Hi all!

Welcome to my mimosahuasca brewing journal. It is a work in progress in which I track my experiments with brewing mimosahuasca, which eventually will be turned into a hopefully comprehensive and lucid guide that contains all the nitty gritty details-- No more endless googling needed.

Here is an overview of the questions I hope to solve (copied from my post below this one, for the sake of clarity):

1. What exactly is the point of filtering 3 times during the standard 3x3 recipe? I understand that the water evaporates, but why not just add water to the pot every 3 hours and filter at the end? Is it just a safety device in case the boil gets messed up somehow (i.e. then you at least have your previous 1 or 2 boils, or is it somehow crucial to the brew itself?)

2. Moreover, why brew without the lid on the pot? In this thread, ms_manic_minxx seems to have gotten good - perhaps even better and more economical, it seems - results with the lid on. I wonder if she still did the 3x3 process during this experiment. Just filtering at the end + keeping the lid on for 9 hours would make the brewing process a bit easier-- so why not?

3. Does a cold water brew work or not? With or without a MAOI? It would be great if this worked, because the preparation process would require a lot less time. I intend to do the experiment at some point in the following way:





Further questions to ask (if it works) are: What is the effect on the potency of the brew, i.e. do you need less, more or as much MHRB? Does it create more, less or as much nausea, even when applying the egg white tek?

4. Why can the egg white tek only be done on unreduced brew? I understand that during the tek some liquid further evaporates, but if you calculate that in, then it seems the most logical to do the egg white tek way at the end, as with the least amount of liquid there is greater certitude that the egg whites will soak up the tannins? Or is my reasoning wrong here?

5. Is boiling destructive to potency? What kind of 'simmer' is too much of a simmer, if any? Can a 'low' simmer be too low to be effective, even if hot enough to evaporate water?

6. I hear people say that powdered MHRB requires less time on the stove to fully extract. But how long is enough?

Underneath (---) is the original post of this thread, which was not initially a journal but more to get some questions answered. Feel free to ignore it.

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I am brewing aya as we speak for the second time. I am using 30g of mimosa hostilis (for multiple sessions), with about 1 liter of water. However, all the instructions say to brew for 3 hours 3 times, but considering the speed with which the water is evaporating, I will have to change the water much sooner.

I am brewing at a (very) low simmer and the pot seems an appropriate size (20cm diameter). I also read that too low heat is ineffective and that some people even boil, so turning down the heat is also not an option (yet I've also read that too much heat is destructive to the alkaloids- anyone know what's up?).

Are my ratios off? How much water would you recommend for 30g of MHRB?

Also, how much water can I allow to evaporate before having to change the water? I intend to consume brew that equates to 3g of MHRB (at least for the first few upcoming trips), so the end brew would need to be about 0,5l I guess (50ml per trip)?

Thanks ahead! (Extra thanks for quick responses as I would ideally finish the brewing today !)

EDIT FOR UPDATES:

-First boil:I changed the water after approximately 2 hours and 25 minutes. However, the amount of liquid left (after filtering) is only about 290ml. Just started the second brew with about 1.6 liters of water.

-Second boil: Brewed for 3 hours and 5 minutes, 310ml left (after filtering), even though I partially kept the lid on the pot for about 20 minutes near the end of the boil. Kept the brew on a very low simmer mostly.

-Third boil: Brew voor 3,5 hours in 2.1l, about 800ml left. The lid was kept on for about half an hour. For a while, the brew reached the cooking point (accidentally). Hopefully this did not damage the potency.

Steps left: Egg white tek and reduce, but this will be for in the near future.
)

After many hours at the stove, the brew is pretty much done. Egg white tek and reducing went smoothly, I think. 600ml in total, which I will be dividing into 10 dosages (equating to 3g of MHRB). At the moment the jar is in the fridge; we'll see by tomorrow whether or not there will still be sludge to decant. I'll write an update once I have tested the goods!

Anyway, although the brewing process is relatively easy, I still feel that the information I find online is all over the place and often contradictory. For this reason, I have decided to turn this thread into a 'Mimosahuasca brewing journal'.

In due time, I hope to order my findings into a clear and tried and tested formula, i.e. the type of overview that would serve a noobie brewer like myself right now. I also want to experiment with ways that could make the brewing process less work intensive. (To be clear, I am aware of ms_manic_minxx' 'All about aya'-thread and other very informative threads on this forum and elsewhere, but I am still left with questions, which I hope to solve empirically.)

I hope to solve the following questions in particular:

1. What exactly is the point of filtering 3 times during the standard 3x3 recipe? I understand that the water evaporates, but why not just add water to the pot every 3 hours and filter at the end? Is it just a safety device in case the boil gets messed up somehow (i.e. then you at least have your previous 1 or 2 boils, or is it somehow crucial to the brew itself?)

2. Moreover, why brew without the lid on the pot? In this thread, ms_manic_minxx seems to have gotten good - perhaps even better and more economical, it seems - results with the lid on. I wonder if she still did the 3x3 process during this experiment. Just filtering at the end + keeping the lid on for 9 hours would make the brewing process a bit easier-- so why not?

3. Does a cold water brew work or not? With or without a MAOI? It would be great if this worked, because the preparation process would require a lot less time. I intend to do the experiment at some point in the following way:



Further questions to ask (if it works) are: What is the effect on the potency of the brew, i.e. do you need less, more or as much MHRB? Does it create more, less or as much nausea, even when applying the egg white tek?

4. Why can the egg white tek only be done on unreduced brew? I understand that during the tek some liquid further evaporates, but if you calculate that in, then it seems the most logical to do the egg white tek way at the end, as with the least amount of liquid there is greater certitude that the egg whites will soak up the tannins? Or is my reasoning wrong here?

5. Is boiling destructive to potency? What kind of 'simmer' is too much of a simmer, if any? Can a 'low' simmer be too low to be effective, even if hot enough to evaporate water?

If you already have the answer to some of these questions, don't hesitate to spoil them for me I will in any case be experimenting and reporting my findings.

Please accept my apologies if I have got this wrong but if Im reading your post correctly you wish to know if a brew containing only DMT will work?

The short answer is no. You must add a MAOI for the DMT to become orally active.

Aya by definition is a synergy of mainly 2 different plants; one containing MAOI (B. Caapi) and the other containing the DMT (Chacruna).

Syrian Rue is another source of MAOI.

HTH

Thank you for the reply.

I do know about the MAOI- I take Syrian Rue separately from the mimosa brew. However, I have read reports about cold MHRB brews being psychoactive without a MAOI. I don't mind taking the Syrian Rue, so personally I don't care about this aspect of cold water extractions, except insofar as it affects proper dosing.

Probably I will experiment with CWE's at some point, but solving questions 1, 2 and 5 listed above are more of a priority at the moment.

The brew is finally finished. I left the 600ml in the fridge for 2 days for the sediment to settle. With a 20ml (no needle) syringe I sucked liquid off at the top (in order not to disturb the sediment) and filled small containers with 60ml each (equating to 3g of MHRB). The result is a clear, red-brown-ish tea. However, I only got 8 dosages out of it instead 10 as I was shooting for, because I did not want to include any sludge in the final brew.

I will be trying one 60ml dose out in the near future (and 3g of Syrian Rue before). I will post here when I have done so.

Thanks for posting, am keen to hear an update. Ive also been working with mimosa tea and am still dialling in a preferred way to dose..all the best

Most likely I am tripping next Thursday, I'll post an update probably the day after or so!

Yesterday I took 3g SR and 60ml brew (equating to 3g MHRB). The intensity was disappointing, alas. I did purge, which felt good once it as over. But very little visuals and not much of an experience, although I had some interesting thoughts and ideas. Definitely I tripped a little.

The taste of the brew was ok, EXCEPT when I waited for the aftertaste to present itself, then I gagged. Therefore: Take quick consecutive sips and a small bite of apple immediately after drinking and with each break in drinking.

Not sure why I purged now whereas I did not previously (though I did not really mind). Either the egg white tek was less succesfull because it was done on unreduced brew (unlike the time before), or because I took 3g of SR instead of 2g.

Not sure why the intensity was so low. Either something went wrong during the brewing (too low heat?) or my MHRB quality is not good, but I doubt this because it comes from a reputable vendor. Or because of decanting? But I'd rather decant, so in that case I should just up the amount of MHRB for a brew.

Probably I will try a cold brew next. I'll update when I do.

Also, I took the SR 45 minutes before consuming the brew this time, instead of 20 minutes. Perhaps that made a negative difference in terms of intensity.

Yesterday I consumed a cold brew extraction:

-3g mimosa in 50ml of boiled tap water: Allowed to soak for 2 days, shaking a couple of times throughout the day. Then I filtered the brew and allowed the remaining particles to sink to the bottom for three days.

-I consumed 3g of grounded syrian rue in gel capsules 35 minutes before consumption. The taste of the brew was a little more intense than boiled brew, but with the immediate small apple bites after sips and the low volume it was pretty easy to get down.

-Results: Better than last week's brew, though still not quite the intensity I desired. It was also qualitatively different, with other alkaloids clearly being at work. It felt less pure and crisp, the DMT effects being a little less pronounced being mixed in with the other effects... It was not very visual for instance. Also significantly more sedating. My motor skills were off when I got out of bed at the end of the trip. Not sure if I like this or not.

I purged only at the end of the trip after an hour of fairly intense nausea, but I was already feeling nausea in the morning before having consumed anything- I probably have some stomach bug, so I don't know if this would have happened otherwise. During the trip there was not a lot of nausea.

This does seem a promising route, however. I will probably try a 5g CWE next, using distilled water this time.

Have you tried making tea from the Rue seeds and ingesting them at the same time as your bark?
I have been making tea from 5-7g of mhrb, and the reducing and decanting the sludge, dosing 250mg of harmine/harmaline orally at the same time I ingest the tea, which has worked okay, but not as potent as I feel it should be..Will keep playing with it.

No, so far I have always consumed pure grinded SR. What would you say is the benefit of turning the SR into a tea?

Also, have you tried dosing the harmine/harmaline before (like 20-45 minutes) the tea? How does it compare?

I think you will find it to work more effective as an maoi and probably have alot less nausea with the tea, I have tried dosing ~30m before and I have found it to be a little bit hit or miss regarding the potency, it definetely still works but I like to dose at the same time to take as many variables out as possible

I did a new brew and it was a mild success, although still not the intensity I am seeking for. I brewed 15g powdered MHRB and consumed a third of the final potion. These were – the admittedly somewhat peculiar and semi-improvised – steps:

1. First I did a cold soak for about three days, in 0,5l boiled water that was filtered through a coffee filter. I added about a table spoon of vinegar to it.
2. I heat-extracted the brew with a coffee maker (drip model). I read about this tek on reddit: It is much more convenient than in a pot because you don’t have to be continually mindful of the brew not reaching the boiling point— it stays effortlessly at a hot temperature. Just stir every hour or so. No 3X3 thing (I don't get the point of this?) and I did not have to change water ever because the lid was on the coffee pot. This step was approx. 9-10 hours in total. (Also, for this you would want a coffee maker that does not have an automatic shut off function.)
3. There was no time left to reduce that day, so I left the brew in the fridge overnight.
4. By the next the day a whole lot of sludge had already settled on the bottom, which I discarded of as I poured over the brew to strain out the MHRB.
5. After straining, I reduced the brew to from about 400ml to 200 ml on very low heat.
6. Did the egg white tek on the reduced brew.
7. Filtered out the egg whites with a cloth.
8. Further reduced to about 150ml.
9. I froze the brew, took it out the next day and filtered through a coffee filter to further remove sediment and particles.
10. Froze it again.
11. Unfroze and filtered through a coffee filter one more time.
12. The end result was three potions of about 40-45ml each.

I had a nice trip equating to about 5g MHRB. I consumed 2.5g grinded Syrian Rue in gel capsules 30 minutes before consuming the drink. Some nausea at first but no purge, which I was glad about. (I also consumed a capsule of fresh ginger root along with the SR, which probably helped).

But I still wanted more; probably I will consume 60ml of the remaining brew next time, equating to about 7.5g of MHRB. At this point I am starting to think that my MHRB is not-so-potent. After my next trip I will brew from a different batch I think and see the difference. I also think I will try pure harmala's next time instead of Syrian Rue to further reduce nausea.

Or did I do something wrong during the brewing? Any advice is appreciated.

Wish I had more details for you on the aya front. You are very thorough and ask good questions, which I appreciate. I think people do the extractions to avoid the purge and be able to control dosing, you might enjoy experimenting with that since you are more technically minded.

I think minxx recommended brewing up a larger than needed dose and then drinking until your instincts tell you to stop.

Thanks, looking into extraction is probably a good idea. Not sure about the intuitive drinking, considering the taste I would probably stop after the first sip if I did it intuitively

Trip report on my second (higher dosed) trip with this last brew can be read here.

Last week I did another cook, this time with shredded (not powdered) plant material from a new source. It went as follows:

EDIT: There are errors in this description. See my subsequent post for the accurate version of the cooking process.

(1. Left 32g of MHRB to simmer for 20 hours in the coffee pot (this over the course of 2 days: First 12 hours, the next day another 8 hours). The water (approx. 700ml) was boiled and filtered through a coffee filter and mixed with 4 tablespoons of white vinegar. A lot more vinegar than in the previous cooks, to make sure the water was sufficiently acidic.

2. I applied the egg white tek on the unreduced brew (which was about 500ml), scooped the chunks out and filtered the remaining liquid through a coffee filter.

3. I left the filtered liquid in the fridge for about 2 days, after which a lot of sediment had collected at the bottom. I filtered one more time to separate the liquid from the sediment.

4. Reduced the brew in a sauce pan to 170ml.)


I am trying out the brew somewhere in January most likely. I intend to try out one dose of the brew in the extreme and mixing the tiny amount of liquid that remains with honey, to ease the process of consumption. I will post an update soon after I have tried it out.)

Looking forward to hearing the upcoming report here.

Do you rinse the eggy chunks to maximise alkaloidal yield? And how about pressing (gently) the liquid out, maybe with the help of a cheesecloth?

This is the kind of OCD tinkering I picked up in the chemistry lab, at least

I considered pressing the liquid out for maximum potency, but decided against it out of fear that I would add tannins back into the brew. The egg white tek is applied to brew that is already filtered, which would mean that the egg whites remove the tannins that managed to pass through the filter (e.g. cheesecloth or coffee filter my case), no? Do tell me if I am mistaken


I just now realized there are two big mistakes in my description above: Between step 1 and 2, I separated the plant material with a cloth. Then I left the liquid in the fridge for 2 days (step 3 above) and then I applied the egg white tek (step 2 above). Sorry about this! Here is the accurate version:

1. Left 32g of MHRB to simmer for 20 hours in the coffee pot (this over the course of 2 days: First 12 hours, the next day another 8 hours). The water (approx. 700ml) was boiled and filtered through a coffee filter and mixed with 4 tablespoons of white vinegar. A lot more vinegar than in the previous cooks, to make sure the water was sufficiently acidic.

2. I separated the main plant material from the liquid by filtering through a cloth.

3. I left the filtered liquid in the fridge for about 2 days, after which a lot of sediment had collected at the bottom. With the help of a coffee filter I separated the sediment from the liquid.

4. I applied the egg white tek on the unreduced brew (which was about 500ml), scooped the chunks out and filtered the remaining liquid through a coffee filter.

5. Reduced the brew in a sauce pan to 170ml.