Thanks DWFZ, good points.

Shroombee, I did not see a 10% weight drop from my citric acid after a few hours in the oven at 200F. Got 0.5% loss though, probably from absorbed moisture (a tiny part of the citric acid stuck to itself at the top layer). I think this means my citric acid is still mostly anhydrous. I think it makes sense for you to over acidify the simple extract, see if xtals crash. pH paper being green on the first pulls is a great sign. So are the clouds and turbidity. Just need to get all that to crash.

Malic acid is working for me too IF I add excess and have some red on the pH paper. When neutral/orange, the malate (?) clouds kind of settle but don't really coalesce into xtals. It is similar to citric, maybe a little better even. Tartaric seems more temperamental and doesn't want to crash even with excess.