoh evaps quite fast as is if one increases air circulation around the blend holding vessel. Afaik even with no fan(though one is recommended), a slightly cracked open window does the job in a couple of hours as well. That with some stirring added to expose more surface area after the etoh evaps down under the herb level and it goes pretty well... no need for so much heat.

The part where pitubo describes a hot water bath method, while the herbs are still soaked and etoh level is over them, might be ok, but i have mixed feelings about that too, i have stoped doing it all together since etoh has a small boiling point and that heat transfered to your freebase alks could increase degradation... maybe in small amounts but i wouldn't desire that even.

I am most concerned about the stage at where the above instructions require a pre-heated dish, and an oven after, at the point where the etoh is almost gone and the dmt might be exposed to heat contact due to surface area becoming dryer.

In these so called "infusions" the alks penetrate the plant matter only in the case of using thick, spongious herbs/leaf much like mullein or others alike. But for plants/leaf that are thin(caapi leaf i.e) there is no such thing as absorbing actives, or at least very little. In the latter cases, when the etoh evaps off of them most of the dmt remains on the surface area as a thin film(check etoh re-x). That pelicule, if it gets in contact with heat, heated air or whatevs, the actives on the blend are exposed to degradation, more so at 140C.

That's why my idea and my way of doing this lately is to try and keep heat away as much as possible.Freebase dmt is a sensitive compound. I mean you don't strive for purity, unoxidised spice (some like it pure white in some cases even in changa) etc. to just ignore that in the end.

Or maybe i am missing a few technical details, maybe the 4%? water in everclear protects the actives along with the boiling point of 78.24C of etoh,to what point i don't know... now i wouldn't risk it.

Sure some shortcuts could get you there faster but is it worth it?

As stated before, with good air circulation and stirring, with spreading the herbs well and increasing surface area the etoh evaps away quite fast. Then with a couple more days of curing(which is ideal for a good blend) it really disappears completely, as well as leaving your blend with a nice taste.

Rushing things, shortcuts and w.e can be counterproductive if done unproper.

Afaik if you want your goods as close to their original state as possible, doing things cold is the best way to go.

I have to say that i hope my post won't induce confusion or upset anyone, it's just what i feel needed to be said on the subject, be it here or in any other thread regarding the matter.

Feel free to debate, criticise, approve or the contrary.

this is from another thread where i asked about speeding up the drying process
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=74178

So you're saying I could completely dissolve all my alkaloids in cold ethanol?

Yes, you can. Dmt is readily soluble in room temp etoh. Just stir it a little until it completely dissolves. As well but with lots of stirring it is possible to dissolve in RT etoh at least 75% out of the harmala ratio of your choice.

Thing is you can use warm solvent to dissolve harmalas as their boiling point is way over 200C, heat degradation is impossible to occur with them from warm to almost hot etoh, but not with dmt.

For example you can easily make 2 batches of etoh for each of the alks , one heated and one not. After both dissolve (harmalas won't dissolve completely regardless of what you do) let the hot one cool a bit, combine liquids and add herbs.

Bear in mind though that harmala etoh's solubility decreases as it cools, this meaning that some alks will crash back out in the solvent in solid form. So it would not be of much use to heat it if it will only hold a specific amount of harmala alks dissolved at RT. Just stir for a long while without stopping and it should eat most of the harmalas. To such a solution if you have firstly added your spice, then add your herbs and evap.

If using transparent glassware to make the blend, you'll notice that there will be light coloured sediments on the bottom, those are just harmalas crashing out.Don't worry to much about those as they will more likely get evenly distributed on the herbs while stirring through the whole thing at later stages. Stirring well is culprit stuff during the evap stage if you want evenly distribution of alks on your herbs.

Nereus and Jiva, thanks for the feedback!

I'll try to answer Jiva's concerns first and will address Nereus' comments in a separate post following this one.

Jiva is rightly concerned about safety of putting flammable solvents in a hot oven and appears to be confused by seemingly contradictory statements. I hope that I can clear up any possible confusion and concerns with the explanation below.

In the other thread that you linked, you actually started the discussion asking how to speed up the evaporation of a small amount of solvent. In that thread I recommended using a pan of preheated hot water to heat from below a dish with the changa and small layer of solvent. In this thread I recommend using a preheated dish only (without a hot water bath underneath) because the whole method assumes that there is only a very small amount of solvent still present in the changa mix and because the solvent and mix are still hot. In my experience, this will suffice to evaporate almost all of the solvent from the changa mix. If it does not, a hot water bath like suggested in the earlier post will fix it.

Perhaps I should have stressed earlier in my procedure the need to do all evaporation of substantial amounts of solvent outside. I did mention it, but it was at the end of the post. I shall edit my post and put an added warning at the start of the description of the procedure. Thanks for pointing this out.

My instruction to use an oven to strip the last traces of solvent (and water) from the changa mix applies only to a mix that contains only traces of solvent. I also emphasize that this should only be done in a preheated oven that has subsequently been turned off before placing the changa mix with some residual solvent inside the oven. Note that I am not advising anyone to put substantial amounts of solvent in an oven, nor am I advising anyone to put any amount of solvent in an oven that is powered on or burning. I will edit my post to stress that even more.

Putting solvent in a hot oven is not a problem as long as the temperature of the oven remains well below the autoignition temperature of said solvent. The autoignition temperature of ethanol is somewhere around 365 degrees centigrade, well below the maximum temperature of common household ovens, assuming that the exposed heating element is not active and glowing red hot.

You are not stating it explicitly, but are you still under the (widespread unfortunately) assumption that dmt freebase boils at 50 degrees centigrade? In any case, it does only so in a particularly high vacuum. Under normal conditions of atmospheric pressure, the boiling point of dmt is somewhere between 360 and 400 degrees centigrade.

Certainly, as I argued earlier in this very topic, some dmt will evaporate even at lower temperatures due to its innate vapor pressure at temperatures below its boiling point, but that is really only relevant in a situation where the dmt has a considerable exposed surface area and a substantial flow of air over this whole surface area. That clearly isn't the case here. There is only a small portion of dmt exposed at the relatively small surface area of the boiling or near boiling ethanol.


What makes you assume that freebase dmt is so much more fragile than freebase harmalas?


Actually, I recommend it this way because I believe that it in fact causes less degradation of dmt. I will try to explain why I think this is so:

Under normal conditions, dmt freebase stands to be degraded mostly from oxidation. Heat and light will accelerate this process, but are not the actual driver of it. Atmospheric oxygen and, I assume water (as a catalyst), are the real foes of your dmt. When you let the solvent evaporate slowly, you are giving the dmt an awful lot more exposure to oxygen and water, the latter especially so with hygroscopic solvents. When boiling off the solvent, the solvent vapors will provide a convenient blanket, shielding the dmt in the solution from atmospheric oxygen and water.

Obviously, when you heat dmt to high temperatures, say over 250 degrees centigrade, it will also become progressively more subject to thermal degradation, even without oxygen. But I am not recommending any of that. Boiling ethanol is only 78 degrees centigrade.

The exposure to slightly higher temperatures in the oven is only of short duration and is aimed at improving preservation of the changa by drying it not only of the last traces of ethanol, but also of most water. Dry changa will keep much better and longer than moist changa.

By letting the changa air dry at ambient temperature over extended time, you are allowing a lot of atmospheric water to accumulate in the changa. Additionally, the freebase dmt and freebase harmalas in the wet changa are subjected to atmospheric CO2. Water and CO2 form carbonic acid and this will convert the freebase alkaloids into carbonate salts. These salts evaporate less freely and at higher temperatures than the freebases, leading to more thermal degradation and oxidation when the changa is actually smoked or vaporized.


Really, boiling the solvent off is much faster, by at least an order of magnitude. The boiling will also do much of the stirring. You only need to turn the mix over a few times when the solvent level gets very low. I do not advise to do the evaporation inside.


You have a point about the importance of choosing an optimal herb as a substrate for changa. Though I suspect that by boiling the herb in the solvent, much better diffusion is achieved than by slow room temperature evaporation. Still, if the final oven drying is as short as needed and the the temperature is not excessive, I believe that thermal degradation is not an issue and that the benefits outweigh the burdens.

Also note that the oven only starts out at 140 degrees centigrade in my procedure. Any evaporation of solvent and water from the changa will cool the exposed changa and also the temperature of the oven will drop quite quickly, as it is not being actively heated and the oven door should be ajar.


I think that you are overstating the sensitivity of dmt. For the remainder, my procedure is actually aimed at reducing the exposure of the alkaloids to degradation, for the reasons outlined above. I am not merely trying to cut corners or speed things up, the aim is to prepare a high quality changa, nothing less.


The problem that I see with that approach is that the prolonged exposure that it requires may actually be more detrimental to the end product.

Some other bits from a later posting:


First, the boiling point of harmala freebases is probably way above 400 degrees centigrade, as that of dmt freebase already is over 360 degrees centigrade. Anyway, boiling points of the respective alkaloids are not a relevant issue at all here.

Second, while dmt freebase is indeed highly soluble in ethanol even at room temperature, harmalas are not and you really need to heat the ethanol close to boiling before it actually starts to dissolve useful quantities of harmala freebase. Dissolving the alkaloids is imperative to getting them properly impregnated onto the herbs.


You do not want the harmalas to crash out while you are evaporating the solvent. It creates clumps of harmala freebase, which hinders the ability to vaporize them properly and will cause unnecessary thermal degradation when the changa is consumed. By evaporating under boiling conditions, the harmala and dmt freebases are deposited much more evenly and this gives the end result a much higher quality.


I'm happy to discuss things, always. It helps us clear up misunderstandings and it provides an open invitation to new viewpoints that help to create an overall greater insight that we all can benefit from.

If any of my points and claims above are unclear or even untrue, feel free to point this out.

wow thanks for all the information.
So i just dissolved the harmalas in the ethanol and it turned to a clear yellow. does that mean its all dissolved or does it need to be clear?