Struggling with Caapi Harmalas Extraction

[MtHighlands]

Recently I’ve been attempting to extract Harmalas from Cappi using gibrans guide but haven’t had much success.

The instructions seem super easy but I never seem to get much white precipitation after the first addition of Lye.

I've tried several different Cappi vines. One white vine and two attempts at different yellow vines. The first try was probably bad because it had too much powder. The second vine was pre-shredded. The third vine was whole-vine that I shredded manually by smashing and pulling apart.

After adding the lye my ph is always between 12 and 13 and the liquid is dark brown but I can't see much precipitate even after waiting over night.

I’m kind of wondering where to go from here? I don't want to give up but it's quite discouraging with all the effort involved.

Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated!

 

[Electro Monk]

this is my favorite harmalas extraction tek too, i had very good success with it.
i do not extract from caapi though, but from syrian rue seeds. maybe just try seeds if caapi do not get you good results?
the seeds should be aviable quite easy most everywhere on the world, as it is a henna dye.
i also figure that seeds degenerate much slower then plant parts, so it would be less of a gamble if you get fresh material or something that might have been stored to long or stored poorly.

 

[Jees]

Should be very straight forward.
You could switch to rue seeds and try on them, just to know if you get some precipitation from those seeds. If no precip from rue seeds then you know it's not the material. Then you must have done something wrong.

 

[Sabnock1990]

I've done an extraction on Caapi a couple times, i tried the Tigre Caapi variety, and the red Caapi, the Tigre precipitated out just like with Rue, but the red Caapi didn't, so idk what went wrong with the red vine unless it just wasn't potent or something.

 

[pastanostra]

You can try with a small UV light to see if it's enlighted by the lamp. Harmalas are photosensitive to UV. Maybe your caapi is low ?

 

[MtHighlands]

Ok. I am super excited. :d

I think part of my problem was not being patient enough. I let my basified caapi rest for another day and I seem to had some sediment at the bottom. I thought it was t working because I did t get a huge cloud of milky alkaloids as the pictures looked in gibrams guide. Also my sentiment was rather brownish with just traces of white.

I decanted this down but this was tricky because any movement at the bottom seem to disturb the loosely packed solids back into the solution so I ended up leaving some liquid in.

Finally I acidified and pushed through a coffee filter. The resulting liquid was a bit yellow. At this point I added the base but didn’t seem to get any clouds

Stirring a bit more for five minutes and the alkaloids finally started to emerge!

I didn’t think this was ever going to work but sure enough the White goodness is starting to collect to the bottom.

:d

 

[MtHighlands]

Should be very straight forward.
You could switch to rue seeds and try on them, just to know if you get some precipitation from those seeds. If no precip from rue seeds then you know it's not the material. Then you must have done something wrong.

Yeah I'll have to try Rue seeds they look way cheaper per weight and maybe more harmalas per gram too?

I kind of wanted to try Caapi first. I wasn't sure which would be better but after sampling various posts people seem to really like THH.

 

[Jees]

...I kind of wanted to try Caapi first. I wasn't sure which would be better but after sampling various posts people seem to really like THH.

My dear friend you are bound to try it all :twisted:
Yes rue seeds have a lot more harmalas per weight and a far better economical/ecological footprint.
Never mind too much about THH right now, much of hype around it anyway imho. And the harmaline of rue can be a true blessing. Some ayahuasca purists killed rue's reputation while pedestalling THH like a God. It all has merits when looked at honestly, you can't go wrong, ain't that nice :thumb_up:

 

[MtHighlands]

...I kind of wanted to try Caapi first. I wasn't sure which would be better but after sampling various posts people seem to really like THH.

My dear friend you are bound to try it all :twisted:
Yes rue seeds have a lot more harmalas per weight and a far better economical/ecological footprint.
Never mind too much about THH right now, much of hype around it anyway imho. And the harmaline of rue can be a true blessing. Some ayahuasca purists killed rue's reputation while pedestalling THH like a God. It all has merits when looked at honestly, you can't go wrong, ain't that nice :thumb_up:

Thanks Jees. I’ll have to get some Rue seeds now.

Even after I got some white powder the yield was so low it was pretty much a waste. Not sure why.

 

[padawan]

Make sure you've filtered as much of the plant matter as possible, otherwise it settles in with the alks when you base precipitate. Let the initial (pre-basifying) reduction sit overnight then decant, re-filter and repeat a few times if you're not in a rush. Also, the alkaloids tend to stay suspended if the solution has too much gunk in it.

 

[MtHighlands]

After the acid step I filtered through a coffee filter which seem to get most of the funk out.

After a re-base I got a little fluff that emerged. It seems to be beige instead of white. Even after four washes.

I have a black light coming later so I’ll check it out.

But I still think these few batches of Caapi have been bunk. The yield is just too low.

During the boiling steps I used vinegar instead of fumaric acid. I wonder if that matters? I boiled 3x 45 min and added 25 ml vinegar before each boil. At least one of the boils I let the Caapi & vinegar solution sit over night.

Is it possible to I boiled too hot? Or for too long?

 

[MtHighlands]

After the acid step I filtered through a coffee filter which seem to get most of the funk out.

After a re-base I got a little fluff that emerged. It seems to be beige instead of white. Even after four washes.

I have a black light coming later so I’ll check it out.

But I still think these few batches of Caapi have been bunk. The yield is just too low.

During the boiling steps I used vinegar instead of fumaric acid. I wonder if that matters? I boiled 3x 45 min and added 25 ml vinegar before each boil. At least one of the boils I let the Caapi & vinegar solution sit over night.

Is it possible I boiled too hot? Or for too long?

 

[Jees]

...It seems to be beige instead of white. Even after four washes.

During the boiling steps I used vinegar instead of fumaric acid. I wonder if that matters?

Is it possible to I boiled too hot? Or for too long?

- Beige is okay, no problem;

- no it doesn't matters for your yield, that could not be the reason imho;

- you cannot destroy any of the goodies by boiling hard or long. As long as there is water it's okay.

PS: see inbox, send you a PM.

 

[MtHighlands]

Saw it. Thx!

 

[MtHighlands]

So I got a black light and in I can't tell if the solids are glowing at all. But the wash water appears to glow a greenish color.

Does that indicate anything at all?

 

[Electro Monk]

coffee filters frustrate me. they only let a few drops through before they clot. cosmetic cotton pads, stuffed quite tightly into a funnel, work MUCH better for me. still have to change them quite often, but filtration is much better and its MUCH faster, too.
downside is that the filter will soak up more liquid, so this is a waste factor.
its not THAT bad though. the cotton pads are much smaller then coffee filters, and you can carefuly squeeze most of the liquid back into your unfiltered solution.