hey guys
So everybody who tried extracting harmalas from rue already probably noticed how much of a pain n the ass it is.. Usually its better to try to decant as much as possible, but sometimes it so happens, for example in the salt precipitation step, that a lot of the harmalas HCl refuse to decant and stay floating.
So I had an idea to and it worked reasonably good! I got one of those coffee jars where you push down this metal filter, and put a coffee filter paper attached/below this push-down filter. This way one can filter the whole content of liquid in a few minutes.
Now, it doesnt work 100% perfect in the sense that, because the paper filter is not made to be there, sometimes in the parts where the paper is touching the glass, specially if the paper folds, there forms a space where the harmalas start escaping .. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the paper right, but one very important factor I noticed is simply to go very slow! This way, as you go down, the harmalas start depositing and accumulating all over the sides of the push-down filter where it meets the wall, forming like a barrier so that nothing passes through, except air/clear liquid.. So remember to go very slow!
After, one keeps the thick harmalas HCl+little water bottom layer, puts them together and put them again in the coffee filtering jar, so as to get rid of even more liquid..
Here's a pic:
and a quick rundown of the process I did: grind seeds, boil 3x in water+vinegar solution, throw away solids, simmer the liquids to reduce quantity and get manageable ammount... Then put liquid in fridge, to let it decant overnight. next day pour out liquid and keep it, and the bottom decanted solids can be thrown away. Then saturate with salt, mix well, wait a while for harmalas to precipitate and filter with coffee filtering jar as above. After throwing away liquids and keeping the bottom filtered harmalas HCl thick liquid, redissolve it in hot water with bit of vinegar.. Filter the solution through some coarse filter (like funnel with some cotton plug), keeping the liquids.. Then saturate with salt again, filtering again with coffee filtering system. Repeat this salt step 3x or more for purer product (pic was taken on the first run).
Then one can finally put the harmala HCl mush in a plate to dry and store or even consume (but remember, it will probably have quite a bit of salt mixed in), or one can again redissolve in warm water, and then add sodium carbonate to precipitate the freebase harmalas (which will be cleaner, no salt contamination).
I didnt try filtering the freebase with this coffee system, I guess it must work, but for now I have no more time so will store the harmalas as HCl salts and will freebase some other time
So everybody who tried extracting harmalas from rue already probably noticed how much of a pain n the ass it is.. Usually its better to try to decant as much as possible, but sometimes it so happens, for example in the salt precipitation step, that a lot of the harmalas HCl refuse to decant and stay floating.
So I had an idea to and it worked reasonably good! I got one of those coffee jars where you push down this metal filter, and put a coffee filter paper attached/below this push-down filter. This way one can filter the whole content of liquid in a few minutes.
Now, it doesnt work 100% perfect in the sense that, because the paper filter is not made to be there, sometimes in the parts where the paper is touching the glass, specially if the paper folds, there forms a space where the harmalas start escaping .. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the paper right, but one very important factor I noticed is simply to go very slow! This way, as you go down, the harmalas start depositing and accumulating all over the sides of the push-down filter where it meets the wall, forming like a barrier so that nothing passes through, except air/clear liquid.. So remember to go very slow!
After, one keeps the thick harmalas HCl+little water bottom layer, puts them together and put them again in the coffee filtering jar, so as to get rid of even more liquid..
Here's a pic:
and a quick rundown of the process I did: grind seeds, boil 3x in water+vinegar solution, throw away solids, simmer the liquids to reduce quantity and get manageable ammount... Then put liquid in fridge, to let it decant overnight. next day pour out liquid and keep it, and the bottom decanted solids can be thrown away. Then saturate with salt, mix well, wait a while for harmalas to precipitate and filter with coffee filtering jar as above. After throwing away liquids and keeping the bottom filtered harmalas HCl thick liquid, redissolve it in hot water with bit of vinegar.. Filter the solution through some coarse filter (like funnel with some cotton plug), keeping the liquids.. Then saturate with salt again, filtering again with coffee filtering system. Repeat this salt step 3x or more for purer product (pic was taken on the first run).
Then one can finally put the harmala HCl mush in a plate to dry and store or even consume (but remember, it will probably have quite a bit of salt mixed in), or one can again redissolve in warm water, and then add sodium carbonate to precipitate the freebase harmalas (which will be cleaner, no salt contamination).
I didnt try filtering the freebase with this coffee system, I guess it must work, but for now I have no more time so will store the harmalas as HCl salts and will freebase some other time
