Greetings wise Nexians, a long time lurker & dabbler here who has finally stepped up and joined. I thought I should wait until I had something original to add. I've studied the Forums extensively and could find no references to this possibility...
I've happily extracted some great stuff from MHRB using A/B tek, and used this to create a changa blend, and also a little pharmahuasca, which I found unsatisfactory and costly in terms of material.
Due to having some life questions, I felt that a proper attempt to meet with Mother Aya was now required, but my window of opportunity was small, and shrinking by the day.
I decided to try and see if the 3x3h cook could be compressed using a pressure cooker. I now think it can.
Along the way, I'd made a harmala extract from Syrian Rue, which I planned to use as the MAOI component.
Being my first time with (home-made) aya, I thought I should play fairly safe and stick to 10g MHRB. This batch has given me yields of about 2% in the past.
To a 1 liter preserving jar (the kind with the wire hinge & rubber seal) I added 800ml water, 1 teaspoon citric acid crystals & 10g MHRB. This was sealed up, and placed on the trivet in a 6 liter pressure cooker, with hot water added to come about half way up the sides of the jar. Pressure cooker (PC) was then sealed and put on high heat.
High pressure was reached in a few minutes, so I reduced the heat to about 50% assuming the jar & contents would take a while longer to reach thermal equilibrium. After about 30 minutes the pressure began to climb again, so I reasoned equilibrium had been reached and reduced heat to just above minimum, to keep the jiggler steady and set a timer for 3 hours. For normal cooking, you assume the PC will take 1/3 of the time of an open pan, so 1/3 of 9 hours seemed right. I hoped the extreme temp & pressure would do the job of multiple brews with changes of water.
After 3 hours, I turned off the heat & left the PC too cool naturally. Once the lid was opened, I was relieved to see there had been no leakage, damage, or appreciable loss of liquids. At this point, the jar was still at high temp and pressurized so I waited a good while longer before opening it. It was by then under vacuum, so I had to prise the seal with the tip of a knife to break it.
The brew looked very good, a deep color with a thin layer of sediment at the bottom. None of the foamy mess of an open pan! I filtered the brew easily though a couple of coffee filters, before transferring to a sauce pan for reduction. I got it down to 70ml and transferred this to a small glass. Once cool, I put in the fridge overnight. This caused a further small layer of sediment to drop out and I decanted the clean liquid to another glass. It now looked like a good red wine, deep, clear & bright.
Come the evening, I began. I had been fasting since before midday, only nibbling the odd leaf or pretzel in the interval, and drinking some green tea.
10 mins before my scheduled time, I took 250mg of harmalas in a gel-cap, pricked with a pin a few times. At 8 sharp, I took a large gulp of the brew, and washed it down with some soda water. It did not taste quite as bad as the stuff I had tried in Peru some time ago.
I went out into the backyard to walk around, breathe and watch the sunset, all the while praying to Mother Aya.
I finished the remainder over the course of the next hour, and from 9 until 10, I spent a fair bit of time getting rid of the liquid which was seemingly coursing straight through my bowels. My mind was completely normal, and I was beginning to think the extraction had not worked as well as I had hoped, with not so much as a glimmer of any CEV, let alone any OEV.
I felt restless & disappointed, and vaped a small hit of changa to "kickstart" things, but I got only what I would have expected from such a small hit: a smooth sheen over everything.
Because I was now feeling quite tired, I thought watching some comedy and maybe a little weed would help get me ready for bed. However, the faces on TV looked odd, kind of color-shifted towards the blue spectrum. About this time, I began to feel some energy surges, and/or nausea, so I switched off the TV and went outside. The weather had picked up, and although things had a shimmer to them, I was feeling quite uncomfortable. I went to the toilet again, and whilst sitting there started to get some quite intense CEV's. They were rich blue/green neon, but still fairly "transparent". This must've been about 10.45
I went back to the living room, with the surges still increasing. OEV's were still nothing special, and the room was very much there, but the CEV's were growing all the time, and flipping/shifting quickly. Almost right on 11, I was seized by a very powerful urge to purge and I grabbed the bucket set up for that. I hurled hard and repeatedly for about 30 seconds, struggling to breathe between bursts. My face ran with sweat, and tears streamed from my eyes. I have a strong aversion to puking, and this hurt a lot, but when it was finally over, and the possibility of any "after-shocks" had receded, I felt incredible. As if I had been drained of a heavy darkness, and was now clean and light. It was very euphoric, and I wished I had submitted sooner. I hoped this would now be the start of the next phase, but quite the opposite. Everything started returning to baseline. But to be honest, that was probably welcome by now. I sat around for a few hours more, and reflected on the evening, feeling tired but good.
Notes:
1 tsp of citric acid was probably overkill for 800 ml. It gave a pH of 1.5
Next time, I'll likely try 15g of MHRB.
Thanks for reading, if you've made it this far. Any comments/q's welcome.
PS: Have tried to download the "aya.png" chart but I get a warning saying I am not authorized to access this resource...Is it for Full Members only?
“I sometimes marvel at how far I’ve come - blissful, even, in the knowledge that I am slowly becoming a well-evolved human being - only to have the illusion shattered by an episode of bad behaviour that contradicts the new and reinforces the old. At these junctures of self-reflection, I ask the question: “are all my years of hard work unraveling before my eyes, or am I just having an episode?” For the sake of personal growth and the pursuit of equanimity, I choose the latter and accept that, on this journey of evolution, I may not encounter just one bad day, but a group of many.”
― B.G. Bowers
ॐ