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Harmala Extraction And Seperation Guide.. Couple of Q's

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ntwhtyouknw

ntwhtyouknw

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Ok, I'm at Phase 10, I have the Rue tea in my fridge were it has been for two hours precipitating alkaloids. The guide says I can use a French Coffee Press with a paper coffee filter on the press, should I just discard the liquid? Then dissolve in vinegar in water right in the press with the filter and all to make sure I get them off of the filter? Also I'm wondering if it is OK to use Morton Brand Ice Cream salt for the salt precipitation phase? I don't think this salt is intended to be edible but It's not Iodized either which is what I know I'm to stay away from. Sorry if my questions are jumbled, I made it this far and I'm hoping this goes right.
 
You dont necessarily have to use a coffee french press, you can just pass it through a coffee filter... It might be slower.. The problem with the coffee french press is that if you press a bit too hard, harmalas start passing through to the top, so you have to do it without much pressure.. Anyways try it out and see if you can get it to work..

As for throwing the liquid or not, depends.. You could try adding some more sodium carb (or sodium carb saturated water) and see if it clouds up again. If it doesnt, yeah you could throw the liquid away.

As for the salt, what is morton brand ice cream salt? what are the exact ingredients? Im sure you can find sea salt in some natural food store nearby or order it off the net. Even salt with iodine would work, though I would avoid it if you can.. I think its more of a problem if the salt has anti-caking agents.

Good luck!
 
Ok cool, I read the MSDS on the salt I'm going to use and It's without additives. I tried using the french press but just like you said I ended up with a bunch mixed throughout. I left it in the fridge for now, I had something come up. It should be ok in the fridge for a bit until I can get back to it you think? Well anyhow I think I have a much better understanding now, I'm going to just filter slowly by pouring through a paper filter into another container, and I'll try precipitating the liquid before I discard it. Thanks a lot endlessness, Its a great reassurance to hear back from you.
 
Yes, the filtering is slow, I just leave the whole thing in the fridge and check it out 12 hours later, there's no hurry. Putting the roughly crushed Rue in a bag of cheesecloth while extracting helps.

Perhaps the enzyme pectinase can help by breaking down 'slimy stuff' that clogs the filters... Crystalito has been experimenting with this!
I just found a supplier: 10 grams from Aspergillus Niger for 18.75 euros.

By the way, I don't think traces of iodide in the salt can do any harm.
 
Ok well I left in the fridge too long maybe, it seems to have frozen all the goodies at the bottom, but it looks like some kind of crystals, odd looking. Not sure here maybe it will thaw and be fine anyone ever see this before?
 

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I'm thinking its not ice but some kind of crystals. Could it be the good ones? Should I decant, filter that fluid combine with crystals and go on to dissolve in vinegar/water? I'm confused, hopefully I can save this one. Good thing I saved half of the rue just in case. Not throwing anything out yet though.
 
I had it in the fridge not the freezer, and I have left it out to thaw which has shown this not to be ice but some sort of crystals. I'm not sure if its the good stuff or not though, I suppose I should just decant/filter what liquid I can and then see if the solids will dissolve in Vinegar/water.
 
Ok. I decanted, and there were definitely lots of crystals in the bottom of the jar, I seems like it is sodium carb, does this sound right? I added a bit much I suppose. I washed the crystals with some water and mixed it with the liquid I decanted. I have to come with a better way to filter the liquid, I have to get some rest though now.
 
So that you dont have this problem again next time in the future, add sodium carbonate slowly and keep mixing as you do, so that it all dissolves and that you know well the point when it stops changing color. Another option (But will increase the amount of liquid) is to first make a saturated sodium carbonate solution and add that... this way you know you wont have precipitated/undissolved sodium carb.

Now what you do is use warm dilute vinegar solution, which will dissolve the alkaloids as well as neutralize excess sodium carb and turn it into a water-soluble salt.. Filter it very thoroughly while its all dissolved, to remove some of the color (I like doing with funnel and cotton plug, and if you have patience, even doing more than one filtering, changing the cotton plug after the first filtering). Then you do the salt-saturation step, redissolve the precipitated salts with warm water, and precipitate the freebase again with sodium carb.

good luck!
 
Ok I thought I was supposed to keep the filtered material at this step, right before salt precip and discard the liquid.
 
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