to save or toss the moldy rue

[mrwiggle]

so i was doing this tek using vineagar water to make pulls with the herbal percolator and then reducing in the crock pot, very simple an elegent, ive been very pleased, but this round the crock pot was in use and i had to let it sit a couple weeks before i could reduce the first pull, then the rue in the percolator got moldy!! on top of that i let the reduction go a little further than i would like so instead of a concentrated liquid, i got a viscous syrup type substance...do you think it would be worth it to save the moldy rue and dilute my syrup with subsequent pulls? im also open to other alernative ways of dealing with it, as long as it doesnt require buying chemicals and doing an all out extraction

 

[jamie]

throw it out and dont play around with molds.

 

[endlessness]

Throw away! I know it sucks, it happened to me with a nice aya brew I left badly storage once....

Even if you could remove the mold, who knows what possible mycotoxins would be dissolved in your brew by now. Dont risk your health.

 

[universecannon]

^ what they said. Rue is pretty inexpensive anyway

So was it in the fridge or room temp? Because i've had brews in the fridge for like 5 months without getting moldy

 

[AluminumFoilRobots]

What about doing extractions on moldy brews? Would the toxins likely make it through an extraction and purification process? I mean, I know nobody would know specifically due to the plethora of possible molds/toxins - just generally?

Also @universecannon - I think it has to do with how clean the container is. I've had brews go in the fridge after a month but I didn't disinfect the containers. I give a good swishing with isopropanol before using any containers for brews nowadays and it greatly reduces the incidence of this. At least in the fridge, a lot of my brews sit room temp (travellin'!) tho and some have still molded.

 

[endlessness]

Exactly as you said, we have no idea the possible toxins/molds so we couldn't say whether the mycotoxins would come across in an extraction. Better be safe and just throw it away.

 

[embracethevoid]

It depends on the precise nature of the moulds.

For what it's worth, I've drank mouldy rue brews many many times to no discernable ill effect. These brews were at most 4 days old however. After a couple of weeks I dread to think what that would look like!

Chances are you could superheat the liquid in some kind of pressure cooker and kill it off. However without knowing the exact nature of the mould, you could be inviting all manner of toxins into your system. Not worth the risk IMO, and this is coming from someone who's actually drank that grotty stuff.