Hey... I was wondering if someone could offer some feedback on a recent extraction that SWIM completed.

50g of B. Caapi were extracted using The Herbal Percolator method. It is supposed to significantly increase yield.

Over 4 gallons of water were run through the Caapi, each gallon with about 100g citric acid in it. Very acidic!

Once reduced, plain salt was added until no more would dissolve. The mix was filtered through cotton balls and put in the fridge.

Nothing precipitated overnight. The mix was brought to a boil and filled with excess salt. The mixture was strained through cotton balls and put in the fridge.

Two days later the mixture was removed. Much precipitation had occurred.

The cold solution was filtered through cotton balls. All the gunk & precipitate got caught in the cotton balls.

The cotton balls filled with gunk were simmered in water to dissolve all alkaloids from the cotton into the water.

The water was basified to pH 10-12 using mainly Sodium Carbonate. A pinch of lye was added for an extra pH boost.

No rapid color change, no color change at all except to a slow change almost black. A LOT of Sodium Carbonate had to be added to just reach neutral.

The basified water was filtered through cotton balls, the cotton caught all the goo + chunks.

The cotton balls were soaked in 99% Isopropyl Alcohol. The alcohol how had a dark maroon separation layer, one can only assume this contains some of the excess base water that was permeated in the cotton.

The alcohol was filtered through cotton balls. All the crud stuck to the cotton balls and the alcohol ran out light brown, clear looking and without any separation or precipitants.

The alcohol was evaporated to yield 8grams of shiny sparkling talcum-like tan powder.

The yield was too incredible! From 50g of Caapi, 8g of tan harmaloids? Something had to be wrong.

SWIM mixed the 8g freebase harmaloids into about 150ml of water. The mixture was run through a coffee filter and nothing could be collected.

The large yield combined with the dissolving of alkaloids into water made SWIM assume failure, that maybe his product was contaminated with sodium carbonate or lye.

The freebase filled water was tossed down the drain so SWIM wouldn't convince themselves that it may be ok to ingest.

Any thoughts or opinions on what the powder was, if it was harmala and if it could have been heavily contaminated?

SWIM mimicked this extraction with another 50g vine which is in the final evaporation phase. Any ideas as to what is happening here?

this is an interesting one to swim...hmmm
so after salting, filtering and re-dissolving in warm h2o, sodium carb was added 10 ph10-12, and the solution turned black??
swim hasn't seen this one yet. the 8g in the pic look nice. swims guess is that the alks were in the h20 that went down the drain
from reading other posts here about using alcohol for this purpose, the maroon/red colour might indicate oxidation to harmala red. but the product obtained was tan colour.?. swim is eager to hear of the second attempt using evaporation of iso.

Next time you do this, use vinegar instead of citric acid. That stuff's no end of bother. You had to add a lot of sodium carbonate because there was so much citric acid still in the solution I think.

Have you tested this stuff yet?

If it's all active then great, but I wouldn't count on it, as I'd never get that much out of even 250g's of caapi.

Is the 99% Isopropyl Alcohol able to dissolve sodium carbonate or citric acid ? It's easy to test...
If yes, what you get is probably colored sodium carbonate or a solid resulting from the citric acid+sodium carbonate (don't know the name).

Sodium citrate.

Fuck!!!! Thanks to you!!!

I've been having issues converting citrates to bases (mainly bufotenine) and have been looking for answers about this crap that's dropping out. I guess I still had way too much excess cirtic acid in my mix.

I guess the same thing happened with this here harmala tek.

There might also be some Isopropyl Citrate crystals (with the amount of citric acid Swiy was using). Isopropyl Citrate is the citric acid ester of IPA - its usually a syrupy liquid but can produce crystals when concentrated.

Interesting...

SWIM has another huge pile from the sister extraction. Same as the one in the picture.

This was just a small test run, not a major loss from the Vine stock.

SWIM thinks citric acid is the culprit! It definitely ruined the freebasing stage.

The Herbal Percolator took a LOT of liquid. Each gallon with 50-100g of citric acid.

It was a shame; boiling down the liquid made the solution turn a vibrant blood red once it was more concentrated.

Since citric acid doesn't evaporate and there was so much high-acidity liquid boiled down SWIM thinks there is a possibility the over-acidity broke alkaloids down into harmala red.

SyZyGyPSy is said to use 100g Citric acid per kilo of Syrian Rue. I suppose the 500g citric acid boiled down to half a gallon may have been too much for the alkaloids to handle.

Acetic acid will be used next time, just a touch in a lot of water.

The Herbal Percolator is a keeper though, its fun to use.