Switching to a proven nexus wiki tek and following that down to the T?

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I thought more about what could have happened exactly there.

But after thoroughly drying the FB it looked normal, so I guess everything worked. These Harmala alkaloids seem to be pretty stable.

So in the end I really think not as much was extracted with just the dash of vinegar as with the 3% acetic acid extraction.

I'm just curious and want to really explore this cold extraction method.

So next test would be extracting with 3% acetic acid but less water. I think I will go for a 1:10 ratio (rue:water). The 1:3 I tried in the beginning (original Hasenfratz tek) is just an unpractical mess. And the 1:30 ratio I successfully used is a bit much liquid for the amount of rue, although it works perfectly. The big amount of liquid just makes it a bit unpractical for larger extractions.

Short update about my 3rd experiment (water:seed 10:1, 3% acid). Did filter the HCl today. And it doesn't look like much. I was quite surprised.
Didn't yet make the FB and weigh it, but definitely much less than the first (water:seed 30:1, 3%) and as it seems even less than the 2nd experiment (water:seed 30:1, dash of acid).

I had high hopes that the higher acidity was the cause for getting everything on the first pull.

I only have two explanations for that outcome:

1) The acid is used up in the soaking process and quite a lot is needed. As in this experiment the overall amount of acid was only a third of the 1st experiment, that could have been not enough.

2) The concentration of alkaloids already in the water determine how much more you get out of the seeds. So if you take a lot of water (water:seed 30:1), you get basically everything in the first soak/pull.

So I probably have to repeat this experiment, but with a higher acidity of 9%.

But first I will try the next experiment, where I will first soak whole seeds in a high acidity (85% acetic acid) for 3 days and then add water and wait another 3 days.
Idea behind this is, that first the high acidity eats the shells of the seeds and then you extract with the water.

Edit:
So I Fbed and dried (200°C, 1h) it and it yielded 0.634g FB.
Unfortunately I spilled a bit when trying to attach the vacuum hose when filtering. So it surely would have been a little bit more.
So it seems this yielded more than with more water but almost no acid, but not much more.

But I discovered something else. I already mentioned that already in my 1st extraction the water after FBing still had this strong yellow/green glow. And although I added a lot of NaOH that didn't change.
Now this time it happened again. So I added a ton of NaOH and suddenly it really discolored and something additional fell out.
So there was still something in it, but needing a much much higher PH than the rest.
But overall it wasn't much.

So time duration for harmalas to precipitate from salt saturation depends on the choice of acid? I didn't know that. How do other acids compare in this, like acetic acid vs citric acid?

As I remember someone once said citric acid also took longer than acetic acid. But as it seems not that much longer than Vit C.

I think now that the time duration may depend on the pH of the solution rather than the choice of acid. More acidic -> More time.

But they haven't mention the quantity of acid to add apart from phrases like "a dash of vinegar".

^^^ I suppose you're not lying, but I just took the first tek in the list saying:
to make a manske with.

You can even do it in plain standard vinegar.
Whats all with these this/thats about acid level?

I add salt on eye sight, sets me free to work with any acid level, any concentration of alks, any presence of impurities (or non), what temperature used, all this is parameters, and oh yes also residual salt from previous manskes, all in the mix. Do you suppose to nail the 'right' amount of salt to such a jungle, in advance?

Make it steaming hot, not boiling, gradually add salt, stir to dissolve until you see tiny crystals forming at the surface, now you have just overdo it a bit so take some water (say 10%) to add to the pot by which you change near all parameters together, in to a better balance for needles grow when cooling. End with a day of fridge.

This works best when already lots of plant 'dirt' is out, when you have a transparent clear view trough the purple tea, on the bottom of the pot. Adding salt gradually + time to dissolve, there comes the moment you loose sight of the bottom, now things come in check. Add further and soon you'll see tiny needles on the hot surface. You can cool right there but I like a one step back and add that 10% of total used volume water which slows down the needle growing. If still too fast, I heat pot again, add some water, let cool and you'll end with an optimum that no tek can tell you.
If you think you have diluted too far, no problem, just steam of some 10 - 20 % of water level, let cool.
I would say this is not rocket science, but I have no idea what they're cooking in that space station up there so better to be careful with that expression.


In ISS doday we have syrian rue, some cati bag, and some caupuri caapi:


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PS: the last manske (in a row of 5), only then I am more anal about salt contam in the end product. Before that (former manskes) there's no singe reason to keep salt contam low, because next time you need to add less, it's the same outcome.