Rue extraction...
Its a lot of pictures and mainly a way for me to recapitulate what happened.
I cooked unground rue seeds in a pressure cooker with a pinch of vinegar 3 times. Beware, please somehow cover the seeds in the pot. I didnt so my PC valve got partly blocked with seeds and the pressure built up quite much. When I opened the valve the steam felt like an 1800 locomotive, condensed on my kitchen tiles and and the electric plug thus causing a short circuit at which moment I was in vinegar smelling turkish bath with no electricity alas no Light. Next morning sunrise I saw everything was yellow, (whole kitchen), I scrubbed and scrubbed, next day sunrise I saw the parts I missed, they already turned red.
just take care.
I then filtered and filtered. You can see on the pictures I have a Büchner and Aspirator, dont start with that, stick to the tek and use cotton balls in a regular funnel with coffee filters. Pre filtering is very very important, otherwise the büchner gets clogged and even though vacuum, its very slow. Do gravity filtration with cotton balls, take at least 24 hours until it runs smoothly through 2 coffee and 2 cotton balls. I reduced before, the tek says reduce afer, imo its better to reduce before since its less but more thick liquid to handle.
So filter until you hate funnels, its very hard work, but its the main work you do the whole extraction.
Once ready and halfway clear, base and filter the percip with the vacuum büchner. Now it becomes very handy... 500 ml of precipitate and otherwise reddish or clear solution can be filtered in less than 10 minutes... the particles are just bigger and dont clog the pores of the paper so much they rather stay atop of the pores.
Once the first FB precipitate is cleanly filtered redissolve in hot water with little vinegar, just enough not more. Now all harmalas are salt in aqueous solution again. Which means all remaining solids are not what you want. So.... FILTER again... its painful I know, but I think in the first few re acid phase filtering you can get out all the red-black goo, it really lightens the color. Check the first FB filtering and then check the 4 or 5th, I lost track.
So re-acidify and filter again, then re-base and filter the precipitate, again, then again, you might have guessed, re-acidify and FILTER... Its getting fun from here on, Nightmares of funnels and particles.
The point however is never use more vinegar than required and never use more base than required. Take it slow, and do it 3-4 times.
Last basing you do with some eco friendly base, like CaOH to make it food safe... I didnt have any so I really tried to use as little lye as possible...
Check the PH meter picture of the liquid after filtering... 10.13 FAIL !
So now, you start washing...
Which means you, filter the last FB precipitate, then take out the filter carfully and use excessive hot water to get the precipitate clean of the filter and stir it with a eggbeater until most imaginable flakes had most imaginable contact to clear Hot water. Your goal is to reduce the PH.
I repeated that step maybe 15 times, and I have no picture, but in the end the washing water had a PH of 9.2
That is not optimal, it should best be between 7-8...
I couldnt make that happen. I did a caapi harmalas xtraction before, where I had the patience to wash maybe another 10 times and I reached PH 8.7.
I never got lower than that. Its also a question if you need harmalas for eating or for smoking. I just couldnt see filters or funnels or anything anymore so I settled with 9.2
Its up to you, its your medicine.
Last not least, I dried the FB in the oven with a hot air gun. Looking at the picture using sticky tape to fix the gun in the oven door, I know that is dangerous. Do attend at all times, or find a better way.
I know its nothing new in here and very low tek. I didnt even attempt a manske or alike but well, I just felt like sharing.
Maybe it helps someone.
peace
