Hi, can anyone help me?

I've been following the tao and other tips for extracting harmalas. I've put 200g p. harmala 3x in a pot and let it simmer for 2 hours with a shot of vinegar and like a liter of water.

I knew the filtering would be a pain so I jarred my boiled harmalas and let em sit in the fridge overnight hoping I could get a jump on the sludge with a quick decant. I was surprised the next morning that there was no sludge, it was all 1 thick uniform liquid.

So I decided not to short-cut it and added it to a larger pot with another 4 liters and a splash of vinegar. I boiled for another 2 hours and began filtering. It was a pain in the ass, but after 2 days and probably 100 coffee filters I got it to a much more thin consistency. I was also able to decant a lot of silt along the way from swapping between jars.


Then I reduced it to about a half liter, filtered more, and popped it in the fridge overnight again. There weren't many solids to decant, but I filtered again anyway.

Here's my issue... I made a lye solution of about 3tbsp:400ml and added it to the harmala jar. I didn't see any color change occur as I slowly poured/stirred. I added the entire thing, and then another 4-5 tbsp of lye to the jar, but still no noticeable precipitation like in the tek pictures. It turned from a crimson-black to a greenish-black I guess.


Near a UV light, the jar still looks like a thick black liquid, but a smaller solution of 10ml diluted in 100ml tap water has a greenish-yellow glow. Also I can see where I spilled on my arms and hands and it has dried. (Note: the bright white glowing stain on the table is laundry detergent)


Am I just paranoid and should fridge my jar and let the precipitates form and settle? I'm worried I've messed something up.

Hmmm... It looks like everything is cranking along okay. Depending on how much vinegar you used, it could take quite a bit of lye solution. Instead of adding it directly to the harmala solution, add it to some fresh water. I'd recommend 10g in 100-200ml of water. Make sure you're stirring the harmala solution while you add the lye solution. It should go milky and then a little dark and then milky again.

If you have some way to test the ph, that would be recommended. That way you know exactly when you hit your mark at 8.75

Thanks for the suggestions. I did use a test strip and it came out a hot pink, which I think according to my crappy ph strip&meter is probably already waaay more basic than necessary.

Nevermind, I can now see a distinct separate layer forming on the bottom half of the glass, and after prodding it with my chop stick, it appears to be the beginning of the harmala precipitating.