Hey everyone this is my first post so bear with me. This is my first attempt at extracting harmalas and am using the Tao of Rue Extraction. Everything was fine up until i had to base my solution. I added lye straight to my rue tea and im pretty sure i added way too much. my solution became pretty milky (not too white though) but nothing seperated. the next day i went to the next step and added a water and vinegar solution to dissolve my harmalas back into harmala acetate. no colors changed it was still pretty milky colored. I decided to use my ph strips for my pool (it was all i had) just for a rough estimate and it told me it was still very basic. So i added a lot of vinegar (maybe a cup to my 5 cup solution) and now I see a lot of particles sinking to the bottom(almost looks like sand). I checked the ph balance and it still says its way over 7. Im just confused if the particles sinking to the bottom is the stuff i want, or is it just excess plant materials? and if my solution is too basic how am i supposed to dissolve my harmalas back to harmala acetate for the manske?

ill upload a pic of what it looks like right now

if anyone can please clear up my confusion i really dont want to trash my whole experiment.
thanks in advance

i just realized i posted in the wrong section of the forums.. can someone please move it to the appropriate section plz. im such a noob

This is a good section for this post, I removed the double post.

You want to pour off the basic solution before you acidify. So pour all the water off the precipitates then dissolve them in in fresh water/vinegar and proceed with the tek from there.

Save what you pour off.... just in case.