So I did a little test and I welcome others to try it as well.

I did an a/b on 100g of Peganum Harmala. I received roughly 7-8 grams of very impure(obviously) extract. To which I redissolved in 200mLs of acicified water. The solution was heated in a microwave just to get it nice and hot. I then added 20-30 grams of non-iodized salt with agitation. Allowed the solution to sit until the precipitate had settled. The solution was decanted and the precipitate filtered.

From the acidified water decanted from the manske, I added 70mLs of new water(to dilute Na+ and Cl- concentrations) and 1 gram of NaOH. A white/tan webby precipitate slowly formed. This precipitate is assumed to be primarily vasicine. I will later attempt recrystalization and melting point tests, perhaps TLC.

Then I guess I should include this. From the precipitate formed from the Manske, it was added too 600mL's of acidified water. It was agitated well then allowed to settle. There was a large mound of grayish/brown insoluble residue that loomed at the bottom of the flask It was a very fine precipitate. The solution was filtered, and once the residue was removed, the acidic solution was a translucent cherry red. On basification and agitation the solution turned to a tan-milk color.

Also: Not sure if this should be included here or not, although from the basified jars from the original A/B that have sat for several days. There is a blackish(haven't filtered it yet so the color is unknown), web-like precipitate looming at the bottom. Not sure what it could be.


I invite others to try this as well. Try basifying the decantate of a manske from the residue of an A/B. Perhaps it's Vasicine/vasicinone, perhaps its not, it would be cool to find a definitive way to know for sure. Chemically I can understand why it would be.

The common assumption seems to be that a Manske extraction is very efficient at extracting harmine and harmaline. I suspect that a certain percentage of harmine/harmaline is always left behind in the saline solution. If this is the case, then it’s not clear if a precipitate is only vasicine, etc. or a combination with some harmine/harmaline still present. It would be interesting to see what the results would be from basifying the saline solution of a 2nd or 3rd Maske, one which presumably has all of the vasicine, etc. already removed. My guess is that repeated Manske extractions will reduce yield until finally there’s nothing left to extract!

Next week (if I have time), I might investigate some of this and report back.

What about harmol and harmalol and harman and all the other harmala alks that are present in syrian rue? These don't fall out with manske do they? If not, it'd prolly be cool to figure out how to grab these alks up as well because they're prolly also RIMA's and not worth wasting.

The more tests done the better. This precipitate acts completely different then traditional harmala precipitates. It's very faint, and thin. Easily decantated, and 'ghostly'. Once this filter paper dries I'll post some pictures and perhaps try to recrystallize from Isopropanol. I'm sure there are contaminants, though further manskes might be a pain. I'll give it a few goes but I think we're looking at 0.3-0.5 grams of contaminated compound(eye-balled), from 100 grams of seeds. Perhaps more is still inside of the harmala 'mud'.

Actually i completely blacked out while working. No clue which filter paper is which or what I just did.

just give it a shot i'll try again later but right now... things are confusing

don't worry. The spirit of S. Rue has some resistance to show all his secrets... he tricked you...
but your investigation is very important. Because the causes of esphand's toxicity are not well determined and almost totally attributed to harmalas. Vasicine&Co seems indeed relatively safe substances... are they?
Where does stand then the safer aspect (empirically reported) of Caapi when compatred with S.Rue ?