After dreaming of Changa just enough to get a feel for the space SWIM is considering the following for his first ayahuasca brew and would like your opinions on his technique and amounts, etc.
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20 grams shredded B Caapi placed in THP, 1.5 liters of distilled H2O (no acids added) at 180 degrees F. A rich amber brown tea would then be reduced to 300 ml. In this dream his THP would have used cheesecloth as the filter and the flush went through in only a few minutes. He had considered a further run, but the reduced tea would be seen as being rich, dark and not quite opaque like a medium coffee brew so he would think it is good. He wonders though if the neutral H2O was adequate to extract the needed goods or if he should run acidic H2O through, combine and reduce again?

He also would like to know if 1/2 of this brew would create proper MAO inhibition? He sees so many numbers all over the web he is not sure at all what is realistic.
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Next he would likely process 15 grams finely powdered Jurema (aquired from Cielo Ethnobotanicals, many years ago but he hopes it will still be good). He would like to know if a 220 degree or higher acidic run through THP would give a usable product? Or should he do a boil and reduction process? He would much rather use THP if it will do the job. He thinks it would be good to pack the cheesecloth much tighter to slow down the flow to a trickle.

He imagines H2O acidified with either Phosphoric Acid a la Hummingbird tek or else with vinegar. His understanding is that the phosphoric gives especially high yields, so he wonders if this is the way to go.

He wonders how much H2O should be run to adequately extract all of the magic.
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At that point he would bio assay an adequate amount of Caapi and the result of 2 or 3 grams worth of the Jurema tea for a first voyage, leaving the majority of the material for further investigation once the strength has been assayed. Is such a small quantity likely to have any effect at all, or should he up his initial dosage? He is seeking a healing session and wants more than just a threshold experience if possible. He wonders if he can bump with more Jurema a few hours in if he wants to?

thanks

20 grams of caapi is IMO definately not enough to do the trick. You need at least twice as much (i´d rather take 50 grams, actually). Secondly, you realy need some acidified water (you could use the phosphoric acid you intend to use for the mimosa) to properly extract the stuff.

I believe that i once read about non-acidic extractions or even cold water extractions, but i have no idea how long you would need to soak the caapi then, and i also don´t know if cold water extractions even work at all.

When you brew ayahuasca, the caapi part is realy the critical element. Failed attempts at making a good brew are almost in any case due to failed caapi-extractions and not because the DMT-admixture plant wasn´t extracted properly.

Some people boil their caapi for an entire day, wich proves that you cannot realy boil your caapi for too long. Just a short boil in water won´t be enough. You need to boil the stuff for at least 6 hours in acidified water.

The amount of mimosa that you intend to use is also quite large. I would start low, with something like 2 to 3 grams. The mimosa, unlike caapi, you can just boil for a short time in water. If you boil the mimosa for too long, it WILL loose it´s potency.

But anyway...there´s a whole thread 'all about aya' and i realy reccomend you read that first. I´ll bet that you can find the answers to all your questions there.

Unless you have some really powerful caapi I would try more like 120grams

or maybe 50grams and some rue for the added boost

Well, 120 grams of caapi is a LOT of caapi. That´s a dose you´d take if you´d want to experience the psychedelic effects of caapi itself. For full MAO-inhibition, 50 grams of caapi is enough. Actually in most cases 40 grams would be enough, but that´s about the threshold dose: it could be júst enough or júst too little, so therefore i would take 50 grams just to be sure. 50 grams should realy do it.

1.It depends on the potency of the Caapi. Is it Black, red, or yellow, or white Caapi??

2. It depends on the potency of the Chakruna. Is it Peruvian, Hawiaan, Brazilian??

--Black Caapi is very powerful and so is Hawiaan chakruna which is potent at 5 grams as opposed to the usual 50 grams for Peruvian.

Unfortunately he has only 35 grams total Caapi at this time. He does also have 4:1 Peganum Harmala resin extract from Basement Shaman however. He thinks he will brew up all 35 grams together in an acidic mix and combine with his current extract then reduce again.

Given only 35 grams of Caapi to work with how much of the 4:1 extract should he add?

He considered using only the Rue, but for his first batch he was hoping to use the more traditional Caapi. He knows the mimosa is not really traditional anyway, but he wants to work with the vine the first time. Maybe he will just have to buy some more vine.

He will definitely keep the Jurema dosages down to the recommended levels too. To be clear, he was thinking of 2 or 3 grams worth of the Jurema tea, not the whole 15.

Thanks.

christian:
He bought the Caapi a long time ago, so unfortunately he is not certain. He knows it is not Hawaiian. He believes it is probably yellow.

He is not using Chakruna. The Juerema he believes was sourced from Brazil, but it was purchased long ago and he is not certain.

UMM, a bit of a mixed bag going on here!

35 grams caapi can be supplemented with the rue if you like. I take it 4:1 means 4 times the concentration, so maybe add 1-1/2 gram of this to your final brew??

3-grams of mimosa would be about right. What does Polytrip think??