Syrian Rue/Harmala Alkaloid Extraction

[jah Meej]

Hi everyone. This is only my 2nd thread so bear with me..

So I did an acetic acid extraction on 30g powdered Syrian Rue seeds, did 3 boils, the first of nearly pure vinegar, the 2nd and 3rd with just a little (I read you didn't need any but figured it couldn't hurt since its in the instructions) combined them all, boiled down to about 300ml, super saturated w salt, then stuck in freezer until it was rougly 38 degrees or so ( I could've waited longer, I had a kitchen thermometer but I could see the crystals and didn't think 6 degrees would make much difference. So this is where I get confused.

I was told to pour off and discard all the liquid and keep the cystals/stuff at the bottom, but ALL the liquid like glows BRIGHTLY under uv light (like harmala alks are supposed to), So I'm really wondering whats in this liquid I'm supposed to throw away. Are the toxins in Syrian rue in there, as well as residue from the alkaloids, and that's why its discarded? there's also different "layers" to this liquid. It makes me wonder if I didn't fully saturate it with salt. It has been out of the freezer for almost 24 hours now, can I add more salt, heat it up and try to precipitate more alkaloids out?

Thanks, to all those who have been there before me.

 

[endlessness]

It might be that some harmalas remain unprecipitated, either because of not enough salt, or because even traces of harmalas still in water might still be enough for fluorescence.
You can try to warm it up and add some more salt and see if more precipitates. Or you can add a base to precipitate some impurities plus some alkaloids, and re-do the process with those precipitates. Those should also contain some vasicine/vasicinone/deoxyvasicine, appart from possible harmalas... Those mentioned alkaloids have unknown psychological action but do have some possibly medicinal / somatic effects. They were vasodilators and relaxants, maybe other effects. I think they are safe in terms of toxicity in the normally consumed rue doses, but they could be dangerous for pregnant women, being a known abortifacient and uterotonic.

I'd keep that separate from the alkaloids that precipitated the first round when you added salt. Those first ones, I'd also redissolve and reprecipitate either with salt again or with base, and repeat as many times as you want to make it pure.

By the way, no need to put salted harmala brew in the freeze, it should precipitate even at room temperature or fridge. Actually, the slower you cool it down, the purer the harmalas precipitate in their salt form and are easier to filter. For example first adding the correct amount of salt to boiling acidified harmala solution (I think it was 100g salt per liter solution. Then let it lose temperature slowly in warm water bath for an hour, then room temp for another hour or two, then fridge for another couple of hours.

 

[jah Meej]

Interesting about slow cooling being better.... Yeah I kept them separate... It's weird because I used a hand held electric mixer to mix in the salt so I'm pretty confident everything that could dissolve did. I mean I ran it for several minutes.

So I tasted the precipitate from the first round and it was 99% salt and 1% bitter after taste. I know if its pure harmala alks it'll be super bitter and make that spot on your tongue numb.

So that makes me think I put in too much salt, or like you said cooled to fast and got a lot of salt and other stuff with it.

I'll do the same thing to both the precipitate and the remaining liquid (which has been reducing by way of evaporation). How much vinegar should I use if any when I reheat them and possibly add salt? or does the fact that my precipitate was super salty already mean I used to much. aaaah I feel so lost lol.
I'm just keeping them separate for now, and waiting to understand what I've got, in order to know what to do. BTW Thank you very much for the detailed response endlessness. And there are toxins in rue, which is why I'm doing an extraction. I have irritable bowel syndrome so I even do the egg white trick to take tannins out of my acacia confusa. So I don't care if I have to eat a bunch of extra salt, I just wanna separate the poisons out.

I guess I don't understand why or how much vinegar is used and when and why. Thanks for the information and support guys. This has been a priceless resource for information that I have NO CLUE where I would even start looking! :thumb_up:
Peace

EDIT: Also what is the solubility of the toxins (possibly Vasicine or Vasicinone? can't remember for sure.) and what is solubility of harmala alks, and in what ph, etc so I can understand :d Thanks again guys

 

[jah Meej]

Well from what I've been able to gather from the research I've been doing, it appears I used too much salt and the rest fluoresces because it's not a 100% conversion which makes sense... I started with 30g rue seeds, and I read you should expect ~4% yield and I got 3.9 grams. That's over 12% so I have A LOT of salt in it, which makes sense, cuz it tastes super salty, but it does have bitter after tastes.

So since I know I started with 30g rue and got ~4g end product, then I know 1/10 of 30g is 3g, a typical rue dose, so 1/10 of 4g is .4 so .4 of my salty ass precipitate SHOULD equal roughly 3g rue... Although I didn't get 100% extraction so I may tend to over estimate a tad... Haven't tried any yet, but I have 20g worth of tannin-free(almost) acacia confusa triple brew so I will be reporting back soon....
Peace