I had a huge reply typed out before but I didn't realize there was a draft feature. Anyways probably all the best! I'll keep it concisce.
Glad to hear that I'm not weird for ogling the glass haha. I'm thinking I got a good deal on the filtering flask. Now that I am here writing this post, I realize I don't have any good pictures of the glass so I'll leave you with the makeshift vacuum. I want to add a vacuum switch to make it have an 'auto' feature so it will switch on when the vacuum runs out. It works, maybe a 'proper' vacuum would be faster, sometimes I feel like I am going through the filter paper like toilet paper and it take forever. But there is a reason for different filtering stages, and compared to gravity alone this gets the job done in a fraction of the time. Provided you have the apparatus to use to filter... At one point for a vacuum flask, I was considering using a bong with the downstem removed, somehow I had the glass bits to hook up a hose and I'm sure that would have worked but I never really used that.... i knew one day I would get something better.
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I think my makeshift pump works okay. I'm not talking about the pump moreso the glass
I bought two different kinds of filter paper, and on the one I had several 'blowouts' where the filter gave way creating a hole allowing the unfiltered liquid to be pulled through with great force, a bit annoying as I had to restart the filtration. I think I will be avoiding that particular filter. The listing for those showed mushrooms I guess these filter papers are used in mycology as well. Regardless, finding fast filter paper in my funnel size has proven difficult. I thought long and hard about how to cut perfect circles out of these bamboo coffee filters cause after cutting out a handful with a pair of scissors I thought there was a better way. After fantasizing about aquiring a laser cnc cutter to perfectly cut filter discs out of coffee filters, but it was too extrreme of a fantasy so I settled on this Olfa circle cutter i managed to find at a local sewing store. The only crappy thing about this method is it uses a pin to locate the cutter creating a tiny pinhole in the center of the paper which of course isn't what you want for filtering, but it's a pinhole and using 2-3 filters at a time seems to work. Seems like a pretty good method of getting coarse filter paper discs to whatever size you like. Of course you are still cutting them out by hand but it's definitely faster than with scissors. It's a bit challenging to perectly cut out the entire paper but you can just tear out the little bits that end up sticking and it ends up being pretty close to a perfect circle. That's of course using the whole buchner funnel... I found that the 10 micron paper seems to filter really really slow though even after a bunch of this pre-filtering. The harmala crud is indeed relentless but yeah i did also inisist on grinding the seeds, not to dust mostly but yeah... I think next time I will try not grinding them and seeing if the yield is still the same. I searched and seached and indeed found some Syrian Rue that wasn't being sold at an inflated price. I was a bit surprised a the chocolatey smell of this new batch but that will have to come later as I just did the last of my old stock.
Oh yeah I was using Melitta brand and you can get these 'flat' ones that are folded in half and are meant to be a sort of 'cup' for the coffee grounds but yeah cutting those with the circle maker gives you two at once, mind you they have the pinhole in them but the melitta brand filters do seem to have a 'pinhole' pattern already die cut into them I'm thinking there might be a 'directionality' in terms of which way these holes are cut and facing in the buchner.... it's a bit tough to explain and maybe I'm overthinking it because there's 2-3 layers anyways but later I'll come back with some better photos to illustrate what I mean. But yeah you get 2x filters so for about $5usd or so for 160 filters in the end isn't bad? But they do have holes in them and the tool is of course money too. Not to mention using three at a time but hey the price is good and they do filter... somwewhat.
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Before using the buchner I was using this silicone collapsible funnel thing, and stuffing some cotton balls into the bottom. But I also experienced the dreaded 'blowouts' where the vacuum force pulled the cotton down the funnel along with the contents. Taking it easy on the vacuuming kept that in check but eventually impatience tends to take hold and then having to restart again... But I devised a 'strainer plug' and 3d printed it so these blowouts using the cotton ball wouldn't occur. I'll get some better glass porn pics later along with this silicon funnel finding it has been pretty sweet for the filtering.
Also maybe call me crazy but I've been using organic cotton balls, apparently cotton is highly/heavily (one of the most) sprayed, I never understood why people wanted organic cotton when you're not eating it so I looked into it and yeah that is why, maybe something to consider?
