Harmine extraction (from harmal seeds) questions

[k]

Seeming to me:
"The Tao of Rue Extraction" is having three extraction / purification techniques:
1) Dissolving in acidic water and removing the sediments / solids.
2) Salt saturation to precipitate the harmalas.
3) Adding base to precipitate the harmalas.
In order: 131223.

Any theoretical reason for this order? Like any advantage of doing '3' (base purification) before '1' (acid purification) -> '2' (salt purification)?
Why not 123123 or 123 instead of the 131223?
What's the importance of 2? What if it's skipped and we do like 131313? 2 is for removing harmalol / vasicine / vasicinone ?

Make sure your solution is hot before you add the salt, otherwise the harmalas might fall out too soon.

Any problem if the harmalas fall out "too soon"?

What happens to the salt formed by the chosen acid and sodium bicarbonate? Sodium acetate or sodium citrate get dissolved in water and stay dissolved, or they precipitate with harmine / harmaline?

For harmalas precipitation (2 and 3), "The Tao of Rue Extraction" didn't say to keep in fridge but "Harmalas Extraction and Separation Guide" saying to keep in fridge. So fridge / freezer / no-need ? What's going on here?

 

[Sakkadelic]

Yes step 2 is important to remove vasicine, vacisicinone and other impurities..
It's possible to do 123123 too, after you collect the crystals in 2 you can redissolve them in hot water and proceed to 3.. the repetition of steps is to farther purify the product doing just 12 is enough as you can see here Simple manske on rue tea(results) - Harmalas - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

There's no problem in harmalas falling out too soon but if you want long needles then slow cooling is needed.. but you must use a coffee filter to collect the tiny needles

Both works fridge or no fridge, the fridge might speed up the precipitation..

Sodium acetate and sodium citrate are soluble in water so they stay dissolved but when drying the precipitated freebase you get traces of them along with some sodium bicarbonate in the final product, doing a water wash will reduce these traces or a sodium bicarbonate wash will reduce the Sodium acetate ans sodium citrate traces only but you ensure harmalas are not dissolving back into solution

 

[k]

Thanks a lot.

Of my questions, only one remains that:

Why that tek in the wiki having order 131223 instead of other possible orders like 123123? Am asking because: Is 131 doing something special like getting rid of some impurity which 123 wouldn't be able to remove or wouldn't be able to remove that effectively?

Why that tek starting with 13 instead of starting with 12?

 

[Aum_Shanti]

As I understood it, it is mainly personal preferences to go 13 or 12 at first step. E.g. to get rid of the unwanted alkaloids right at the beginning or later.

The thing people agree is that whatever you do, you should in the end at least once have made a 2, to get rid of the unwanted stuff.

I think many like the 2 rather in the end to get nice big crystals. So they do 13s to purify and then get the crystals and then final basing.

That's at least how I understood it. Please correct my, if my suggestion was wrong here.

I personally am more the 12 first type, as with the method I use that is already quite pure.

 

[k]

Thank you.

..

with the method I use that is already quite pure.

What method please? -if you think that telling me can be beneficial to me.


New questions:

Which acid should i prefer? The two guides i linked seems to be preferring vinegar, but wouldn't lemon juice or citric acid be more stomach friendly and so less emetic?
I've read about lemon essential oil reducing nausea of harmalas, so this is an advantage of using lemon juice? -if the essential oil isn't getting filtered off when extracting harmalas.

How much acid should i add? I found a tek giving exact amounts but the tek's procedure is different:
( Please feel free to ignore the below tek. )
( Quoting from Erowid Syrian Rue Vaults: Extraction 2 : Acetic Acid Extract (per Mankse) )

From "The Alkaloids" Vol II (p393), Mankse:

"The crushed seeds of Peganum Harmala are covered with three times their weight of water containing 30 g of acetic acid per liter of water [white vinegar is about 50g / l or 5 %]. The seeds swell as they absorb the liquid and form a thick dough which is pressed after 2-3 days. The pressed seeds are once more treated as above with twice their weight of dilute acetic acid and, after maceration, the liquid is again pressed out. To the combined liquors, sodium chloride [that's table salt, man] (100g. / liter of liquid) is added to transform the acetates of harmine and harmaline into the hydrochlorides which are insoluble in cold sodium chloride solutions and are precipitated during cooling. The supernatant liquid is siphoned off, the crystalline residue filtered with suction

 

[Sakkadelic]

Lemon juice will add more impurities, there will be no vinegar or citric acid in your final product so there's no difference on stomach..

About quantities 7 to 1 ratio water/5%vinegar is good it's fine if you use more or bit less, no need to be precise..

 

[Aum_Shanti]

@k: I tried this extraction tek here:

Original Manske/Hasenfratz (Fritzsche) Extraction procedure - Collaborative Research Project - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

IMHO it is a very unpractical tek, as you are handling just a dough, which makes it IMHO just a mess.
IMHO using more water makes things much easier.

 

[k]

Sakkadelic,

I don't think that parts of lemon juice coming in the final extract will be a problem to me as i want to take the extract orally.

I think:
The acid quantity to add should me more in terms of per weight of the seeds than in terms of per water. There must be an optimal amount of acid to add, something like: for 250g harmal seeds, 1.89g citric acid in first wash, 1.26g citric acid in second.

Arguments / Opinions welcome

 

[Aum_Shanti]

As you can read in the thread I linked, I'm also currently at testing what exactly is important (acidity, water:seed ratio, ...), and what not.

As it seems so far IMHO the acid is only needed to dissolve/weaken the seed hulls to easier extract more. It seems from a solubility POV no acid is needed at all for extraction, as the alkaloids are already in a salt form in the plant.

Later, when you already have FB and just want to go for further purification, then there certainly is a certain ratio of acid to add to a certain amount of FB.

 

[exquisitus]

whatever the salts might be, washing the same seeds with water and vinegar yelds visibly under uv very different colors. as the vinegar color is wayyyyyy brighter the assumption is there are wayyyyyy more actives in it.

 

[Jees]

...As it seems so far IMHO the acid is only needed to dissolve/weaken the seed hulls to easier extract more. It seems from a solubility POV no acid is needed at all for extraction, as the alkaloids are already in a salt form in the plant...

It's experimentally detected that acidified water works better (yield), also for wood like caapi, there are posts about this on the nexus. E.g. The herbal percolator by member Dagger was run with different ratios of water+acid, even on shredded material. We might consider the plant cell walls to break. Whatever the mechanism is, acidified water does better, period. That doesn't mean its very necessary, many boil plant without acid. Some prefer non acidified brews even if that costs a bit of yield. The general comment that jungle brews are made without added acid, masks that the water there is standard already slightly acidic due plant decay (say pH 4). At home, just popping plant matter in the water pot drags it down form 7 to 5 (or so) already. The item of adding acid yes/no is highly debated and documented already.
:thumb_up:

Acid vs. Non-Acid Brew Experiment: Comparison of Alkaloids Remaining in THP Brewed Caapi - Harmalas - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Is an acid really necessary for brewing ACRB? - FAQ - All your basic questions and answers - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Acid cooking really necessary? - FAQ - All your basic questions and answers - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

How much vinegar is enough to properly acidify water for an ayahuasca brew? - Ayahuasca - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Is acid step needed? - FAQ - All your basic questions and answers - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

and more

 

[k]

If i don't find satisfactory (to me) answer(s) to "How much acid should i add?", then i can go with what that previously quoted tek is saying:

"The crushed seeds of Peganum Harmala are covered with three times their weight of water containing 30 g of acetic acid per liter of water"
"The pressed seeds are once more treated as above with twice their weight of dilute acetic acid"

3+2=5

Is this the proper way to do it?:

Let volume of water = v
30/1.049 + v = 1000ml
v = (1000 - 30/1.049) ml
Weight of the above 1L vinegar: 30 + (1000 - 30/1.049)*0.9970474 g.
Acetic acid per g of vinegar: 30 / (30 + (1000 - 30/1.049)*0.9970474) = 0.03004406939

Total acetic acid needed = (Weight of seeds)*5*(Acetic acid per g of vinegar)

For 250g: 250*5*(30 / (30 + (1000 - 30/1.049)*0.9970474)) = 37.5550867392 g


For citric acid:

Using Infundibulum's pH calculator:

I used to think like that if 'a' amount of acetic acid in a particular volume of water gives same pH as 'c' amount of citric acid in the same volume, then if we change the volume, the 'a' and 'c' would remain same. But the linked calculator isn't giving me the this result.

..

I can use total 1/100 citric acid, like for 250g harmal seeds, 2.5g citric acid.

 

[k]

The harmal tea is being prepared right now. Stove is on.

New questions:

I was initially planning on starting with 12, but now am thinking how about after doing '1', i mix some sodium bicarbonate to it, to make pH close to 6-7, before doing '2', so that the harmine is precipitated better in '2'?
Which leads to my next question:
How about doing '2' on a ph 7+ solution? I was thinking how about 132?

 

[Sakkadelic]

If you are working with whole seeds go for 12 if you crushed or powdered the seeds go for 13

 

[k]

Thanks. I had used whole seeds, went with 12, have left the solution for cooling.