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cleaning up fresh mimosa root

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endlessness

endlessness

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SWIM just got a couple of kilos of fresh mimosa roots from a friend up in the northeast (of Dreamland) and cleaned it, and thought it would be nice to share the work here

If you ever get fresh mimosa roots, they need to be cleaned. It is not the whole root used: Not the core, not the outer part, only the inner root bark

Here's how it looks at first. Notice the middle core is quite distinct from the rootbark. The outer part has a brown look:












Then the first thing is to scrub a bit the outside with a brush to remove the dirt. Then one needs to scrape the outer part a bit, which can be done with a good knife. Once you start scraping, you want to remove at least some of the outermost layer, getting to some more black-ish, purple-ish layer, as below:








Now that the outermost part is gone, you want to peel off the inner rootbark to separate from the core. This is easy, and can be done either with the hand straight away, or sometimes you need the help of a knife:











Here's the core that can be discarded.



The peeled inner rootbark now needs to dry. Now you have premium quality stuff.. Generally bad mimosa is not the species, but people mixing up the core or outer rootbark in the mix. The inner rootbark is alkaloid-rich.







in the end, out of 3kg, half of it were left.. Most of the discarded weight was from the inner core and a bit from the outer part. Now only the best is left
 
thats a good question.. SWIM's friend has already done with outer bark (and also inner) but of the trunk, not of the root, and it was a very poor yield (maybe 0,15%), but SWIM wasnt there to check if he did it all propper :)

Now SWIM already threw the rests in the garden, but next time he will try to get all the scrapped outer bark and make an extraction, see if he can get anything out

if it means anything, at least from the looks of it, it indeed doesnt seem to be alkaloid rich.. Its this very rough protective layer, seemingly much more rich in tannins (to protect it from biological threats) and fats, and also just earth that gets trapped, compared to the super nice purer looking purpleish inside.. but eye judgement is not a very objective measurement hehe... I guess there might be some alkaloids, but I also guess much more inactives that would probably require more thorough defat for getting a pure product

in any case, yes an analysis would be nice
 
another reason why the outer bark must not have much alkaloids is because it is exposed. Since the alkaloids are water soluble, then surely when it rains, it must wash some of them in the outer part away.

If you ever try to cook a thicker strip of jurema, you will see that even cooking for long and pressing them, the inner parts dont even get wet sometimes! So to get most alkaloids out when cooking, it is important to strip it in thin layers and break in smaller pieces



Anyways, this is a fun job, working with jurema, but it is also very tough, just like it is a tough plant. Cleaning up fresh mimosa make's one hands all rough, even with cuts or blisters sometimes. And this is not the hard part! To actually take the root out of the plant is harder! With all the nasty thorns around, and very tough plant in general. In the northeast, people hire locals to do this job, as it is not for anyone.

Mimosa is a wonderful tree. It has the actives and ethnobotanical use. It has the medicinal properties to heal burns and cuts, and many others. It is also a very strong plant, that survives very adverse conditions, being one of the last plants to die even with the most severe droughts.

viva a jurema :)
 
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