Straining after cooking: powdered vs shredded bark?

[Twilight Person]

That is a simple question for many but a mysterious thing to me:

Hiw do you strain the water of an acidic cook from powdered root bark? I guess it s better to remove depleted plant material before progressiong. I have seen finely shredded plant material being easily filtered off and squeezed hard in a cloth to get all soup out. That is easy, but maybe powdered will grant even better yields.

So how do you strain with powdered bark? Its a hell of a mess, just some sludge. How will you ever remove the water from that sludge and separate into soup and "powder" again like you can do with (finely) shredded bark? I think the powdered soup is totally homogeneous, no way to separate it again.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Leave it to settle for a day or two, then carefully decant through a wide-necked funnel loosely packed with a generous wad of cotton wool. Having a second, identical, cotton-packed funnel on standby will make it much easier to deal with a clogged filter.

If it's too sludgy you could add some extra water to aid separation in the settling phase. And if none of this works you'll just have to add base to the sludge as it is.