I live a fairly busy life, and I also like to take ayahuasca on a frequent basis. Daily, when time permits. The problem with this, is that ayahuasca takes time to prepare, time I don't really have (though I invest it anyway because ayahuasca is very important to me).

Then, I saw a post where someone described a soxhlet extractor. What did I envision? A magic machine where I toss some plants in one part, some water in another part, and just put it on top of some heat and leave it.... and thereby have ayahuasca made for me, effort free, while I go off and do other things.

Do I have the right idea here? Is a soxhlet extractor basically a magic ayahuasca-making machine? Because if I could just leave a machine on autopilot... boy that would help with scheduling.

If my naive impression is accurate, I would not hesitate to drop money on something like that. Like I said, I like to trip on ayahuasca on a daily basis... if it were a weekly thing I wouldn't bother, but when it's daily, that's a lot of brew time. I would invest a significant chunk of cash on something like that, IF it can actually do that.

sounds like what you're describing is a Mr. Coffee.
soxhlets are typically used with low-boiling solvents, like simple aliphatic alcohols (methanol, ethanol, isopropanol), or low-boiling nonpolars like hexanes.

not that it couldn't be used with water. a typical soxhlet (125, 250 mL) can process a single serving brew or two.

So... it could work? Have you ever tried? I don't want to drop a bunch of cash on it if it turns out to not be a high functioning Ms. Ayahuasca machine.

if you dropped the cash, it wouldn't be a waste. a soxhlet is very versatile.
but to answer your question, yes it would work.

it takes a couple-a few hours to get a thorough extraction, but it would be potent.

Its also not as effortless as it is in theory, a few problems can arise. If its not packed properly, or if too much material is used, the soxhlet won't fully siphon properly, or it won't siphon at all and instead give you a slow dripping and poor extraction. The siphon can also become clogged.

For most consistent results, its best to use a paper thimble, then you might get away with setting it up and leaving it unattended. The thimble also limits the amount of material you can fit in. You successfully run one without a thimble and fit more material in, but the chances of a problem occurring are higher, which means leaving it unattended would be a bad thing. Not to mention that, these thing shouldn't be left unattended at all, since they are a fire hazard. Even when using water.

You need a big soxhlet to efficiently extract even a small amount of material. A 1L soxhlet can only properly fit 100-200g of material, more or less depending on the density.

Water has a high surface tension and sticks to glass so, siphoning should work ok. The main problems you will run into are drainage or clogging from the silty ayahuasca tannins.

At first glance it seems like an easy fix, but in all practicality, you might be spending more time dealing with it than you would otherwise brewing ayahuasca. Seems easier to leave a big pot on the stove on simmer overnight, like making a turkey stock. Soxhlets are more suited for quantitative extraction, not for making tea.

the tannins shouldn't be much of an issue. I've extracted theobromine from a half-cup of baking chocolate stuffed in a coffee filter, using everclear. the siphon never clogged (250mL extractor body); Glas-col mantle, Thermolyne 1800W input controller.

albeit, caapi isn't cocoa, but IDK if it's as fine and tannin-rich as cocoa; and yea, water has more surface tension. it makes more sense to slowly simmer the mixture, and filter. soxhlet is more advantageous for making fortified extracts like salvia, kratom, etc.

If your life is so busy, you won't have time to take aya daily.

Have you ever ran a marathon? It's pretty gruelling, and taxing on the body. Try doing that daily, and see if your body can handle it. Drinking aya daily is similar to running a marathon daily. It's gonna drain you, physically and mentally.


As for using a soxhlet, you get out what you put in. If you put zero energy into the brew, then aya puts zero effort into healing you. I know that's not the answer you wanted to hear, and it has nothing to do with the science of soxhlets, but it's some practical advice for the path you are taking. I've been down that road, and it's not fun or therapeutic.

Even in jungle retreats where you do not bother making your brew, participants rarely drink aya every day. A ceremony takes at least 4 hours or more. And then you need some time to integrate the experience. With your schedule it is absolutely impossible to drink aya every day and even every other day. Every weekend is doable, however I do not believe you would stick to such schedule for long.

But lets suppose you want to drink aya as often as possible. It is impractical to run an extraction every time you plan to drink. It is much more efficient to have a large volume of the tea readily available. A single large volume extraction is always more efficient than a number of smaller extractions yielding the same amount of the final product.

For a large volume extraction you would need a very big (and expensive) Soxlet. I can only load ~200 g of dry material in my 2.5 l extractor. Besides, as was mentioned before, Soxlets run much better on low-boiling solvents and need to be monitored constantly. It is more practical to use a simple water pot boiling tek if you have more than a hundred grams of dry material. This you can safely leave unattended for some time.

A bit of my personal experience that might be useful: To have a stable supply of aya I have ordered a vine-only concentrate from Peru. Less than a teaspoon of it is enough for very potent brew. To have the medicine ready all I need to do is dissolve it in warm water and add some DMT. It may be extracted separately. This allows me to eliminate a number of variables inherent in small extractions for every ceremony. From previous experiences I know how much of concentrate and DMT I need. Having the vine and DMT separated I can experiment with timing between MAOI and DMT to find my sweet spot.

Theoretically I can drink aya every day, but in practice I do it once a month on average.

P.S. Soxlets are great if you have a small volume of hard-to-find, expensive material and you wish to squeeze every single milligram from it.

I disagree, sort of. The idea that effort in brew preparation is necessary for benefit, does not seem correct, to me. The distinction between pharmahuasca I threw in shot glasses vs. ayahuasca I brewed for hours seems to only be chemical.

The allocation of effort is important, and I have indeed meditated for the duration of brewing in the past, and it is helpful - but not (I think) because ayahuasca "liked" me for doing it. It was helpful, because I concentrated and meditated for 3 hours prior to ingesting the brew. If somebody gave me ayahuasca that they brewed, and I meditated for hours prior, I don't think there would be significant difference (aside from missing possible olfactory psychological effects of inhaling the vapors of the brewing ayahuasca prior to ingesting it). But, hey, maybe there's something to it. Not in my experience though.

You are right to say that you need to put effort into your healing in order for it to be fruitful, but in my experience and opinion, you are wrong about the kind of effort, or at least have some sort of misapprehension about what exactly is going on when you put effort in. Like Nick Sand, I believe that the highest use of psychedelics is as an adjunct to: meditation, tantra, yoga, or shamanic practice. My personal practice is to sit 3 hours of Zazen during each ayahuasca session. I do it daily whenever I can. It does not "drain" me, it leads my mind to one pointed unification. It is not an easy practice, but is simple and highly beneficial.

Then again, I may be a bad example. Most people do not seem to have the level of psychedelic endurance I have. I rarely vomit, even when consuming multiple doses in a single session, and where other people are freaking out as their psyche dissolves into fractals, I am just getting to where I want to be. To each their own. A guy like DM Turner seems pretty wild and over the type to me, so, there's definitely a spectrum of heads.

Thank-you for your advice. And yes, even in retreats people do not usually trip daily - but let's not forget, there are shamans that do this multiple times a week for decades. I don't do it and kick on teletoon. I sit Zazen for the duration of the experience. This is a discipline for me, an adjunct to my meditation practice, which I always carry on with or without ayahuasca. I do eventually want to take up monastic training, although I will be sad as this will mean I will no longer have access to ayahuasca. But them's the breaks in the institutional Buddhist world.

Although this is not in line with the thread topic, I would love to hear about your experience. I am familiar with all major psychedelics. I've also been practicing vipassana meditation for the last 2 years and would love to combine both practices.

I tried meditating with many psychedelics, including aya, many times but with little success. It's OK if the trip is light, but if things get serious I'am unable to concentrate on anything. The flood of thoughts and images is too overwhelming.

I have a recommendation: get a temperature controlled hotplate. Potentially with a magnetic stirrer built in. You can get the former at any household store, the latter from eBay (though it's not super easy to find large hotplate stirrers for good prices).

That way you can leave a brew seep unattended for hours below boiling temperature, even go to work and leave it running, and just use a coffee filter to pour it off at the end. Way safer than a soxhlet, easier to use, easier to clean too. As a bonus, it will double nicely if you're into molecular gastronomy, sous vide, slow cooking and hipster kitchen stuff like that.

Interesting. I do it on some pretty high doses. 12 grams of acacia + 4 grams syrian rue is my preference, or 100 mg DMT + 200 mg harmine if taking pharmahuasca.

Well, I'll give you some details on my experience. When I began this practice, I had already been meditating 2 hours daily sober - one in the morning, one at night. I had been doing this for about a year or so, so I was already pretty familiar with it. As well, abstinence from masturbation and pornography (though not sex with other people), abstinence from social media and screen time generally, and a moderate diet low in sodium, sugar, spice, and grease seem to help. I don't find the pork/meat prohibitions make much of a difference - mostly just being on a moderate diet is what does the trick for me. I work by experience, not folklore.

Now, when I first started meditating with ayahuasca, I did not meditate it in a manner that was quite "traditional", because I used a blindfold while Buddhism advocates open-eyed meditation (I used the "mindfold" Alex Grey sells on his website). What I found, was that I had to put at least 2 hours in a single sitting on ayahuasca to have a transformative experience - I now do 3 hours. At first, it does not seem very different from normal meditation, aside from the fact that you're blasted on ayahuasca, which can be distracting. But if you continue to focus, somewhere around the 60-90 minute mark, it changes. Being centered on breathing stops being a matter of effort, and it becomes effortless. This is usually preceded by mind going, "fuck, let's just give up and go listen to some tunes". This still happens even now! And I welcome it, because I look square at that impulse to distraction, and I think, "let's see you tire yourself out". And it does. Just wait, continuing breathing, and it dies away, and you're left fully present - and the visions go wild.

I have seen geometric constructs that I did not know I was capable of imagining, and it is the most healing experience I have ever encountered. Ayahuasca is healing on its own, but this is something else entirely. It is consistently reliable and repeatable, which is amazing, because I had never before known a way to make the transcendent happen reliably. It fixes the parts in my psyche that are broken, patterns that are frayed, habits that need to be burned away, etc. And a lot of the time, I do not even understand what the import of the visions are - nor do I need to really know, I just know that in some way I might not even understand, they are helping me in my meditative and spiritual progress. I have seen dark things, I have seen cathedrals of light and stained glass, I have seen palaces of jewels, and I frequently (spontaneously) speak in tongues when it reaches a peak (which also feels pretty healing, though I sound like a maniac). A friend of mine who speaks in tongues when smoking DMT says that he actually utters worlds when he is on the "other side". Personally, speaking in tongues makes me feel like I'm strengthening neural connections/de-fragging my brain/establishing a dial-up signal with the DMT world, strengthening my connection to it.

The trick, when dealing with these experiences in meditation, is to not get wrapped up in the visions, but always remain with the thread of breath. It does all of the work, you do not do anything intentional or volitional. You're just a passenger. Remain with equanimity, whether it is dark or light, it all arises and passes away as is necessary. The breath does the work.

Essentially, keep at it. Work. Do not give up. And seriously - at least 2 hours sitting. Do not budge. Fuck it, let the mind scream at the hours. You are waiting for that screaming to tire itself out - and it will. I no longer always use a blindfold, simply because Buddhism teaches you should have your eyes open, but when I first began, it probably helped me avoid distractions. I don't need it for that anymore, but I still sometimes use it just because I'll have clearer visions. So, you might want to try adding that. And build up a dedicated meditation practice outside drug use too. Do at least 1 hour a day (in a single sitting, none of that half hour stuff), preferably 2 hours (in separate 1 hour sittings, unless you really want to push yourself), consistently, for at least a few months. This practice is one of the greatest discoveries I have ever made, right next to the G-spot.

Thanks dude! You guys have mostly all been pretty helpful, I appreciate it a lot