SomewhatLost
Rising Star
Hi all,
I've been experimenting with various rue extraction techniques and while many of the teks seem very well researched and effective, I couldn't help but think that many of them are unnecessarily complicated. I think I've got a technique now that is not only very easy to accomplish, but provides excellent yields as well. Here it is:
Materials needed: 2 large pots. A good amount of syrian rue. Water. Salt. Citric acid (or lemon juice or vinegar).
1) Add a large amount of rue to a large metal pot (the exact amount of rue isn't terribly important, I just find it much easier to work in large batches. The size of the pot should be enough that the rue doesn't come up to more than a third the height of it.)
2) Add enough water to the pot of rue so that the water level reaches about an inch above the rue.
3) Add around 1 gram of citric acid for every ounce of rue (lemon juice or vinegar would also work, of course, but vinegar smells awful and you'd need to account for it being very dilute).
4) Boil the rue for a good 40+ minutes.
5) Strain the rue water into a different pot and allow to boil down a bit.
6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 two more times, adding water each time.
7) By now, the rue should be pretty much spent and can be thrown away.
8) Reduce the rue water to a simmer and begin to add plain ol' salt (non-iodized) to the rue water while stirring it.
9) Continue to add salt to the rue water until it becomes super saturated. When the water can no longer dissolve anymore salt, it should begin to accumulate at the bottom of the pot. I like to add about 7 grams of salt at a time and then stir for quite a bit. I do this until no more salt can be dissolved.
10) The rue water is then transferred to the fridge for an hour and then moved to the freezer.
11) Due to the high salt content of the water, it most likely won't freeze solid, but rather it should freeze in a kind of crystalline, chunky fashion.
12) When the water is semi frozen, you should see a clear separation between the dirty water and the harmalas at the bottom. I try to remove as much of the chunky ice as possible while leaving the harmalas and a bit of the slushy water behind. This can be done by hand (but be careful, frozen salt water is COLD)
13) Once you've got this harmala/slushy water mixture, you can then dry it in a few different manners:
A) Put it by a radiator or some other hot location until all the water is evaporated (this should provide a high yield, but there might be a bit of salt in the mixture.)
B) Put the mixture in a bowl and allow any ice crystals to melt. Then take about 6 paper towels and fold them into a thick, approximately 5"x5" square. Place this thick square of paper towels on top of the harmala/salt water mixture. The salt water should very quickly get sucked up into the paper towels while leaving the harmalas behind. Press the paper towels down to absorb as much of the salt water as possible. This should leave behind a mass of harmalas which is only slightly damp. The rest of the drying should go fairly quickly.
This is about the easiest method I can think of to extract harmalas and the yield seems to be pretty darned good. I got 13 grams of harmalas out of 224 grams of rue, that's ~6%, not bad at all for such a quick and dirty method. The harmalas seem to be very pure as well. I tasted a small bit and the bitterness completely overwhelmed any saltiness, I couldn't taste any salt at all. And the harmalas quickly turned my lips and tongue numb. I also really like using paper towels to absorb the salty water rather than attempting any kind of actual filtration which can be an incredible pain and very time consuming with harmalas. Almost none of the harmalas will get stuck to the paper towels and the salt water absorbs very quickly.
If anyone has any suggestions to make this easier or more efficient, please let me know.
I've been experimenting with various rue extraction techniques and while many of the teks seem very well researched and effective, I couldn't help but think that many of them are unnecessarily complicated. I think I've got a technique now that is not only very easy to accomplish, but provides excellent yields as well. Here it is:
Materials needed: 2 large pots. A good amount of syrian rue. Water. Salt. Citric acid (or lemon juice or vinegar).
1) Add a large amount of rue to a large metal pot (the exact amount of rue isn't terribly important, I just find it much easier to work in large batches. The size of the pot should be enough that the rue doesn't come up to more than a third the height of it.)
2) Add enough water to the pot of rue so that the water level reaches about an inch above the rue.
3) Add around 1 gram of citric acid for every ounce of rue (lemon juice or vinegar would also work, of course, but vinegar smells awful and you'd need to account for it being very dilute).
4) Boil the rue for a good 40+ minutes.
5) Strain the rue water into a different pot and allow to boil down a bit.
6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 two more times, adding water each time.
7) By now, the rue should be pretty much spent and can be thrown away.
8) Reduce the rue water to a simmer and begin to add plain ol' salt (non-iodized) to the rue water while stirring it.
9) Continue to add salt to the rue water until it becomes super saturated. When the water can no longer dissolve anymore salt, it should begin to accumulate at the bottom of the pot. I like to add about 7 grams of salt at a time and then stir for quite a bit. I do this until no more salt can be dissolved.
10) The rue water is then transferred to the fridge for an hour and then moved to the freezer.
11) Due to the high salt content of the water, it most likely won't freeze solid, but rather it should freeze in a kind of crystalline, chunky fashion.
12) When the water is semi frozen, you should see a clear separation between the dirty water and the harmalas at the bottom. I try to remove as much of the chunky ice as possible while leaving the harmalas and a bit of the slushy water behind. This can be done by hand (but be careful, frozen salt water is COLD)
13) Once you've got this harmala/slushy water mixture, you can then dry it in a few different manners:
A) Put it by a radiator or some other hot location until all the water is evaporated (this should provide a high yield, but there might be a bit of salt in the mixture.)
B) Put the mixture in a bowl and allow any ice crystals to melt. Then take about 6 paper towels and fold them into a thick, approximately 5"x5" square. Place this thick square of paper towels on top of the harmala/salt water mixture. The salt water should very quickly get sucked up into the paper towels while leaving the harmalas behind. Press the paper towels down to absorb as much of the salt water as possible. This should leave behind a mass of harmalas which is only slightly damp. The rest of the drying should go fairly quickly.
This is about the easiest method I can think of to extract harmalas and the yield seems to be pretty darned good. I got 13 grams of harmalas out of 224 grams of rue, that's ~6%, not bad at all for such a quick and dirty method. The harmalas seem to be very pure as well. I tasted a small bit and the bitterness completely overwhelmed any saltiness, I couldn't taste any salt at all. And the harmalas quickly turned my lips and tongue numb. I also really like using paper towels to absorb the salty water rather than attempting any kind of actual filtration which can be an incredible pain and very time consuming with harmalas. Almost none of the harmalas will get stuck to the paper towels and the salt water absorbs very quickly.
If anyone has any suggestions to make this easier or more efficient, please let me know.
Do you have some pictures of the final product?
