"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a common saying. And what follows is the result of several experiences I tried so that I could battle my growing repulsion for my own caapi beverages. I got to a point where I simply cannot approach the substance to my mouth. What is bizarre is that while I find the taste repulsive I never threw up on Ayahuasca (really!). Also interesting is that it is only my own potions that are reallly bad; I find the taste of the Santo Daime quite acceptable!

None of what I'm about to describe is particularly new around here. I'm just sharing it for this procedure proved useful to me so it may perhaps give ideas to others.

Ok, here's for the procedure:
1. Boil the caapi as if making Ayahuasca. Boil it as many hours you usually do it. Although interestingly I found out that most (>95 %) alkaloids get out in the first boil. (more about this later). I added some vinegar for efficiency
2. after the caapi has been removed and only the liquid is extant, continue the reduction process until very few liquid is there. Be careful and do not let it burn or form a paste, it should still flow when the temperature is low. If it has become a paste add a little bit of water.
3. Add >95% Ethanol to the mixture. Use a ratio of 4x more ethanol than the residue you have.
4. Stir it and mix it and let it settle for 6-7 hours.
5. Remove the gunk in the bottom layer and repeat the procedure with fresh ethanol
6. Evaporate all the ethanol from the 2 liquids combined
7. To the residue add water+15% ethanol until the volume you desire.

I started with 500 grams of caapi, produced about 70 ml of thick concentrate and ended up with 35 ml of nice dark transparent tincture. To have an idea on how much unwanted substances were removed from using ethanol, I weighted the dried weight of step 2 and it was slightly above 40 grams

The basis for this procedure is that the harmala alkaloids are soluble in water and alcohol, but most of the gunk also released in the making of Ayahuasca is not. Most polysaccharides, proteins and other stuff simply precipitate with alcohol, while with water, although many are not soluble, they can form colloidal suspensions. As you add the ethanol you can see the gunk crashing and sedimenting. If you have a thick paste something incredible happens: as you add the ethanol, the gunk transforms into a tar-like substance, which for some unknown reason, and its physical properties still stores lots of alkaloids trapped in its mist. Now how do I know this? Because I used a UV light and harmalas shine beautifully in green with UV, so I could identify in which parts of the different compounds the goodies were stored and, with some practice, I could even guess-timate relative concentrations. For instance, as I said above, the last boilings from vine were mostly void of harmalas. Continuing on the tar - interestingly if you add water into it it will dissolve all the way again into the same state it was before

Finally some of you may wonder why did I not ended with a proper tincture in ethanol?, I wanted to get to a full reduction until 30-35 ml for I assumed 3-4 ml per dose would be quite acceptable for drinking. As I'm more inclined to oral consumption of harmalas, I did not want to have a alcoholic beverage in the end. Even if consuming about 3ml, it is the equivalent of 2 cans of beer, which I believe would influence the general Ayahuasca experience. Of course if the masochists of you are into alcoholic tinctures for sublingual absorption, skip step 7, and proceed with step 6 until the desired volume is reached.

Also, as ethanol ends up being the most important solvent, why not use it all the way in a week long alcohol extraction as I have seen around? In a small test I did with unused caapi (from a different strain, granted) ethanol did not, by any means, remove as much harmalas as boiling water. After 3 boils the vine is exhausted while with alcohol there are still lot's of alkaloids there to get if the vine is boiled properly afterward. Also to properly submerge 500 grams of caapi, as I did, it would be required several liters of ethanol which may be a problem.

I'm raising this topic from its grave...

My goal was to make a 100% full spectrum Caapi extract with the actives as-is in their natural form. The reason being I don't like the taste of brewed Caapi, which I consume with DMT-Fumerate capsules. I also don't like the effects of Harmala extracts and prefer Caapi over Rue. Figured the best route was a Caapi tincture. Found this post, thanks picatris. Proceeded with the following experiment with success:

Brewed and reduced 1 kg (yellow) Caapi to 30 ml of solid dark colored gel like consistency. Made by filtration and a double boiler. By plant weight a single dose should be around 3 ml. I placed 3 gram in a glass jar. I added 3 ml of 96% food grade alcohol. Stirred. It would not dissolve. Added 3 ml more. Same issue. Added 3 ml more to reach 9 ml alcohol total, same. This is the problem OP describes. Picatris is right. The solids don't dissolve in alcohol. The actives stay trapped inside.

What I did then was put the jar in a warm water bath and stirred. The solids became very soft and the alcohol turned red! Removed the solution and added another 9 ml of alcohol to the solids and stirred. New solution turned orange. Did 1 more pull. Last solution was yellow. Removed the solid residue. It weighed around 1/4 of its original weight (0.75 gram). Filtered and combined the 3 pulls (red, orange, yellow) into one. Reduced volume with a double boiler until all alcohol evaporated. What remained was a transparent reddish gel. It looked like pure alkaloid content. So far so good.

Next up was preparing the yield for oral consumption. I first wanted to make Caapi capsules, but the consistency was hard to handle. Maybe it would have hardened over time to scrape it up. But I didn't feel like waiting, so I dissolved it in 5 ml water. I applied heat to the double boiler it was still in. The extract dissolved in the water. Then dark solids stated precipitating. I added the solution to a jar, stirred and let it cool down. I filtered all the solids out. The final solution had a clear orange color.

I drank it. The taste was intense with a bit of a bite (maybe a small trace of alcohol?), but it didn't taste too bad or foul! After some time I could feel the Harmala effects. It worked: I made a full spectrum caapi extract using a tincture clean-up method. I then tried to start with water instead of alcohol. Added 3 gram of the reduced Caapi gel to 9 ml water. Solution turned muddy. Tried to filter. Didn't work (no vacuum filter). Did a taste test for comparison: taste was much worse!

Next is performing the same with MHRB. I also wonder if you can do this with San Pedro. First heat in oven, powder up, pull in alcohol, evap, add water, drink. I guess you can also make Changa from Caapi by adding herbs to the alcohol solution and evap into the herbs.

I like the idea
The base-precip method had failed on me (i'm used to rue, i don't know why it didn't work with the caapi thou ... )

This sounds like a good way to get full spectrum extract ; i would not be that fuzzy on "cleaning" it, if i got a easyly absorbable end product, it's good enought

I try this soon