Speedy No-Filter Harmalas Tek
*Splash Picture of all steps*
The core ideas in this tek are based on the posts by Ouro/Mydriasis, Brennendes Wasser & Gibran2
As with “my” DMT tek, I’m simply standing on the shoulders of giants and breaking down a method as comprehensively as I can for clarity.
The inspiration for writing this “tek” is the no-filter strategy that replacing filtration with several washing and decanting steps.
With the exception of Gibran2’s tek on the wiki which explicitly advises against using Syrian Rue, the threads which mention this method have up 50-100x fewer views than the older rue teks on the wiki which from my personal experience can take 5-10 times longer than this one.
The purpose of this Tek is not getting a very high yield, it is ease, speed and surprising purity. I’m personally very happy taking 5 – 12 hours to get a 2-4% yield compared to taking 2 to 4+ days full of slow messy high-effort filtration to get 5-7%.
The core features of the speedy tek are:
Procedure:
Caution: Harmalas can be absorbed through the skin. Please keep children and pregnant women away from your extraction.
- The night before the extraction starts, soak 100g of whole Syrian Rue seeds in at least 500ml of water and put it in the freezer until solid. My experiments suggest freezing increases the yield of the first boil by 2x or more.
Note: doing the tek with 200g or more totally could work. It mainly just changes the first washing step. Just use one large or multiple regular washing vessels before reducing the liquid volume enough to proceed just like a 100g batch starting with the 2nd wash.
- You can thaw the ice-seeds mix slowly, or melt it on the stove top. Once thawed, add ~30ml vinegar and enough water to increase the volume to 1000ml and lightly simmer for 30-40 minutes. Add more fresh water halfway through the simmering to get it back to 1000ml to account for the evaporation. Do not fully boil it, that will only slow down the washing steps later by extracting more unwanted things from the seeds.
More time and/or water is fine, but don’t use less! My tests indicate that on the first boil:
1. Using half as much water reduces the yield by around 50%
2. Halving the boiling time reduces the yield by up to 50%
-After simmering, Separate the liquid from the seeds into a heat-safe container like a pot or jar to cool. A small mesh strainer pushed down on the seeds and turkey baster sucking up the liquid works best to get much of the liquid trapped between the seeds, but pouring the liquid through a mesh strainer is a perfectly fine second-best option if you’re careful.
- After separating the simmering liquid from the seeds, rinse them by adding enough tap water to make most of them float, then transfer that liquid into the same heat-safe container.
- Add 15ml more vinegar and enough water to the seeds to raise the level to 750ml and and simmer for 20 minutes. After simmering, separate the liquid from the seeds as before.
Note: A 3rd simmering step is perfectly fine to do, but will increase the volume of water making this no-reduce tek more difficult. Even the 2nd simmering step is optional. If you prefer to only work with a small amount of liquid and still get a 2-3% yield, just do the first 40 minutes simmer.
*Washing vessel with brew picture & sodium carbonate color-change picture*
- Combine both of the simmering liquids and after they've cooled enough for safety, transfer them using a funnel to a tall narrow container that we’ll call your “washing vessel”. Although a glass vessel with slick sides is best, a 2L milk jug or water bottle will suffice and should be easy for anyone to buy. Wider washing vessels are not recommended as tall narrow ones allow decanting significantly more liquid before sediments begin to be poured off.
Note: If your washing vessel is too small to fit all the liquid, you can simply use 2 vessels for the first washing step then pour off enough clear liquid from the top of each vessel to reduce the liquid enough to fit in one for the entire rest of the tek.
- Add a concentrated sodium-carbonate-in-water solution to the liquid in your washing vessel and stir. You will immediately see a color change from red-brown to sand-colored. Continue adding the sodium carbonate solution and stirring until adding it no longer results in a color change. Try not to add a large excess of sodium carbonate, but you don’t have to be too careful about it.
Note: Sodium carbonate can be bought as washing soda, or produced by baking baking soda in an oven for 1-2 hours @ 200°C OR cooking it in a dry pan for 20-30 minutes on medium-high heat until the gas bubbles stop
- You will likely see some dusty harmalas settling at the bottom of the washing vessel after a couple minutes. Place the vessel into the fridge for the harmalas to settle completely to the bottom.
At this point you technically could filter the liquid progressively through cotton balls then a coffee filter and then wash it several time to get a pure product. This is a valid option that will work; however, this is not the relatively unknown method that inspired me to write this tek, nor is it recommended.
The recommended purification & separation method requires some explanation behind the core concept and a crucial choice in terms of how speedy you want your first batch of dry harmalas to be retrieved.
First thing to know is: freebase harmalas are nearly insoluble in water, so washing them repeatedly results in very few losses and this washing serves to lower the amount of base and Syrian Rue tea's co-extractives to levels enough to be negligible in your end product. Analysis by Brennendes Wasser shows that washing 4 times can lead to a pure product, but realistically 5-7 washes is recommended.
Second thing to know is: the settling of freebase harmalas in a solution takes a while. Based on my observations in my 1.5L glass container:
30 minutes in the fridge – the bulk of harmalas have settled, but much of the particulates are still visibly floating
1 hour in the fridge – the top half of the liquid is mostly clear, but the bottom half has some floating particulates
2 hours in the fridge – the majority of the particulates have all settled, just a bit of them are still floating
2.5+ hours in the fridge – all particulates have fully settled
Note: settling outside the fridge slows the settling to some degree. Also, the first settling is notably slower than all subsequent ones.
The washing process requires 2 nearly identical retrieval procedures:
1. The bulk-product retrieval
2. The carryover loss retrieval.
When doing the bulk-product retrieval:
If one wanted a very rushed 50-60% bulk product, then 4 or 5 washes with 30 minutes settling periods would definitely achieve that.
A good mix between quick product and yield is 1 hour settling periods where around 70-75% might be retained after all the washes.
Of course, as the mix settles longer, carryover “losses” from the decanting will be reduced but never zero.
I should make it clear that “losses” are in quotations, because they are not actually lost, but just retrieved later in the carryover loss retrieval.
A relaxed and effective approach, which I typically do, is to perform 2–3 washes per day, allowing longer settling periods (overnight or throughout the day). This minimizes effort while still achieving a clean product.
Anyway, on to the specific steps of the recommended purification & separation method:
Procedure 1: Bulk Product Retrieval
After your chosen amount of settling time:
1. Carefully pick up the washing vessel with the settled harmalas and very slowly pour around 90% of the liquid out of the vessel into a large container like a bucket . As long as it is done slowly then the majority of the harmala should all be left sitting at the bottom. When the bottom sediment is about halfway up the side is typically a good time to stop pouring.
2. After decanting the water, you should be left with a very muddy-looking mix at the bottom.
3. Add fresh tap water, filling the liquid up close to the top.
4. Return the washing vessel to the fridge to settle
- The 4 steps above must be repeated at least 4 times, ideally 5 to 7,
- After the last washing, pour the harmalas/water onto a heat-safe plate or baking dish and evaporate in a very low oven or on the stovetop on minimum setting until the harmalas are dry.
- After cooling use a razor blade to scrape up your harmalas into a small vial or plastic bag and store in a cool dry place.
As noted earlier, while further purification steps can surely be done, analysis by Brennendes Wasser show that they are likely unnecessary. The harmalas theoretically should be ready to use for changa or pharmahuasca.
Procedure 2: Carryover Loss Retrieval
Note: the "bucket" I used is much smaller than what is recommended, I needed to frequently pour of 50% of the liquid to stop it from overflowing.
Your bucket/large container will contain a bunch of water and your carryover loss harmalas at the bottom. Because you already retrieved the bulk of your harmalas AND the fact that the harmalas will naturally be the finer more whispy ones, the return on invested time is going to be significantly lower than the bulk-method from before. The fine whispy harmalas will take longer to settle so make sure to allow 3+ hours for all washes.
- After settling, simply pour/scoop off the top until you have reduced the water to enough to transfer it into your previous washing vessel. Then do 3-4 decanting-washing cycles, pour and dry your harmalas and retried the “losses” from before.
You can do another loss retrieval, but logistically your harmalas gained would be extremely low. I recommend discarding the clear liquid decanted from the carryover retrieval procedure.
Optional Alkaloid Seperation:
If you would like to separate the main alkaloids of the harmalas, harmine & harmaline, you have 2 options.
Option 1: No PH meter
Part A: Getting the harmine
Option 2: Using a PH meter
Part A: Getting the harmine
*Splash Picture of all steps*
The core ideas in this tek are based on the posts by Ouro/Mydriasis, Brennendes Wasser & Gibran2
As with “my” DMT tek, I’m simply standing on the shoulders of giants and breaking down a method as comprehensively as I can for clarity.
The inspiration for writing this “tek” is the no-filter strategy that replacing filtration with several washing and decanting steps.
With the exception of Gibran2’s tek on the wiki which explicitly advises against using Syrian Rue, the threads which mention this method have up 50-100x fewer views than the older rue teks on the wiki which from my personal experience can take 5-10 times longer than this one.
The purpose of this Tek is not getting a very high yield, it is ease, speed and surprising purity. I’m personally very happy taking 5 – 12 hours to get a 2-4% yield compared to taking 2 to 4+ days full of slow messy high-effort filtration to get 5-7%.
The core features of the speedy tek are:
- Using whole Syrian Rue seeds rather than ground up ones
- Freezing and thawing the seeds
- Simmering, not boiling
- Replacing filtering with water-washing and decanting
- Only a single basing step to produce a pure product
Procedure:
Caution: Harmalas can be absorbed through the skin. Please keep children and pregnant women away from your extraction.
- The night before the extraction starts, soak 100g of whole Syrian Rue seeds in at least 500ml of water and put it in the freezer until solid. My experiments suggest freezing increases the yield of the first boil by 2x or more.
Note: doing the tek with 200g or more totally could work. It mainly just changes the first washing step. Just use one large or multiple regular washing vessels before reducing the liquid volume enough to proceed just like a 100g batch starting with the 2nd wash.
- You can thaw the ice-seeds mix slowly, or melt it on the stove top. Once thawed, add ~30ml vinegar and enough water to increase the volume to 1000ml and lightly simmer for 30-40 minutes. Add more fresh water halfway through the simmering to get it back to 1000ml to account for the evaporation. Do not fully boil it, that will only slow down the washing steps later by extracting more unwanted things from the seeds.
More time and/or water is fine, but don’t use less! My tests indicate that on the first boil:
1. Using half as much water reduces the yield by around 50%
2. Halving the boiling time reduces the yield by up to 50%
-After simmering, Separate the liquid from the seeds into a heat-safe container like a pot or jar to cool. A small mesh strainer pushed down on the seeds and turkey baster sucking up the liquid works best to get much of the liquid trapped between the seeds, but pouring the liquid through a mesh strainer is a perfectly fine second-best option if you’re careful.
- After separating the simmering liquid from the seeds, rinse them by adding enough tap water to make most of them float, then transfer that liquid into the same heat-safe container.
- Add 15ml more vinegar and enough water to the seeds to raise the level to 750ml and and simmer for 20 minutes. After simmering, separate the liquid from the seeds as before.
Note: A 3rd simmering step is perfectly fine to do, but will increase the volume of water making this no-reduce tek more difficult. Even the 2nd simmering step is optional. If you prefer to only work with a small amount of liquid and still get a 2-3% yield, just do the first 40 minutes simmer.
*Washing vessel with brew picture & sodium carbonate color-change picture*
- Combine both of the simmering liquids and after they've cooled enough for safety, transfer them using a funnel to a tall narrow container that we’ll call your “washing vessel”. Although a glass vessel with slick sides is best, a 2L milk jug or water bottle will suffice and should be easy for anyone to buy. Wider washing vessels are not recommended as tall narrow ones allow decanting significantly more liquid before sediments begin to be poured off.
Note: If your washing vessel is too small to fit all the liquid, you can simply use 2 vessels for the first washing step then pour off enough clear liquid from the top of each vessel to reduce the liquid enough to fit in one for the entire rest of the tek.
- Add a concentrated sodium-carbonate-in-water solution to the liquid in your washing vessel and stir. You will immediately see a color change from red-brown to sand-colored. Continue adding the sodium carbonate solution and stirring until adding it no longer results in a color change. Try not to add a large excess of sodium carbonate, but you don’t have to be too careful about it.
Note: Sodium carbonate can be bought as washing soda, or produced by baking baking soda in an oven for 1-2 hours @ 200°C OR cooking it in a dry pan for 20-30 minutes on medium-high heat until the gas bubbles stop
- You will likely see some dusty harmalas settling at the bottom of the washing vessel after a couple minutes. Place the vessel into the fridge for the harmalas to settle completely to the bottom.
At this point you technically could filter the liquid progressively through cotton balls then a coffee filter and then wash it several time to get a pure product. This is a valid option that will work; however, this is not the relatively unknown method that inspired me to write this tek, nor is it recommended.
The recommended purification & separation method requires some explanation behind the core concept and a crucial choice in terms of how speedy you want your first batch of dry harmalas to be retrieved.
First thing to know is: freebase harmalas are nearly insoluble in water, so washing them repeatedly results in very few losses and this washing serves to lower the amount of base and Syrian Rue tea's co-extractives to levels enough to be negligible in your end product. Analysis by Brennendes Wasser shows that washing 4 times can lead to a pure product, but realistically 5-7 washes is recommended.
Second thing to know is: the settling of freebase harmalas in a solution takes a while. Based on my observations in my 1.5L glass container:
30 minutes in the fridge – the bulk of harmalas have settled, but much of the particulates are still visibly floating
1 hour in the fridge – the top half of the liquid is mostly clear, but the bottom half has some floating particulates
2 hours in the fridge – the majority of the particulates have all settled, just a bit of them are still floating
2.5+ hours in the fridge – all particulates have fully settled
Note: settling outside the fridge slows the settling to some degree. Also, the first settling is notably slower than all subsequent ones.
The washing process requires 2 nearly identical retrieval procedures:
1. The bulk-product retrieval
2. The carryover loss retrieval.
When doing the bulk-product retrieval:
If one wanted a very rushed 50-60% bulk product, then 4 or 5 washes with 30 minutes settling periods would definitely achieve that.
A good mix between quick product and yield is 1 hour settling periods where around 70-75% might be retained after all the washes.
Of course, as the mix settles longer, carryover “losses” from the decanting will be reduced but never zero.
I should make it clear that “losses” are in quotations, because they are not actually lost, but just retrieved later in the carryover loss retrieval.
A relaxed and effective approach, which I typically do, is to perform 2–3 washes per day, allowing longer settling periods (overnight or throughout the day). This minimizes effort while still achieving a clean product.
Anyway, on to the specific steps of the recommended purification & separation method:
Procedure 1: Bulk Product Retrieval
After your chosen amount of settling time:
1. Carefully pick up the washing vessel with the settled harmalas and very slowly pour around 90% of the liquid out of the vessel into a large container like a bucket . As long as it is done slowly then the majority of the harmala should all be left sitting at the bottom. When the bottom sediment is about halfway up the side is typically a good time to stop pouring.
2. After decanting the water, you should be left with a very muddy-looking mix at the bottom.
3. Add fresh tap water, filling the liquid up close to the top.
4. Return the washing vessel to the fridge to settle
- The 4 steps above must be repeated at least 4 times, ideally 5 to 7,
- After the last washing, pour the harmalas/water onto a heat-safe plate or baking dish and evaporate in a very low oven or on the stovetop on minimum setting until the harmalas are dry.
- After cooling use a razor blade to scrape up your harmalas into a small vial or plastic bag and store in a cool dry place.
As noted earlier, while further purification steps can surely be done, analysis by Brennendes Wasser show that they are likely unnecessary. The harmalas theoretically should be ready to use for changa or pharmahuasca.
Procedure 2: Carryover Loss Retrieval
Note: the "bucket" I used is much smaller than what is recommended, I needed to frequently pour of 50% of the liquid to stop it from overflowing.
Your bucket/large container will contain a bunch of water and your carryover loss harmalas at the bottom. Because you already retrieved the bulk of your harmalas AND the fact that the harmalas will naturally be the finer more whispy ones, the return on invested time is going to be significantly lower than the bulk-method from before. The fine whispy harmalas will take longer to settle so make sure to allow 3+ hours for all washes.
- After settling, simply pour/scoop off the top until you have reduced the water to enough to transfer it into your previous washing vessel. Then do 3-4 decanting-washing cycles, pour and dry your harmalas and retried the “losses” from before.
You can do another loss retrieval, but logistically your harmalas gained would be extremely low. I recommend discarding the clear liquid decanted from the carryover retrieval procedure.
Optional Alkaloid Seperation:
If you would like to separate the main alkaloids of the harmalas, harmine & harmaline, you have 2 options.
Option 1: No PH meter
Part A: Getting the harmine
- Redissolve the harmalas in vinegar
- Filter the liquid through a coffee filter, keeping the liquid and discarding any sediments. Rinse the coffee filter with water, keeping the rinse-water to reduce transfer losses
- Add a solution of baking soda and water while stirring until adding it results in no color change/precipitation. An excess is okay.
- Let the precipitate settle in the container. Ideally in the fridge.
- Decant and filter the liquid. Rinse the coffee filter with cold water a few times, letting it drip through in order to remove baking soda from it.
- After drying, this is your first separated product. The filtered precipitate should be mostly-pure harmine.
- Add a solution of sodium carbonate to the filtered liquid while stirring until the color no longer changes or no precipitate comes out.
- Let the precipitate settle in the container. Ideally in the fridge.
- You can either filter and rinse the precipitate as with the harmine, or do 4+ decant/wash steps to remove the excess base as was done to get the unseparated harmalas.
- Whichever method used, after drying, this is your second separated product. The filtered precipitate should be mainly harmaline, but is quite likely to have some harmine as well.
Option 2: Using a PH meter
Part A: Getting the harmine
- Redissolve the harmalas in vinegar
- Filter the liquid through a coffee filter, keeping the liquid and discarding any sediments. Rinse the coffee filter with water, keeping the rinse-water to reduce transfer losses
- Add a solution of sodium carbonate and water while stirring until a steady 8.5 PH is achieved
- Let the precipitate settle in the container. Ideally in the fridge.
- Decant and filter the liquid. Rinse the coffee filter with cold water a few times, letting it drip through in order to remove baking soda from it.
- After drying, this is your first separated product. The filtered precipitate should be mostly-pure harmine.
- Add a solution of sodium carbonate to the filtered liquid while stirring until the color no longer changes or no precipitate come out.
- Let the precipitate settle in the container. Ideally in the fridge.
- You can either filter and rinse the precipitate as with the harmine, or do 4+ decant/wash steps to remove the excess base as was done to get the unseparated harmalas.
- Whichever method used, after drying, this is your second separated product. The filtered precipitate should be mainly harmaline, but is quite likely to have some harmine as well.
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