In conclusion, rather than plain water pulls - use a weak HCL pull (with powdered herb, heat etc if necessary), then evap to dryness (which is a bitch btw), then do alcohol pull, and proceed as normal....
When SWIM did a straight MeOH extract, he got a brown olie mass, which was absolutely imposseble to work with. Just so SWIM understand what you saying:
Ligthly boil the plant in water pH > 1 a few hours, filter (will there be a lot of ephedrine in the discarded plant mass??), evap and collect raw crystals.
Extract the raw crystals with alkohol, collect crystals and turn them to FB and then steam destil.? Or just do a straigth steam destil.? :)
Actually should you maybie, be able to just react the raw crystals after water HCL + alkohol pull, following this link: https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/ephedra.html (https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/ephedra.html)
(with a littel over-consumption of presour. ;) )