Last summer Swim extracted his own harmalas from Syrian Rue seeds, it was a success, but he was wondering what people in this community would consider a good yield from say 200gs of seeds? He is planning the extraction again and is curious of what to aim for?
much love

Hello,
usually a 7% freebase, sometimes 8, but with extensive boils actually.
Going for lesser boils now, let's see what gives.
I'd like to think everything above 5% is success, more is happiness in crystal form
Happy trials.

Nice jees what's your process for 7%?

Hi _Trip_
Pressure pot with seeds at pH 3 (from Pakistan IIRC, 100 to 150gr dry), boils of 1 hour. Keep making washes, straining and basing until nothing bases out anymore. Well there's a nuance, the very last basing precipitations become more slimy actually, making filtering out difficult, that's a sign overkill was made. Then I think we're at boil 7 or so now, a bit lunatic. Going for 3 boils as we speak, I'll come back with that yield later at it shows.

Ime 5% or more is great yield, 4% is ok for me. Rue is cheap, so just couple of quick and short boils are enough to extract it to water.

IME:
Around 7% for freebase "full spectrum".
Around 4.3% freebase after manske.

First time I did only 3 boils.
Each boil or wash consisted of 1 hour in a pressure pot on whole seeds, strain, add some water, swirl, strain, up to the next boil. Base the collected waters.
5.6% freebase
This is before manske, that still has to happen.

Is it necessary to grind Rue seeds before water extraction for any purpose?

Yep, ground seeds release way more pectin and protein into the initial brew and this is a pain for extraction purposes. Prolonged simmering congeals the haze sufficiently that it can be filtered out through a cotton plug but this is time-consuming and wasteful of energy (unless, perhaps, you have a solar cooker). Enzymatic treatment would be an option but that is of course another level of fiddling around.

Even the first boil on whole seeds contains an annoying level of intractable sludge so be prepared to do several attempts just to get the hang of what you'll be dealing with. Rue extractions can be a real test of patience! MHRB extractions are so much easier by comparison.

Be prepared to take into account just how much the seeds swell up on hydration - don't fill the PC more than one third full. I'd set the maximum size for a kitchen extraction at 500g dry seeds but even that gets a bit cumbersome to handle and the liquid volumes start taking up a lot of room.

@OP, 200g is a sensible amount. Half an ounce of harmalas will keep you going for a wee while.

If you're planning for a cold water soaking extraction, you might benefit grinding, yield wise.

I've been boiling both powdered and whole seeds and not noticing final yield advantages on the powder. Possibly one might reach max yield faster with lesser boils on powder but you don't want the filtering problems really, as said above. I'll stick with 3 boils from now on whole seeds, they are so cheap so to miss out on the last % remaining is a no brainer.