Me and my friend are brewing aya in the next few weeks. We are using syrian rue and the amazing MHRB.
This will be my first ayahuasca voyage, I am nervous and excited at the same time.

What would you all recommend dosage wise and any other advise for a first timer?

Safe travels<3

I would recommend 5g MHRB (or 10g brewed to be split 2 ways) and 4g syrian rue. I used to give 3g rue to first timers, but then it started turning out that for many, it was not enough for sufficient inhibition, so now I just do 4g to make sure it works while not going overboard (although for myself, I have started doing more than 4g). I would recommend personal vomiting buckets, comfortable places to sit and recline, sweatshirts to be taken on and off to regulate temperature as well as blankets and pillows for comfort. You're not gonna wanna move too much, so it's best to set up a nice comfy space that you can leave your body in. Music can be ecstatic for journeys, so it's wise to have a playlist of some sort, and an easy way for cuing and killing the music (preferably from the reach of your comfy spot you've created). Try to hold the ayahuasca down for at least an hour and embrace the purge. If you can manage to get everything or most of it up, you'll be nausea free for the remainder of the journey. If the ayahuasca alone isn't taking you as far as you were hoping it would, you can always have some DMT loaded up in the pipe and ready to go before you even drink the ayahuasca, so you don't have to fiddle with crystals in your altered state. You'll need less DMT than usual to take you a heck of a lot further, and beware that this can easily lead to the single most intense experience of your life, and also note that it'll take about 15-30 seconds longer than normal for the vapor effects to kick in. Also a word of caution is that if you're still nauseous when you go to smoke the DMT, it may shoot up the nausea level forcing you to puke the rest up (which can be beneficial). If you weren't nauseous before, it probably won't make you nauseous.

Thank you so so much Global that was an excellent reply and exactly what I was looking for. I've had one DMT breakthrough thusfar and many sub-breakthrough experiences so I would definitely be in for something if I decided to do freebase while on the medicine. I do have some though and will probably pre-load the pipe and see where it goes from there. As for music, I like spongle but what do you think about maybe some ambient or jungle sounds? And one more thing, does it have to be held down for an hour for maximum experience levels?

I think ambient or jungle sounds could be interesting, but I would also have some more "regular" music available if it creates too much anxiety or something. I find that holding it down for an hour usually results in substantial trips, so I like the hour mark because I know I will absorb enough, while considering that I want to get rid of the nausea (which usually steadily rises throughout the hour) as soon as possible. You can potentially avoid purging altogether in which case it will be very strong since you're not getting rid of the actives through puking. On the other hand, purging also seems to move the experience along and strengthen it in its own right, so it's sort of hard to say which one will result in maximum experience levels. Ultimately, assuming you've had enough rue, if you plan on smoking DMT, the amount of mimosa can become almost insignificant in terms of aspiring for maximum experience levels since you can now just introduce DMT into your system in quite the efficient manner. It makes it easier to dose the mimosa cause you can always dose low and then try to control how high you go with the freebase, but of course you're never really in control.

maybe have a playlist with icaros ready aswell and try it out if you feel like it?
theres actually a whole cd with shipibo icaros on spotify now!
best of luck, be safe!