The emulsion always happens when FB harmalas are crashing in water and an EA liquid-liquid pull is done. I didn't try heat to clear it up though, perhaps the harmalas being more soluble clears the emulsion (?). Emulsion doesn't happen when pulling from wet seeds (no alkaline water layer to emulsify with). Going from harmalas already in EA to vinegar doesn't cause emulsions for me.

NaOH is works well to crash the harmalas and other stuff quickly. I haven't seen it be higher yielding. It crashes junk to make a clearer solution quickly, but any extra stuff that crashes does not go back into solution during the A step (for the most part).