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Instant ayahuasca little lightening bolt TEK

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Transform: Have you tried using lime to remove tannins from ayahuasca? I'm wondering if my normal Aya brew would cause less GI disruption if I mixed in some lime and took the water after it settled. I'm trying some now.
 
A first experience suggests that this tek with IPA instead of 96% grain alcohol results in a product with inferior potency. An IPA soak of 4g MHRB resulted in only a very mild experience, whereas a grain alcohol soak of 4g gave me a low/medium, lovely and therapeutic trip. Despite the inferior potency, there was possibly more nausea with the IPA residue, but this could be due to some other factors as well ( see b) below ).

On the upside, there was no delayed onset this time. The experience started approx. 40 minutes after the MHRB residue was consumed. This could be because:
a) Instead of consuming the residue in a gel cap, I mixed the residue in approx. 70ml of cola. Taste was almost entirely camouflaged by the cola; 40ml or so would probably have sufficed.
b) I did not consume peppermint EO this time, only lemon EO and ginger juice (although I used a bit less ginger this time).
c) Other?

I also ate two thin slices of oatmeal cake around T20:00 to get the digestive system going.
 
Sicho Naut said:
A first experience suggests that this tek with IPA instead of 96% grain alcohol results in a product with inferior potency. An IPA soak of 4g MHRB resulted in only a very mild experience, whereas a grain alcohol soak of 4g gave me a low/medium, lovely and therapeutic trip. Despite the inferior potency, there was possibly more nausea with the IPA residue, but this could be due to some other factors as well ( see b) below ).

On the upside, there was no delayed onset this time. The experience started approx. 40 minutes after the MHRB residue was consumed. This could be because:
a) Instead of consuming the residue in a gel cap, I mixed the residue in approx. 70ml of cola. Taste was almost entirely camouflaged by the cola; 40ml or so would probably have sufficed.
b) I did not consume peppermint EO this time, only lemon EO and ginger juice (although I used a bit less ginger this time).
c) Other?

I also ate two thin slices of oatmeal cake around T20:00 to get the digestive system going.
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Thanks Sicho. Some questions about your process:
What is your ratio of MHRB to alcohol?
How are you evaporating?
Can you share some pictures of the final product (what you're putting in Gel Caps/Cola)?
And what MAOI did you do this last time?
 
This is the next day and... no lingering nausea at all. It would seem that the problem of delayed onset and lingering nausea has been solved by re-dissolving the residue in a liquid rather than consuming them in caps. (I should add that my girlfriend had zero nausea with the gel cap method either during or after the trip, so you may not have this problem. Delayed onset seems a lot more common, however.)

Denverevolution said:
Thanks Sicho. Some questions about your process:
What is your ratio of MHRB to alcohol?
How are you evaporating?
Can you share some pictures of the final product (what you're putting in Gel Caps/Cola)?
And what MAOI did you do this last time?
Click to expand...

-Ratio of MHRB to alcohol: I have been erring on the side of too much with 50-100ml per single dose of MHRB (= 4 – 6g; 6g has revealed itself as a sweet spot, for now. This is bark-dependent, of course).

I believe it is more convenient to do a separate soak for each single dose rather than having to weigh and divide the residue of a large amount. If you add the lime precipitation step, though, this would probably not be convenient.


-Evaporation: Alcohol evaporates very easily, I just let it sit in a Pyrex dish for 2-3 days until it’s fully dry. Obviously, this could be sped up with a fan but it is not strictly necessary. Also, more surface = faster evaporation. However, scraping up the residue is a bit tedious when spread over a too large surface.


-Pictures: I will take some pics when I evaporate my next batch. For now, I can give you a description: The residue of a 96% grain alcohol soak consists of dark, crystal-like and very fluttery particles. It sort of looks like yeast flakes but much darker and somewhat translucent. It looks very different from the residue of an IPA soak, which is a bit lighter in color but consists of heavier, sand-like particles.

The residue of a grain alcohol soak of 4g MHRB weighed 0,87g, whereas the residue of an IPA soak weighed 0,92 gram. Very close, but the volume of the grain alcohol residue is 4x that of IPA residue. The former requires two average gel caps, the latter fills half of an average gel cap.

The IPA residue looks very similar (if not identical) to the residue of a MHRB water brew and it leads to a very similar experience in terms of nausea, body load and potency. Both IME are clearly inferior to 96% grain alcohol extractions, all other things being equal. I have only tried the IPA extraction once, however. (With water extractions I have had disappointing results several times).

-MAOI: I consume 170 – 200mg of harmala hcl in a gel cap with some holes poked into it, 15-20 minutes before consuming the MHRB extract. For me, 170mg is certainly enough for MAOI-effects, but experience-wise I think I like it a little higher (not quite sure yet).
 
I wonder if either of you (or anyone else for that matter) would be interested in replicating the 38% ABV aqueous ethanol (~vodka) soak, either with or without the lime treatment?

With luck, there should be some more information about the results of evaporating the treated and untreated vodka soaks appearing in this thread fairly soon (although the fully-developed method will surely demand its own thread).
 
Transform said:
I wonder if either of you (or anyone else for that matter) would be interested in replicating the 38% ABV aqueous ethanol (~vodka) soak, either with or without the lime treatment?

With luck, there should be some more information about the results of evaporating the treated and untreated vodka soaks appearing in this thread fairly soon (although the fully-developed method will surely demand its own thread).
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Yes, I am interested in doing the vodka extraction and then lime precipitation (although I would not heat the vodka and just allow it to soak for an extended time, for safety reasons). Here’s a list of experiments I might do at some point:
  • Re-x the residue of an alcohol extraction
  • Your lime precipitation idea
  • I found out the stupid way that alcohol doesn’t freeze. But I was thinking of redissolving the residue after evaporation in plain water and simply freeze/thaw multiple times for tannin removal. Don’t remember the thread but I believe Sabnock stated he arrives at a brew that almost looks like plain water by freeze/thawing his water brews.
 
Sicho Naut said:
I found out the stupid way that alcohol doesn’t freeze. But I was thinking of redissolving the residue after evaporation in plain water and simply freeze/thaw multiple times for tannin removal. Don’t remember the thread but I believe Sabnock stated he arrives at a brew that almost looks like plain water by freeze/thawing his water brews
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Yes, freeze/thaw tannin precipitation using plain water is a pretty neat idea - I suspect it works almost like freeze-precipitation from naphtha does, except that the freeze-precipitated tannin redissolves much more slowly than DMT does (which, incidentally, is likely to be because of both the larger molecular size of the tannin acids, as well as their larger amount of hydroxy groups which produce strong intermolecular hydrogen bonds in the aggregated solid).

My experience with aqueous alcohol at around 35 - 40% ABV has been that, below around -24°C, the large proportion of water freezes into a single solid matrix of interwoven crystals which trap any remaining liquid alcohol in the interstices, and the viscosity of the alcohol along with capillary forces causes it to remain trapped to the extent that it effectively means the whole thing has solidified. The freezing point of pure ethanol is something like -114°C, which means that you'd need liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant - at least as the most readily accessible one - if you didn't have a specialised laboratory cryorefrigerator.

Fortunate, then, that freezing of pure (or azeotropic) ethanol is probably not necessary here. It would seem worthwhile to test out sticking the raw vodka tincture, tannins and all, straight into the freezer to see what drops out. In that instance we'd have to check whether any proportion of the alkaloids sticks to the precipitated tannin. If this proves to be an issue one option would be to acidify the tincture before freezing. This would become an alternative to the lime precipitation if it removes sufficient amounts of tannin and keeps the alkaloids in solution.

Once we've got a better grasp of all the data points here I think it would be prudent to tabulate all the options regarding ethanol-based extraction into a flow-chart for. This would help people to decide how to proceed with their extractions depending on the local availability of materials. It should also be tested with other plant materials to see if freezing or lime treatment serve to clean up other things besides tannins.

As a final footnote, I think freezing of vodka-strength tinctures is useful to remove excess water, which leads to an easier evaporation process afterwards - I also have a hunch that it will be a better product the higher the %-age ABV prior to evaporation, and this may well apply to citrate honey precipitation from the tinctures too (another thing to be tested!)
 
Transform said:
Fortunate, then, that freezing of pure (or azeotropic) ethanol is probably not necessary here. It would seem worthwhile to test out sticking the raw vodka tincture, tannins and all, straight into the freezer to see what drops out. In that instance we'd have to check whether any proportion of the alkaloids sticks to the precipitated tannin. If this proves to be an issue one option would be to acidify the tincture before freezing. This would become an alternative to the lime precipitation if it removes sufficient amounts of tannin and keeps the alkaloids in solution.
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I actually have a 250-300ml vodka tincture but I added too little MHRB to it, just 5g for a single dose. It has a tbsp of lemon juice in it as well. I froze it and it more or less formed one frozen clump indeed, except for a small amount of liquid at the top. I unfroze it but literally nothing dropped out at the bottom, at which point I froze it again for some later use.

Transform said:
AS a final footnote, I think freezing of vodka-strength tinctures is usefule to remove excess water, which leads to an easier evaporation process afterwards - I also have a hunch that it will be a better product the higher the %-age ABV prior to evaporation
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But then what would be the point of using vodka rather than pure grain alcohol?
 
Sicho Naut said:
I actually have a 250-300ml vodka tincture but I added too little MHRB to it, just 5g for a single dose. It has a tbsp of lemon juice in it as well. I froze it and it more or less formed one frozen clump indeed, except for a small amount of liquid at the top. I unfroze it but literally nothing dropped out at the bottom, at which point I froze it again for some later use.
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For any given volume of alcohol it would be advisable to maximise the amount of plant material used. With 50g MHRB and 300mL vodka, tannins precipitated over the course of several days at room temperature following the hot extraction.
Have you measured the temperature of your freezer? And did you keep the vodka in a tightly-sealed container while it froze? -22°C appears to be optimal for ice crystal separation, although this still needs confirmation with an actual thermometer since the thermostat on the (domestic) freezer has not been calibrated.
Sicho Naut said:
But then what would be the point of using vodka rather than pure grain alcohol?
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Vodka-strength alcohol has been found to be optimal for tannin removal via lime treatment. It also has the advantage of being cheap, readily available and food grade, at least in most places as regards the first two points. Recently, a brief test with running 69.5% ABV grain spirit through a filter funnel filled with the tannin-lime precipitate showed that a noticeable proportion of the tannin redissolves in the stronger alcohol. Thus, vodka-strength alcohol also brings efficiency savings regarding lime usage - more lime, while being relatively cheap, also becomes more tedious both to mix and to filter.
 
Transform said:
Have you measured the temperature of your freezer? And did you keep the vodka in a tightly-sealed container while it froze
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No, I didn't measure it and the model has no display. The vodka was in a bottle with plastic wrapped tightly around the opening with a rubber band (to prevent the glass breaking due the water expanding upon freezing).
 
Sicho Naut said:
No, I didn't measure it and the model has no display. The vodka was in a bottle with plastic wrapped tightly around the opening with a rubber band (to prevent the glass breaking due the water expanding upon freezing).
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One way to ensure that breakage is avoided is to fill the bottle no more than half full and lay it on its side, although - given the loose consistency of the water crystals in the alcohol - this isn't entirely necessary. Having some ullage and a bit of a tilt is probably sufficient.
 
I did several tests with IPA, Everclear, Vodka, and Tequila, including the lime step. I have not yet consumed the results, but I did do a STB test of the lime-tannin mixture that settled to the bottom of my jars with lime, just to try to see how much (if any) DMT may have settled out alongside the tannins.

To do this, I mixed in enough NaOH to bring the ph up to 13, then mixed in some naptha and then freeze-precipitated the naptha. FWIW, none of these yielded any noticeable amount of DMT, which *hopefully* means the vast majority of the DMT stayed in the top layer while the tannins separated and sank with the lime. These were all on a magnetic stir hotplate starting with 200g MHRB and 200ml of alcohol, but I also have some tests started using the "room-temp, sit for weeks" approach. I'll post back here once I test/drink the results.
 
If anyone is down for a little experiment, trying making a simple brew from Mimosa or Acacia, and then completely freeze and thaw the brew a few times or so, which will precipitate/crash out all the tannins and plant gunk and oils and such from the brew and cause them to collect at the bottom of the container. The issue with this is that when filtering the liquid, sure a lot of plant gunk can be filtered out pretty easily but tannins can still merge back into the water while it's going through the filter, unless you suck up the clean tea portion with like a syringe and don't disturb the sediment at the bottom. I do this with my teas as to make them palatable, and it can be very effective in producing an easily drinkable Mimosa or Acacia tea, but it's also crossed my mind to try it for extraction as well, although my DMT extraction game isn't nearly as good as other people's and so i'm still getting the hang of it and for the most part i just go with oral DMT-containing plant teas or a full spectrum 99% iso alcohol freebased oil evaporated onto herbs for Changa/enhanced-leaf and haven't really dove into extraction in awhile to test it out, my line of thinking is that it should make a cleaner extraction and with reduced risk of emulsion and nothing in the way of like plant fats or what not as ime the more freezing/thawing you do the more all of the gunk including the fats/oils crash out and fall to the bottom of the container which then the clean portion of tea can be filtered/decanted/siphoned away from the sediment at the bottom.
 
@Sabnock1990: Have you ever evaporated such a tea after the final thaw? I would be interested to know what the residue looks like, i.e. how it compares to both pure DMT and the residue of non-purified tea.
 
Sicho Naut said:
@Sabnock1990: Have you ever evaporated such a tea after the final thaw? I would be interested to know what the residue looks like, i.e. how it compares to both pure DMT and the residue of non-purified tea.
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Iirc evaporating a cleaned up tea dose left a bit of a different kind of residue but it was still usable though perhaps a bit harder to scrape up. I've got a tea in the process of being cleaned up at the moment, so just in case i'll likely try evaporating a dose of the clean tea again.
 
Denverevolution said:
Can you share some pictures of the final product (what you're putting in Gel Caps/Cola)?
Click to expand...
As promised, some pictures: dried up residue in the scale and the residue when scraped together. This is residue of 7,5g MHRB soaked in grain alcohol.

I redissolved the residue in approx. 5ml vinegar and 45ml water in a shot bottle (for its verticality) to try out the freeze/thaw experiment mentioned above. Will update on the results when done.
Strangely, there were instant formations of dark clumps. I tried to separate and mix them in with a pointy knife but this was difficult because they were very sticky, like one of those boogers that keeps sticking to the finger you try to flick it away with. They have since mostly dissolved, however.
 

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Sicho Naut said:
I redissolved the residue in approx. 5ml vinegar and 45ml water in a shot bottle (for its verticality) to try out the freeze/thaw experiment mentioned above. Will update on the results when done.
Strangely, there were instant formations of dark clumps. I tried to separate and mix them in with a pointy knife but this was difficult because they were very sticky, like one of those boogers that keeps sticking to the finger you try to flick it away with. They have since mostly dissolved, however.
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That sounds like condensed tannins. Does it look as though it can be separated them the solution?
 
Transform said:
That sounds like condensed tannins. Does it look as though it can be separated them the solution?
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Not sure what you mean-- They mostly dissolved into the liquid after sitting in the fridge for the night. Before I could have easily grabbed them out, yes. Not sure if it is relevant but I first added the vinegar, at which point the clumps were already apparent, and then added the water to the bottle.

Pics attached: The bottle after the first thaw before and after separating plant material. Will do some more freeze/thaws.

thaw1.jpg
thaw1b.jpg
 
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