Maximum amount of kief I can dissolve into Everclear

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
So, you cook it for 45 minutes and thus convert to more CBD/CBN. I kinda
know what CBD is, but not CBN and there are a couple others too, if i recall. Anyhow
what you're going for is more of a medical, sedative effect than the euphoric high
from THC, right?
I'm only making the oil to be used in edibles so having some of it turned to CBN is a plus as CBN promotes sleep and pain relief. Heavier doses of oil are usually taken in the evening when a sleepy effect is desirable and any easing of pain is a bonus.

Something doesn't seem clear about decarbing, tho. You talk of temp of 250F, "until the
bubbles (of C02) stop", but I can't see the bubbles, because my product is raw bud.
And it's submerged under water, inside a mason jar, inside a bag,. No bubbles for me
to monitor. I have to decarb it that way to control the smell. I am obsessed about the
smell. It's part of why i'm trying to make a tincture in the first place, to eliminate the smell.
The main part of course, is my wife's coughing from smoking it.
You won't see bubbles from bud. A lot of people decarb on an open cookie sheet in the oven and stink up the house. That stink is terpenes and other low boiling point compounds cooking off so you're losing medicine. The last time I did it in the oven was an oz of bud wrapped and sealed twice in tinfoil with a temp probe hooked to a multimeter to start my 45min once it reached 250 in the centre of the pot. Very low odour that a little over-toasted bread would have easily covered up.

Decarb02small.jpg

The bubbles I see is on the oil in a beaker in the oven. I can see them thru the window of the oven when doing that. I just keep the temp probe beside the beaker to keep an eye on temps tho that little oven I got for the wife as a Xmas present 3 years ago keeps the temp pretty good. Very fine bubbles like from a glass of champagne and hard to see.

FreshFECO-RSO-Decarbing2.JPG

I see you do the QWISO, using isopropyl, but i kind of want to not use iso and instead
use ethanol in a QWET process. I just think food grade alcohol might be safer than iso is.
And then there's that process where you use iso for first wash, and then a second or even
third with ethanol to clear out the iso. I just can't do all that stuff. I wouldn't mind a bit
buying all the equipment, setting up some kind of kitchen corner lab, with vacuum pumps,
exraction units, etc., but again, it's the SMELLLLLLLLLLLL, i am trying to avoid.
ISO is actually a superior product than ethanol for extracting with and it's toxicity is vastly overblown by people who really don't understand it all. Easier to get for a lot of people too tho you should look for NF - USP grade of 99%. I can get industrial grade ISO from the local farm supply but it cost the same as the NF grade from Costco and I'd have to purify it before using it.

Good instructions here.


If you are making a tincture tho you would want to do a good decarb on the pot then soak it in ethanol. Burns like hell as you mentioned so you can evap off all the ethanol, no need to purge, then dissolve the oil in another oil like MCT or olive etc to put into a dropper bottle. Go easy at first so you can judge the potency so you don't 'green out' from too much. If you do green out a couple oz of regular 40% booze will mitigate the effects. Will still be stoned off your ass but the alcohol takes the edge off so you aren't freaking out. If you have EverClear then 1 oz will do.

For odourless decarb one of these would be just the ticket. They are in BC, Canada but should be sold all over the world. Cook your pot for the required time then allow to cool in the oven slowly before opening and your bud is ready to soak.


Then another thing you said was you have to pour off the settled mix out of the gallon
container, and it occurred to me you could siphon it out of there. Just a thought, doubtful
that i'd do it, unless i was too shaky to handle the container, which as you say, thankfully,
that you're not. So i'd pour too, so as not to leave anything in a siphon hose.
For sure you could siphon it off or use a big syringe or turkey baster to pull it out. Same way home wine makers do when transferring from the primary distillation vessel.

I bought a gram of this kief as follows:

High End Farms
Diamond Dust Dry Sift Kief
Total Cannabinoids: 67.4%
Total Decarb THC 58.8%
THCA: 64.2%
CBDA: 0%
CBD: 0%
THC: 2.5%

I'm at a loss about those numbers, and the "Total Decarb THC 58.8%". Does that
mean I do not have to decarb it to extract it using QWET? And those numbers
seem to contradict, so can anybody make heads or tails of it, and does it need
decarb or not? What does that mean, "Total Decarb THC 58.8%"?
I'm not exactly sure as I don't buy pot or kief tho did get some CBD in veg oil that seems to help my back. Almost out so need to finish up this batch of oil and see how it works but I expect there's enough THC to have an effect. Still trying to find a good strain that has less than 1%THC and at least 15% CBD. I have some seeds a guy sent me from California that are supposed to be 20:1 but that isn't enough info to tell what's what with it. I have a bunch of high CBD pot saved up so once it's all made into oil I'll send a sample to a lab in Vancouver to get actual numbers to work with.

You could check with the company that makes that stuff on their website to see if they have any info but I doubt they decarb it for you. I'm pretty sure that 58.8% THC number is what you should have after a decarb but I'm not certain. From what little info I could find it's made for smoking or vaping so I would say it's not decarbed. Will likely turn into a blob I would think but maybe not. The last big batch of oil I made had 113g of dry sift in it but I did the decarb on the oil after extraction. Ended up with something like 120g of RSO with sift and pot combined. Many strains some being 4 or 5 years old.

:peace:
 

doughper

Well-Known Member
I'm only making the oil to be used in edibles so having some of it turned to CBN is a plus as CBN promotes sleep and pain relief. Heavier doses of oil are usually taken in the evening when a sleepy effect is desirable and any easing of pain is a bonus.

You won't see bubbles from bud. A lot of people decarb on an open cookie sheet in the oven and stink up the house. That stink is terpenes and other low boiling point compounds cooking off so you're losing medicine. The last time I did it in the oven was an oz of bud wrapped and sealed twice in tinfoil with a temp probe hooked to a multimeter to start my 45min once it reached 250 in the centre of the pot. Very low odour that a little over-toasted bread would have easily covered up.

The bubbles I see is on the oil in a beaker in the oven. I can see them thru the window of the oven when doing that. I just keep the temp probe beside the beaker to keep an eye on temps tho that little oven I got for the wife as a Xmas present 3 years ago keeps the temp pretty good. Very fine bubbles like from a glass of champagne and hard to see.
As stated in the link you posted further below, this should be exactly what you're trying to accomplish, and my best hopes for your efforts, buddy:
Code:
https://graywolfslair.com/index.php/diy-cannamed-production/9-4-extraction/9-4-8-isopropyl-extraction/9-4-8-1-qwiso
Alcohol bubbles are larger and highly variable in size, and once they stop popping, you will note the continuation of small equally
sized fizzy bubbles, which is the CO2 being given off by decarboxylation.
At aproximately 70% decarboxylation, bubble production will suddenly drop off, and it is at that point that you have the highest total THC
content. As you continue to decarboxylate, the remaining THCA and CBDA are converted to THC and CBD at a lower rate than THC and CBD
are converted to CBN.
ISO is actually a superior product than ethanol for extracting with and it's toxicity is vastly overblown by people who really don't understand it all. Easier to get for a lot of people too tho you should look for NF - USP grade of 99%. I can get industrial grade ISO from the local farm supply but it cost the same as the NF grade from Costco and I'd have to purify it before using it.

Good instructions here.

From what I just read the other day, as I might/maybe/probably understood it, European isopropyl (the word isopropyl is what we mean by ISO, right?) is more of a consumable grade of methanol than American iso, which, your being in Canada might also be true, and which is what you mean by that NF-USP grade of 99%? Or at least it is not as toxic as the American isopropyl, WHICH, as I might/maybe/probably understood it is NOT that big of a problem, as far as toxicity in a THC extraction/decarboxylation process. Also, I might/maybe/probably/think I had just read the other day that you can use the iso for the first wash, and then clean it with subsequent 2d and 3rd washes of ethanol alcohol. I think that ventures into the realm of moving from RSO green dragon to golden dragon extracts.
If you are making a tincture tho you would want to do a good decarb on the pot then soak it in ethanol. Burns like hell as you mentioned so you can evap off all the ethanol, no need to purge, then dissolve the oil in another oil like MCT or olive etc to put into a dropper bottle. Go easy at first so you can judge the potency so you don't 'green out' from too much. If you do green out a couple oz of regular 40% booze will mitigate the effects. Will still be stoned off your ass but the alcohol takes the edge off so you aren't freaking out. If you have EverClear then 1 oz will do.

For odourless decarb one of these would be just the ticket. They are in BC, Canada but should be sold all over the world. Cook your pot for the required time then allow to cool in the oven slowly before opening and your bud is ready to soak.

At Wackywillsweb the closest item to what I bought as pictured below, was this item:
Decarb Can Stainless Steel Decarboxylation Container 4oz
Quick Overview
4oz 100% Stainless Steel Decarb Container
7.5″ x 2″‘
Capacity of 3 to 4oz
Comes with a 4 way divider, a silicon sealed stainless lid and 3 air tight snap locks.
Yep, I'm starting to realize that my method of putting a bud in a jar, then a jar in a bag, and then submersing those into a container of water at 250°F is a bad idea. I am just unsure what the difference is if it's at 250°F in an oven, or some kind of container, or done basically sous vide (yanno, in a bag, under water). It seems to me that 250°F no matter where it is, oven or under water, is 250°F. Now maybe there's some kind of terpene loss or something, tho to tell you the truth, i'm not even sure what a terpene is other than it is the smell and taste of a product. Anyhow if that's the case, that i cannot decarb using my method (let's call it sous vide in a jar) will not work at all, or at best is inefficient, then I will just have to give up on the whole idea. Thing is, I cannot have any odor at all. So, I thought i'd try the decarb cooking method like say, in some kind of container that has a heating element, that you can set to your desired temp, like say this item, shown below, that i bought, never used, and now sits in it's original packaging on a shelf in my shop:
Activation 420.jpg
Yeah, what a shame that i didn't really know what i was doing when i bought it, nor what i wanted even. But once i got it i realized it's gonna smell, however minimally, it is going to smell. That odor never goes away, burned toast or not, it's going to smell. So, if the sous vide method will not work, then I am going to have to give up. I do know that when i decarbed my single, one gram nug using my customized sous vide method, that it did not smell at all, not until it was cooled down, taken out to the back patio, and the jar removed from the ziploc bag and the lid unscrewed from the jar. That was the only time i smelled it. Smelled pretty good, btw. :weed: Smoking it didn't get me high worth a darn, tho, but anyhow, I will try it again, at the higher temp for a shorter length of time, just like fadedog says to do, ergo, 30 mins at 250°F. As for temp monitoring, i used my digital thermometer seen here:
ThermoPro TP19H Digital Thermometer.jpg
Now that thing works great. I kind of stood over my decarb sous vide for 90 mins with it, and i had the temp to where it never varied by more than 2° or 3°. My range is an LG with a glass surface, so it's temp control is fairly good. It's burners have gradations of Lo, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0, and so, on up to 3.0, where it then goes from 3.0 to 3.5, etc., up to 10.0. It was surprisingly easy to keep my temp right where i wanted it, let's call it 200°, with hardly any variation at all. I do not remember which of the temps i had it set it, but i'm going to say it was some where in the 2.8 to 3.0 settings for 200° temp.

For sure you could siphon it off or use a big syringe or turkey baster to pull it out. Same way home wine makers do when transferring from the primary distillation vessel.

I'm not exactly sure as I don't buy pot or kief tho did get some CBD in veg oil that seems to help my back. Almost out so need to finish up this batch of oil and see how it works but I expect there's enough THC to have an effect. Still trying to find a good strain that has less than 1%THC and at least 15% CBD. I have some seeds a guy sent me from California that are supposed to be 20:1 but that isn't enough info to tell what's what with it. I have a bunch of high CBD pot saved up so once it's all made into oil I'll send a sample to a lab in Vancouver to get actual numbers to work with.

You could check with the company that makes that stuff on their website to see if they have any info but I doubt they decarb it for you. I'm pretty sure that 58.8% THC number is what you should have after a decarb but I'm not certain. From what little info I could find it's made for smoking or vaping so I would say it's not decarbed. Will likely turn into a blob I would think but maybe not. The last big batch of oil I made had 113g of dry sift in it but I did the decarb on the oil after extraction. Ended up with something like 120g of RSO with sift and pot combined. Many strains some being 4 or 5 years old.
Well, I did go their site at highendfarms.com and it's 404'd. :SIGH: Mystery kief.

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
From what I just read the other day, as I might/maybe/probably understood it, European isopropyl (the word isopropyl is what we mean by ISO, right?) is more of a consumable grade of methanol than American iso, which, your being in Canada might also be true, and which is what you mean by that NF-USP grade of 99%? Or at least it is not as toxic as the American isopropyl, WHICH, as I might/maybe/probably understood it is NOT that big of a problem, as far as toxicity in a THC extraction/decarboxylation process. Also, I might/maybe/probably/think I had just read the other day that you can use the iso for the first wash, and then clean it with subsequent 2d and 3rd washes of ethanol alcohol. I think that ventures into the realm of moving from RSO green dragon to golden dragon extracts.
Isopropal alcohol is the same all over the world. If that's what it says on the bottle then that's what it is. It's a chemical standard everywhere. It's used as a body rub so the tiny amounts that may be left in an edible product is well below any danger levels. You'd adsorb more thru your skin than what would be in a batch of oil.

When you use any alcohol for extractions they will be soaking up any moisture present even from the air. I'll use a warm oven to dry the broken up pot bone dry before sealing it up and putting it in the freezer along with the ISO. Nice thing about ISO is you can salt it out to remove the water but I think I mentioned that already and I'm bagged so off to bed. My back is killing me and need to get horizontal.

Just finished cooking off my QWISO and transferred the last of it to a beaker to be evapped off and decarbed tomorrow. This has a lot of CBD so hope it helps my damn back. Running out of the store bought CBD oil and that's been helping lots. 2ml = 56mg seems to do the trick. Great for sitting around but I won't be dancing for a while yet.

:peace:
 

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Isopropyl is an isomer of propanol and is sometimes referred to as Propanol 2. Methanol is a totally different molecule.

You can decarb in a sealed container, but as I've stated before, it is not as accurate as after where you can watch the bubbles.

You can also avoid the smell by decarboxylating insitu before reducing the alcohol by distillation or evaporation.

Note that there is no reason to decarboxylate unless you are going to ingest it orally or rectally. The heat does it for you when vaporizing or smoking.

Decarboxylation also boils off the mono and sesquiterpenes, changing the flavor, odor, and medicinal effects. They boil out of the plant material, even in a sealed container and many are lost when you open the container, though less than when decarboxylating in open air.

With regard to cannabinoid breakdown, the plant produces CBGA and then turns that into either CBDA or THCA, depending on the plant's genetics.

THCA decarboxylates into THC and breaks down into CBN, a sedative. CBDA decarboxylates into CBD and also breaks down into CBN. Note that the OL on the end of all their names, tells you that they are all alcohols.

THC is a psychedelic, CBD is more analgesic, and CBN is more of a sedative, though they all have other charms.

Here are the two molecules, starting with Methanol, which is the simplest of the alkane alcohols, with Propanol following after Ethanol while Isopropyl is an isomer:

Methanol.jpgisopropyl-.jpg
 
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OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
You can also avoid the smell by decarboxylating insitu before reducing the alcohol by distillation or evaporation.
How is this accomplished if the oil is still diluted by the alcohol?

I'm always interested in new techniques. I may have forgotten 90% of what I learned in 3 years getting a diploma in environmental chemistry 32 years ago in my 30s but stuff like this is still easy enough for me to pick up and run with. My lab work was what got me a pass as it was 40% of our total marks and I was consistently 90% or better on my labs. Exams, not so great. :)

:peace:
 

doughper

Well-Known Member
Note that there is no reason to decarboxylate unless you are going to ingest it orally or rectally. The heat does it for you when vaporizing or smoking.
I am trying to make a sublingual tincture that gets me high.
Tho, for wife and her lung condition, it would be medicinally as well as euphorically.
 

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
How is this accomplished if the oil is still diluted by the alcohol?

I'm always interested in new techniques. I may have forgotten 90% of what I learned in 3 years getting a diploma in environmental chemistry 32 years ago in my 30s but stuff like this is still easy enough for me to pick up and run with. My lab work was what got me a pass as it was 40% of our total marks and I was consistently 90% or better on my labs. Exams, not so great. :)

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Excellent except as a non-practising alcoholic I can't use ethanol so wondering if the same procedure would work with ISO?

Still trying to source a vacuum takeoff for my 24/40 lab still that will ship to me and not cost an arm and a leg. Need a Vigreux column in that size as well. Found both on amazon . ca but shipping is a problem as they use something other than Canada Post so won't ship to my PO box. Another 300mm condensor would be nice as well when I want to run with just the distilling head on top of the 2L boiling ball for fast output.

I do have a plain column and glass rings to fill it with but it's in 19/40 so slows output a lot but will have to do until I can source the larger one.

Lots of great stuff on the graywolf site!

:peace:
 

doughper

Well-Known Member
°
TY, fadedawg. Lots more questions here. I'm kinda slow, bud, so your patience and willingness
to help are appreciated muchly.

as a non-practising alcoholic I can't use ethano...wondering if the same procedure would work with ISO?
If ISO=isopropyl alcohol, it'll get you as drunk or drunker than ethanol will, plus it'll
make you blind or kill you. Either way, the amount of alcohol you'd take in an eyedropper or two or
three wouldn't, or shouldn't cause you to drink. Just consider as Rx medication for the THC/CBD.

But this one lends a new question, amongst the many others, and that is rather than alcohol, why
not extract it in MCT oil or, yanno, nobody's ever mentioned water. Water won't work, correct?

Then as I read your article, dawg, the concentrate was cooked at 150°F for "three days"? But I would
only heat it to 250°F for 30 mins, right?

Sorry, i have to go. BBL buds. :bigjoint:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
If ISO=isopropyl alcohol, it'll get you as drunk or drunker than ethanol will, plus it'll
make you blind or kill you. Either way, the amount of alcohol you'd take in an eyedropper or two or
three wouldn't, or shouldn't cause you to drink. Just consider as Rx medication for the THC/CBD.
I believe you are thinking of methyl alcohol, aka methanol aka wood alcohol which unscrupulous bootleggers use to enhance the alcohol content of their concoctions. Pretty sure imbibing a quantity of ISO will just kill you outright.

Seems it has about the same effects as methanol but even more toxic.

It's not the tiny amount of alcohol in an eyedropper of tincture that concerns me. It's that bottle of EverClear used to make the tincture that could be a problem tho my wife bought one a few weeks back to make vanilla extract and I haven't touched any of it. I picked the open bottle up and took a sniff, Gross but it used to be my favourite tipple the last couple years of active drinking. I'd get a bottle of it every 4 - 6 weeks and go on a 3-day drunk that took weeks to recover from with alcoholic gastritis and depression that lead to thoughts of self harm. It only costs about $7 more than a bottle of Smirnoff's and gives you 2.4X as much alcohol. Much more bang for your buck! :)

But this one lends a new question, amongst the many others, and that is rather than alcohol, why
not extract it in MCT oil or, yanno, nobody's ever mentioned water. Water won't work, correct?
I've made extracts with MCT or coconut oil and they work OK but now I just want to make concentrates that can be used in any number of things. Can be added to oils or alcohol for tinctures or used for gummies. One of the things I use it for is to mix with DMSO and put that into a roll-on applicator for topical use on seriously painful joints. Very effective and works pretty fast. CBD for that tho I did make some with THC pot for some uses like pre-cancerous spots.

Water won't dissolve oils so it's of no use for this. That's why bud washing or water curing your bud doesn't lose your medicine.

Then as I read your article, dawg, the concentrate was cooked at 150°F for "three days"? But I would
only heat it to 250°F for 30 mins, right?
I like 250 for 45min myself but like some of the other articles point out when you decarb after the extraction and can observe when the decarb bubbles stop is better to make sure you have complete decarb without as much degradation to CBN etc by overcooking.

:peace:
 

doughper

Well-Known Member
Yessir, u r right. TY. I think that I was thinking methanol and iso were the same thing, but ty for pointing out the diff.
you are thinking of methyl alcohol, aka methanol aka wood alcohol which unscrupulous bootleggers use to enhance the alcohol
bottle of EverClear used to make the tincture that could be a problem
Forgive me for being such an idiot, again, that makes it clear. I think any further discussion along this line
needs to go into a PM to ya. I'll just do that, if it's okay. :)

Thanks for clearing up the water-extraction flub. I should know that oil and water don't mix, FCOL!

This question'd be for both you and dawg: It involves the decarb process. I will reiterate, I have to do it
sous vide. It's the only 100% odorless way that I know of. However, if it won't work, then I'll have to bag
the idea, I guess. But if it will work, then that's my only approach. So, when dawg says insitu, he means to
decarb with the cannabis in the solvent, either alcohol or MCT oil. Then I could watch for when the bubbling
CO2 drops to the level of fine bubbles, and take it off the heat, thus having the highest concentration of THC
possible. As in the case of oldmeduser, he'd go longer as he says here:
I like 250 for 45min myself ... and can observe when the decarb bubbles stop ... (to) have complete decarb without as
much degradation to CBN etc by overcooking.
This is a beautiful use of cannabis. How versatile can a substance be! However, using this process,
watching for optimum THC production under water is going to be difficult.
But I'm averse to placing a mason jar in the oven with the material inside the jar to
monitor bubbling, plus I'm sure it'd release odor, just sure of it. My kitchen'd smell like a skunk in there!
I think I might be able to pull the mason jar out of sous vide, and look quickly to monitor bubbles. This
is gettin' crazier by the line. I got more questions from graywolf's abstract. I just gotta formulate what they are.

:bigjoint:TY buds.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
But I'm averse to placing a mason jar in the oven with the material inside the jar to
monitor bubbling, plus I'm sure it'd release odor
A mason jar can handle 250 no problem. It's made out of borosilicate glass, (Pyrex), just like lab glassware and has the same thermo properties. If you pulled it out of a hot oven and tossed it into a sink full of cold water it'll break but not from being heated up.

I just tried a new way to decarb my oil tonight. I was using one of those little coffee warmers to evap off the last of the ISO in a beaker and once that was gone noticed the temp was hitting 220 so brought it into the mancave to finish it off. It wouldn't get over 230 so I wrapped a piece of tinfoil around to make a skirt to cover the whole heating element and got it over 250 no problem.

Decarb01.JPG

These are the decarb bubbles and it didn't take more than 15 min from the start to the finish of them. If it was ISO or water the bubble would be lots bigger.

DecarbBubbles01.JPG

If you did this kind of thing under your stove's exhaust fan you wouldn't have any smell in the house and it is a bit smelly. The unit is so small you could take it somewhere else easily enough. I only got 13ml of oil at the end of it all. That pot got seeded too so that really cuts down on the yield. :) I took a big blob 2 hours ago and not feeling much of a buzz but my buggered back feels a lot better now so the CBD part seems to be working. The strain is called CBD Auto 'Hemp' so was hoping for low THC and it seems low but I'm used to a good dose of high THC RSO every night so hard for me to tell for sure. I'll have to talk my step-daughter into trying a small dose and see if she feels it much. She likes the CBD for her monthly aches and pains.

If you like MCT oil you can cook the pot in it, strain it out then heat the MCT oil to 250 to decarb. Again it does smell a bit but not so bad a bit of burnt toast won't cover the smell. It's not like the smell of pot baking in the oven during a decarb at all. Doesn't really smell like pot that much either. That's the way I've done many batches of cocobudder. Details in the link in my sig.

:peace:
 

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Excellent except as a non-practising alcoholic I can't use ethanol so wondering if the same procedure would work with ISO?

Still trying to source a vacuum takeoff for my 24/40 lab still that will ship to me and not cost an arm and a leg. Need a Vigreux column in that size as well. Found both on amazon . ca but shipping is a problem as they use something other than Canada Post so won't ship to my PO box. Another 300mm condensor would be nice as well when I want to run with just the distilling head on top of the 2L boiling ball for fast output.

I do have a plain column and glass rings to fill it with but it's in 19/40 so slows output a lot but will have to do until I can source the larger one.

Lots of great stuff on the graywolf site!

:peace:
My guess is that it would also work with Iso, but the curve is probably different.
 
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