I received my order of 250g yellow b. caapi, 250g black b. caapi and 500g chacruna this morning and I'm quite excited about finally starting to brew. But before actually starting my brew I'm still doing research. The amount of information and different techniques is a bit overwhelming.

Some say use a slightly acidified solution, others say it's unnecessary. I was reading the Therapeutic caapi tea: a prototype – Material and Method and it comes up with the recipe of brewing caapi tea by soaking it overnight in apple cider vinegar, do a 4 hour boil in the morning and then reduce to 1.5l.

Their ratio of 300g on 1.5l and 20ml doses sounds like it's a perfect recipe for microdosing. Which I absolutely want to try but for now I want to experience an actual aya experience. So I was thinking about going with the same recipe except use 250g shredded yellow caapi and reduce the tea to 250ml. Makes dosing easy too.

I'm new to ayahuasca and only had one pharma experience before but I also want to get a proper brewing technique. Would following this recipe be enough or would I be leaving tons of alkaloids behind? And would brewing the chacruna with this recipe work as well?

Probably, but you don't need to be so exacting, i mean there are so many recipies.

Usually it's something like this:

1. make sure your caapi is well beaten and the fibres are well seperated, add chakruna, add water, add some vinegar, boil for 5-6 hours. Then filter thru a t shirt and leave to a side.

(Be sure to return sediment stuck in t shirt to next boil,REPEAT 4 TIMES, with new acid every time for improved extraction, if you so wish, so you are left with 4 lots of liquid to reduce)

2. Then reduce the liquid down to desired concentration.

you have probably already read THIS but if not i would follow it.

enjoy.

Its not "enough" (IMO). You need to decant/filter, add more water to it, boil again. Do it 3x minimum.

Yes, 3x minimum. Sometimes I could swear it looks like the second boil comes out darker than the first, and the third definitely still has something there. It would be better to do multiple shorter boils than one long one. Just get a second pot to do the reducing while doing the boiling. The presoak would just need a short boil. Between boils I let it settle for 10 minutes or so and pour off what I can, filtering that.

Definitely don't use vinegar if you plan to drink it, the vine by itself is acidic enough.

And yes, you can do the same with the chacruna. You can do them together but it is better separate for dosing reasons. Chacruna is easy to work with, it is just leaves and not much different than making tea from just about anything. It doesn't need extended boils, just three quick ones is good. Freezing the hydrated leaves before-hand or between boils would help.

3x3 boils. always make sure the water stays above the material throughout each boil until near the end of each 3 hour boil. collect all 3 boils and reduce to a manageable shot.

ohh yeah...add a little lemon juice for each 3 hour boil.

After reading a bit more I decided to go the 3x boil route. It's not worth cutting it short because I'd be wasting precious caapi and chacruna.

I did my first 3 hour boil earlier tonight and added applecider vinegar to both the caapi and chacruna and to the overnight soak currently standing around. I'm going to regret that for sure but I'm going to get some pH paper and see if I need to compensate the pH a bit. The chat suggested that a tiny bit of sodium carbornate could help with that, but not too much.

I'll do the last boil without acid and I'll boil the overnight soak in one hour for the caapi and 10 minutes for the chacruna and for the last chacruna boil I'll it for 30 minutes.

At that point I'll also have one free heating element on which I can start reducing the chacruna. It's a lot of tea so a big reduction is in order. Since I used 250g of both I was thinking about reducing both teas down to 250ml. Makes dosing as simple as measure the amount of ml.

Thanks for all the advice.

I wouldnt get too focused on ph and testing its acidity. Many people do not even acidify and their aya comes out strong and good. Keep it simple man, do 3 boils like others are suggesting and reduce slowly down to a couple fluid ounces per dose. Drink, wait 45 min and if your not feeling it come on strong re dose.
Enjoy.