Does anyone know for sure if there is a measurable difference between the yields of ground and unground rue seeds following the typical Manske and freebasing steps? The seeds swell in acidic water and a lot of the goop that makes filtering a bitch is tiny pieces of seed husk so if the alkaloids are mainly in the husk they should be extracted into the acidic aqueous solution perfectly fine, right?

It has worked for me. I've done the Manske twice and used whole seed both times. It worked fine.

I had read that paper and the statement therein, stating that the harmala alkaloids are found 'wholly within the husks'. It seemed to me it would work....and it did.

I don't have notes from those extractions, so I can't give you any numbers, but I remember the yields being good.

Try it.

Swim got 2% from the whole seed so thats within the range, especially since they were thoroughly cleaned light tan talcum powder type mixed harmalas. So mystery solved - grinding just makes more work.

SWIY tried it already? That was fast.

I got around 2-3% yields me thinks. Fine, tan, cleaned mixed alks.

stating any yield number as a proof that whole seed works as good, is not of much use.. nobody knows if there's a significant difference until it has been tested side-by-side with exact same product and methods except for whole vs ground....

plus, there is a big difference in yield depending on how pure you get your harmalas.. there is an enormous range of colours/purities that can be actually described as 'tan'.

If someone is willing to do a side-by-side, that would really be useful for the community.. right now I got no more rue seeds, no money, and plenty of harmalas, so I wont be doing for a while, maybe a few months, but if until then nobody has done yet I will try to make this comparison

Yeah this is true all these colours and purities are subjective. Swim will give a side by side test a go when he has some more time and needs more maoi