furhenden
Rising Star
So I have been soaking 10 grams of caapi leaf in 95% ethanol for two weeks, and have some questions for those who have done this before, that I haven't really seen addressed in other forum posts.
First of all, I did not grind, powderize, or otherwise pulverize the leafs, they were somewhat broken up by hand into an average sized piece of a 10mm - 25mm or so.
After the first week of soaking, I began to notice what looks like little tiny needle / hair like specs clinging to the glass after shaking. They appear mostly clear at this stage.
As the second week of soaking went on, the liquid got darker green, and the build up of this fine powdery like substance seemed to be rapidly increasing, to the point that when the jar has been undisturbed for a few hours, it all settles down on the leaf matter, in a visible layer of what looks like super fine off white, kind of orangey/red/brown sandy material. When the jar is shaken, it all disperses into the green liquid and makes it darker and opaque until it settles down again.
Is it possible that this sandy looking substance that only formed after an extended ethanol soak is possibly some of the harmalas that have crashed out of the ethanol on their own for some reason?
Had I ground up the leaves, I would probably not have noticed this material forming in the solution, as it would have been assumed to be powderized leaf material.
I was originally planing on filtering this through a coffee filter and evaporating it on some leaf right off the bat, but after seeing this formation in the solution, I decided to filter out the leaf matter first through a mesh strainer, to preserve whatever this is. The result is a very dark green liquid on top, and a fairly decent layer of off white/orangey fine material on the bottom of the jar.
Has anyone seen this before?
Is it possible that since ethanol isn't a great solvent for harmalas, that as it picked up more chlorophyll and stuff from the leaf, it pushed out some of the harmalas?
Can a 95% ethanol solution be based? Like as in, could I potentially base this a little bit, and push harmalas out of ethanol?
I will try to get a picture uploaded of this at some point.
First of all, I did not grind, powderize, or otherwise pulverize the leafs, they were somewhat broken up by hand into an average sized piece of a 10mm - 25mm or so.
After the first week of soaking, I began to notice what looks like little tiny needle / hair like specs clinging to the glass after shaking. They appear mostly clear at this stage.
As the second week of soaking went on, the liquid got darker green, and the build up of this fine powdery like substance seemed to be rapidly increasing, to the point that when the jar has been undisturbed for a few hours, it all settles down on the leaf matter, in a visible layer of what looks like super fine off white, kind of orangey/red/brown sandy material. When the jar is shaken, it all disperses into the green liquid and makes it darker and opaque until it settles down again.
Is it possible that this sandy looking substance that only formed after an extended ethanol soak is possibly some of the harmalas that have crashed out of the ethanol on their own for some reason?
Had I ground up the leaves, I would probably not have noticed this material forming in the solution, as it would have been assumed to be powderized leaf material.
I was originally planing on filtering this through a coffee filter and evaporating it on some leaf right off the bat, but after seeing this formation in the solution, I decided to filter out the leaf matter first through a mesh strainer, to preserve whatever this is. The result is a very dark green liquid on top, and a fairly decent layer of off white/orangey fine material on the bottom of the jar.
Has anyone seen this before?
Is it possible that since ethanol isn't a great solvent for harmalas, that as it picked up more chlorophyll and stuff from the leaf, it pushed out some of the harmalas?
Can a 95% ethanol solution be based? Like as in, could I potentially base this a little bit, and push harmalas out of ethanol?
I will try to get a picture uploaded of this at some point.