My journey to self made Changa

[Soloist]

That's such a cool and useful tool! Thank you, I feel that website will be of great help in future.

Actually I saw two plants that resemble mugwort in a way, but I will have to take a closer look. Below are two pictures of possible candidates. I will use the page you suggested to check these out closer, once I have familiarized myself with it.

You’re welcome!
Just keep in mind these are only reported observations and not indicative of actual occurrence.
There are a few other sources like this one but I think the one I gave you is the best bang in one spot.

Also, here in the US we have plants.us.gov , which doesn’t give locations, but does give “reported in county” data, which is pretty helpful in it’s own right.
It wouldn’t hurt to look for a South African analog.

You may try looking for conservation websites ect, I’ve found plenty of info along the lines of
“Such and such invasive weed in specific state park and the efforts to control it”

Also, I can confirm that neither of those specimens are mugwort.
One key ID characteristic is that mugwort leaves have white, hairy undersides with a dark green upper surface. It also tends to grow in aggressive colonies.
You’ll never see just one. At least in my experience.

 

[Fridge]

Again thank you ! For IDing and all the other tips. I really need to familiarize myself with medicinal plants that grow in my area.

I have continued with my harmala extraction project. I basically did all steps, but now I need to work on getting rid of impurities and that takes a bit of time. Yesterday I got my salt harmalas.

Below is a picture of my redissolved harmala in water and vinegar (step 11)

 

[Fridge]

... and then I have taken a picture of the harmalas that got caught up in the filter this morning. I hope this is how it's supposed to look like. Obviously I will need to clean this more as mentioned above. If you look closely you can see some spiky long things that must be crystals?
I checked yesterday what the typical content of harmala in Syrian rue seeds is and I found a source that states that it is around 4%. If that is true, I could end up with just over 3 gram if my math isn't failing on me today. Even if I end up with half of that for some reason, I will be happy.

 

[Fridge]

Yesterday I was still very optimistic about my extraction, but something must have gone wrong as I got barely any salt hamalas during my last clean up.

I dissolved some crystals in water and added a saturated sodium carbonate solution. I was already wondering why the color wasn't changing. I added quite a bit and then rather stopped as there was no color change to tell me it's enough. Maybe that was a mistake, but I added quite a bit. I put that jar into the fridge over night.

Here's a picture of the crystals which I took when everything still seemed to be going well.

 

[Fridge]

I have observed something else I haven't seen before during the extraction. The Glas I filtered the fluid into when I separated crystals the last time had lots of tiny glittering particles in it,which suspiciously looked like harmala salt crystals, just being very small. Is it possible that these have passed through the coffee filter? I have filtered the contents of that jar for good measure and caught most of it.

Now I am not sure, what to do... Should I redissolve the tiny fragments, I caught yesterday in hot water, add some sodium carbonate solution and put it into the fridge for a few hours? I have attached two pictures. One made shortly before things went south (crystals in the jar) and one of the coffee filter, with whatever I caught in the filter yesterday (I suspect or hope it's harmala). Can anything be saved? I would be grateful for any help.

 

[Fridge]

OK, I redissolved whatever was in the coffee filter in hot vinegar/water 1:3, allowed it to cool down to room temperature and put it in the fridge for about 6 hours. Again lots of little crystals started to form. (see pictures below)
I then filtered everything. In the second picture you can see what ended up in the filter. This is what I dissolved in hot water with a dash of vinegar. I started filtering a saturated solution of sodium carbonate into the mix.

And this is were I get unsure of whether things are working how they are supposed to be working...

When I add the sodium carbonate solution it doesn't bubble and it doesn't change color. So there's no indication when I have added enough... I am trying to figure out what is going on, but I don't see what I am doing wrong.

 

[Fridge]

OK, I redissolved whatever was in the coffee filter in hot vinegar/water 1:3, allowed it to cool down to room temperature and put it in the fridge for about 6 hours. Again lots of little crystals started to form. (see pictures below)
I then filtered everything. In the second picture you can see what ended up in the filter. This is what I dissolved in hot water with a dash of vinegar. I started filtering a saturated solution of sodium carbonate into the mix.

And this is were I get unsure of whether things are working how they are supposed to be working...

When I add the sodium carbonate solution it doesn't bubble and it doesn't change color. So there's no indication when I have added enough... I am trying to figure out what is going on, but I don't see what I am doing wrong.

 

[Fridge]

I really hope I don't spam this place too much...

Just a little update. Crystals formed quickly this time and my uneducated eyes like what they see. Does this look alright?

 

[Voidmatrix]

No, you're not posting too much at all.

And really, thank you! Your pwetty shards have reignited the spark in me for harmala extractions!

Beautiful stuff :thumb_up:

One love

 

[roninsina]

No, you're not posting too much at all.

And really, thank you! Your pwetty shards have reignited the spark in me for harmala extractions!

Beautiful stuff :thumb_up:

One love

Same here, I’ve a kilo of rue calling from a dusty shelf now.

Fridge, you’re doing great. The title is right for helping others find what they need to duplicate what you’re doing. Some of this stuff is really hard to wrap your brain around for the first time and a specific description filtered through an individual’s propensities
can elucidate something that someone was really struggling with.

 

[Fridge]

Thank you to both of you! I am so happy that this is how it's supposed to look like. And if I inspired you to extract your seeds it's even better.

I really (re)learned so much about chemistry during the last couple of days and that knowledge comes exclusively from this marvelous place.
I really want to understand what's happening, when I do a certain step. When extracting my DMT, I blindly followed the steps described in the tek, which was enough to do a successful extraction. However extracting harmalas from Syrian rue seeds is a much more complex and time consuming process. I had to learn that it's better to understand at least a little bit about what I am actually doing there and I will try to fully understand the process now.

I think I nearly messed up my extraction and lost a considerable amount of harmalas along the way, but it was all worth it as I wouldn't have learned what I learned otherwise. I got only 500mg harmalas, which should be enough to see what changa has to offer.
Now I plan to dissolve the 500mg harmala and 1000mg of freebase DMT in isopropyl alcohol and soak 1,5 gram of my herb mixture in the solution. If it feels right, I will have my first changa experience by next weekend. Maybe even earlier.

A note to everyone who tries this: Do not discard the filtered fluids unless you are 100% sure that the extraction goes according to plan. I kept my filtered fluids and I found a good amount of crystals in one of the jars. I am not sure how they ended up in there. They must have precipitated after filtering it. I try to clean these up too now. Maybe these are "the ones that got away".

I will post my experience here soon .

 

[roninsina]

Was just going to mention that there has been some significant collaboration done with rue extraction. There is a much less laborious tech you may want to try next time. Sorry, I’m unable to attach or link on this device, but the name of the thread is:

[Workspace] No filter, No reduce Syrian Rue Extraction

In the Harmalas subforum. Not sure why it isn’t stickied.

And, just a suggestion, an experience report might get more views with a thread title reflecting what it is, and also make it easier to find when someone is searching.

 

[Fridge]

That thread is very useful, thank you roninsina! I will definitely read through both pages.

You got a good point about making an own thread about my experience report. I am just going to post a link to it on this thread.

In the meantime I have started to retrieve the "lost" harmala and it looks like I am successful doing so .

 

[roninsina]

Nice! You’re doing a much better job than I did, the last time I tried that tek. I seem to recall a lot of spilled solutions during the filtration...and a lot of shouted expletives :lol:

 

[Fridge]

yes, I know what you mean and I too expressed my frustration from time to time silently.

Right now is a moment I feel a bit confused and clueless again. I filtered the crystals shown in the picture above and dissolved them in an water/vinegar bath. Afterwards I added salt to the hot solution, allowed it to cool down and then put it into the fridge. Even more than 12 hours later nothing has happened. There solution still looks like it did before I put it into the fridge.
I dissolved what seemed to be a good amount of material and it must still be in the solution. I just wonder how to get the harmala to crystalize again.

 

[roninsina]

Fridge I’m going to have to apologize, as I didn’t read through your thread very thoroughly before making my comments. If I’m understanding the steps you’re taking, it looks as if you collected the impurities in post #23 and discarded your harmala acetate solution. I’m not a chemist and, like you, most of my knowledge of extraction chemistry comes from the forums here. I had some of the same problems you are having and found it easier to follow the methods from the other harmala thread I mentioned. Reading through that and reading a few of the teks over ( several times) made things a little clearer for me. The most basic and important part for me in understanding some of this extraction chemistry is where my alkaloids are - are they in solid form or are they in solution, or are they in my non polar phase or in my solution.

Edit: Looks like you did it again in posts 26&27. I’m not certain what you’ve crystallized there. I guess it could be a small amount of harmala acetates that couldn’t stay in solution while cold.

 

[Fridge]

There is no need to apologize, roninsina . You have added lots of valuable information and I really appreciate that.

I agree with you that one can get easily confused following this recipe, especially during the cleanup (step 10-13). Next time I will try it the way described in the tek you suggested.
However I think I know what went wrong. I think I collected the harmalas, but I used too little salt during that step and therefore most of the crystals haven't formed yet and ended up in another glass vessel. Luckily I kept all fluids instead of discarding them.

I have come to the conclusion that I must have used too little salt during step 13. I realized that my kitchen scale is very inaccurate. The lesson I have learned is to only use my precision scale from now on.
Once I realized that I probably added to little salt I heated the solution, added a bit of salt and allowed it to cool down to room temperature, before putting it back into the fridge. Now my jar looks way better as you can see in the picture below. Do these look like harmala salts?

 

[roninsina]

There is no need to apologize, roninsina . You have added lots of valuable information and I really appreciate that.

I agree with you that one can get easily confused following this recipe, especially during the cleanup (step 10-13). Next time I will try it the way described in the tek you suggested.
However I think I know what went wrong. I think I collected the harmalas, but I used too little salt during that step and therefore most of the crystals haven't formed yet and ended up in another glass vessel. Luckily I kept all fluids instead of discarding them.

I have come to the conclusion that I must have used too little salt during step 13. I realized that my kitchen scale is very inaccurate. The lesson I have learned is to only use my precision scale from now on.
Once I realized that I probably added to little salt I heated the solution, added a bit of salt and allowed it to cool down to room temperature, before putting it back into the fridge. Now my jar looks way better as you can see in the picture below. Do these look like harmala salts?

Awesome sauce!

I guess you really did have a much better handle on that tek than I did! Was just going to mention; if your precision scale only measures small amounts (like mine), you can just weigh a filled measuring spoon and do the math from there. Sorry, if that’s overly obvious.

 

[Fridge]

I can tell you that it was an emotional roller-coaster ride! I am glad it turned out well in the end (don't want to jinx it, because I am not yet over the finish line).

Thank you for the tip regarding the precision scale! That's what I like about forums like this. It's like a hive mind!

 

[Fridge]

OK, the first part of the journey is over. I learned a lot and I really had to work for my final product.

When I checked on the jar last night I was rewarded with a beautiful sight. It actually kind of resembled the growth of mycelium in a grain jar (I use the jars for that purpose too). After filtering and drying the harmala crystals I weighed them. I got just under 1 gram, which I am happy with. Check out the picture below.
You'll also see a picture of the first batch of changa I made. Now I got two versions to try. One with a DMT / harmala content of 2/1 and one with a DMT / harmala content of 1 / 1.

Now off to the next part of the journey