Protein binding [does it effect the experience]

[rawmo]

Hey there,

just seeing if anyone has done any experiments / comparisons re protein binding [egg whites] of tanins in Mimosa ayahuasca?

It seems to me from my experimentation that there is considerable less nausea, but that you need more MHRB in the mix to get the same intensity.
[or that it gives a qualitatively different experience]

I'm aiming to try a non egg white aya in the next few weeks, but was just seeing if anyone else had done any tests [with/without tanin binding] and could offer their knowledge/experience re it.

cheers : )

 

[ms_manic_minxx]

I don't dabble with eggs (I cracked a bloody one once and it ruined them forever for me...), but, do you allow your Mimosa to decant before drinking? Decant for at least one day, or until a thick sludge forms on the bottom: there should be almost no Mimosa-related nausea this way.

 

[prottel]

I prefer to use gelatin on mimosa. The difference is huge imho. After fining with gelatin, there is no astringency left. After that the mimosa isn't bad at all to drink. And no noticable loss of actives.

 

[69ron]

I prefer to use gelatin on mimosa. The difference is huge imho. After fining with gelatin, there is no astringency left. After that the mimosa isn't bad at all to drink. And no noticable loss of actives.

How much gelatin? What's the procedure?

 

[rawmo]

How much gelatin? What's the procedure?

yeah i second that,

any info much appreciated

[my initial tests with gelatin just resulted in jelly, and i'd rather not ingest gelatin either if possible]

 

[prottel]

I prefer to use gelatin on mimosa. The difference is huge imho. After fining with gelatin, there is no astringency left. After that the mimosa isn't bad at all to drink. And no noticable loss of actives.

How much gelatin? What's the procedure?

Just buy regular gelatin for food use, no colour.

For 100 gram mimosa, i'd say ~30 gram gelatin would be good. Too much will result in the brew turning milky white in colour, which is very hard to remove.

First you cook up 300ml water, then you add 30 gram gelatin into it, mix it around until all the gelatin has dissolved.

Your mimosa brew should have a ph below 5-6. Then you add this into your filtered unreduced reddish mimosa brew. Don't pour it in too fast. Reaction should be instant. Precipitates will form and should settle to the bottom if you wait a little while. You can repeat this procedure until you see a milky white colour starts to form, then stop adding more. You may have to prepare a bit more than 30% gelatin to reach this stage, but it is usually around 30% that it happens.

After it has settled, you can remove the clear liquid into another container. You can also squeeze the precipitates for liquid, it is quite easy to filter. The precipitates can be discarded.

Another method that may be easier is to add skim milk to the brew, be sure to keep the ph below ~6 so that the milk casein will lump together. Then put the brew in the microwave and heat it. At a certain temperature the casein should start clumping together and fall to the bottom as a big lump of goo. This can easily be removed. Should give a liquid as clear and good as with gelatin. You can even get it as clear as water by adding more until it gets a milky colour, which does not precipitate. Then put it in the freezer, then thaw it. Everything should lump together, resulting in a brew virtually without colour. Only thing is that I am not sure if it removes the actives too...

 

[69ron]

Only thing is that I am not sure if it removes the actives too...

Thanks for posting the details!

For sure some is removed. Nearly all cleanup steps remove some alkaloids. The question is how much?

 

[prottel]

Only thing is that I am not sure if it removes the actives too...

Thanks for posting the details!

For sure some is removed. Nearly all cleanup steps remove some alkaloids. The question is how much?

The gelatin clean up doesn't seem to remove much of the actives, besides what liquid is left in the precipitates, but this may be recovered by running water through it.

It is the milk cleanup I am wondering about. I have yet to extract pure dmt, have just kept to regular extraction. I may experiment with it some day, but if you or anyone decides to test it i'd love to hear about it.

 

[rawmo]

After it has settled, you can remove the clear liquid into another container. You can also squeeze the precipitates for liquid, it is quite easy to filter. The precipitates can be discarded.

how long does it take to settle?

I'm just in the process of trying a gelatin tannin binding.

32g Mimosa
5g Gelatin [in solution]. Decided to start lower on the % that 30% in Daggers recommendation just to see.

The mixture went cloudy straight away as soon as I started adding and stirring,
Stayed that way.
I've done an extra filtration step on it [through cotton wool] which seems to have grabbed some darker purple material in the filter [which may be a combo of bark and precipitate?]

But the solution has stayed cloudy pink
No real stress I suppose, but i think clear may have looked prettier clear

Anyway,
To reconfirm -
1] How long should you expect the solution to take to settle precipitates to the bottom of the container?
2] Will this be faster [any ideas?] at warmer or cold temps. I'd imagine cold / in the fridge (less convection) but always worth checking

thanks

 

[prottel]

But the solution has stayed cloudy pink

Ouch. Cloudy pink is a sign that you have used too much. Will be hard to clear it now. Ideally it should clrash out very quickly into big chunks. Settling should be very fast, although complete settling can take some hours.

How many percent did you use? And what was the temperature on the brew you added it to? How much liquid was in the brew? I remember once adding it to a really cold brew, which may have given the same results. Also, if the brew is too dilute, it may also cause similar problems.

Btw, did you add the gelatin solution to an already clear brew? Or did you have pieces of bark in it? I have always done it on a clear brew.

 

[rawmo]

Ouch. Cloudy pink is a sign that you have used too much. Will be hard to clear it now. Ideally it should clrash out very quickly into big chunks. Settling should be very fast, although complete settling can take some hours.

How many percent did you use?

15%
It did crash out after 20 or so minutes : )

And what was the temperature on the brew you added it to?

~50 degrees C

How much liquid was in the brew?

~235-250ml (went to ~200ml after the tannin binding)

Btw, did you add the gelatin solution to an already clear brew? Or did you have pieces of bark in it? I have always done it on a clear brew.

Yup, filtered out the powdered bark before (using a fine mesh filter) before adding Gelatin.

One thing I noticed [on a dose of 50g Caapi, 8g Mimosa for 75kg, 2x 85Kg body weight] was that it wasn't very strong effect wise. Especially compared to the previous aya with the same ratio (but using egg white for protein binding instead of Gelatin).
At a guess I'd probably use 12g Mimosa for that body weight in future.
6.5g for bodyweight 67kg person from the same extraction was a strong trip (at peak open/closed eyes making no difference)

So in conclusion it would seem that while an extremely effective tannin binder [not even a hint of nausea for anyone], the gelatin does cause loss of some of the actives (if the precipitate is discarded... even when it all moisture was pressed out).

Any extra wisdom much appreciated.

 

[prottel]

I can't say I have experienced any loss of actives with this method. I need less that 1 gram of mimosa for a good dose. I usually do it with a room temperature brew. I also put it in a THP setup and send through some water to pick up actives that may have been stuck in the precipitates.

Btw, would you say that you prefer gelatin over egg whites when it comes to nausea and taste?

 

[rawmo]

I can't say I have experienced any loss of actives with this method. I need less that 1 gram of mimosa for a good dose. I usually do it with a room temperature brew. I also put it in a THP setup and send through some water to pick up actives that may have been stuck in the precipitates.

wow 1g!, that seems really low from my understanding of amount of actives [that would be 5-10mg tops, not including what is lost in the extraction from my understanding].
With 1g do you get the full aya 'dream' experience [as in DMT like visuals, and less abstract vistas as well], 1-2 hrs of in deep experience, open eye patterning etc
i.e. how strong is the journey on 1g mimosa? on a 1-5 scale where 1 is a light dusting, 3 is a full trip (with moments of passing through the veil into the scenes you see and 5 is a heroic dose where you totally loose perception of this reality for large amounts of the journey?

I found 6.5g mimosa with no protein binding was quite strong (visual and audio), my strongest trip yet on aya (but still totally manageable), but the nausea (and upset stomach for 1.5 days after) made me hesitant to go through that again in a hurry.
Hence experimenting with tannin binding options.

Btw, would you say that you prefer gelatin over egg whites when it comes to nausea and taste?

yeah qualitatively, and from 3 tests egg white, 3 gelatin, Gelatin is better for the following reasons
1] easier to work with [make a solution, add to filtered brew], remove solids
2] considerably better taste profile (almost pleasant)
3] way less nausea (i.e. none at all)
Being vegetarian i do have some moral issues with it, but the aya certainly doesn't seem to mind any ; )

As an extra question for your room temp extraction in THP.
how much water do you add per gram?
my thoughts are that with powdered mimosa most of the actives should come out quickly and with not too much water,
[e.g. the noman tek requires only ~700 ml / 50g]
If we could work out how much water maximum needs to be used for powder to get a good [complete] extraction it could save hours of boiling.

btw - cheers for the feedback, ideas and advice

 

[prottel]

With 1g do you get the full aya 'dream' experience [as in DMT like visuals, and less abstract vistas as well], 1-2 hrs of in deep experience, open eye patterning etc
i.e. how strong is the journey on 1g mimosa? on a 1-5 scale where 1 is a light dusting, 3 is a full trip (with moments of passing through the veil into the scenes you see and 5 is a heroic dose where you totally loose perception of this reality for large amounts of the journey?

I'd say it is more than a light dusting. It is probably around 3. It also depends on how much maoi I take. With 10 gram caapi and 1 gram mimosa, it would be around 3. With 50 gram caapi it would be stronger.

I usually do low amounts of maoi to ensure that the journey won't be too long.

Being vegetarian i do have some moral issues with it, but the aya certainly doesn't seem to mind any ; )

You may want to try out skim milk if that is allowed for a vegetarian. It may be even easier than gelatin. Just add some milk into a mimosa brew. It should start to form small lumps. If it doesn't add some acid to lower the ph. Then put it in the microwave. When you see it forming a huge glob, stop. If you wait till it boils, is will get more hazy.
If too much milk has been used, the brew will turn milky white. This may be precipitated by freezing, then thawing and filtering.

I am not sure how much, if any actives the milk method looses. But if no actives are lost, i'd say it is probably better than gelatin.

As an extra question for your room temp extraction in THP.
how much water do you add per gram?

If we could work out how much water maximum needs to be used for powder to get a good [complete] extraction it could save hours of boiling.

I use quite a lot, probably a ratio of 1:50 or 1:100. But I have no problem boiling down mimosa. With 100 gram mimosa, thats 5-10 liter of water. A couple of hours of hardboiling in a big pot or two. But I don't really know how much water is needed, most is probably extracted very early on, especially if you use finely powdered mimosa.

 

[rawmo]

Is it worth perhaps putting up a wiki for tannin binding for aya?

I'm happy to collate the different ways, then post it to this link for any feedback/corrections.

lemme know if you think it is worthwhile?

 

[endlessness]

I think its worth it