Why clear alcohol for tincture?

I haven't made tincture for a couple of years, so I was watching a YouTube video to refresh my memory, and without explaining the specific reason the person doing the tutorial specified using *clear* alcohol (she used vodka). I ask, because I've made tincture in the past using 151 rum, which is not clear, and I'm wondering if anyone knows the downside to using 'brown' alcohol vs. clear?

Thanks --

Clear alcohols are easier to find in higher alcohol contents. You can absolutely use other alcohols. I use bourbon all the time because I like what it does for the flavor, but I use high abv bourbons.

Good luck. Experiment.

I have always just heard to use the highest proof you can get, nothing about the color. I'd try to get Everclear if it's possible as it's very high proof 190 and used in a lot of tincture recipes. It's available at military PX stores even in states that ban it so if you have any veteran buddies they can pick it up.

Rsawr said:

Clear alcohols are easier to find in higher alcohol contents. You can absolutely use other alcohols. I use bourbon all the time because I like what it does for the flavor, but I use high abv bourbons.

Good luck. Experiment.

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FirstCavApache64 said:

I have always just heard to use the highest proof you can get, nothing about the color. I'd try to get Everclear if it's possible as it's very high proof 190 and used in a lot of tincture recipes. It's available at military PX stores even in states that ban it so if you have any veteran buddies they can pick it up.

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Thanks for the feedback -

I kept researching after posting the question, and read that there are more "impurities" in other-than-clear alcohol that may inhibit consistent diffusion into the liquid. I never noticed any issues in the past. I do have to shake my tinctures before using them, because, for lack of a better term, 'the good stuff' separates out and sinks to the bottom after it's sat for a while. Is that normal?

Also curious; what proportions of dry carb'd bud to alcohol do you use? and how do you measure out your doses?

I use an ounce of decarbed bud and cover it by about 1/2" to an inch with Everclear. I do a long 7 day soak which some don't like because it extracts a lot of plant materials. As far as dosage with mine, I reduce the liquid I get from the extraction down from 8 ounces to 2 ounces by open air evaporation over about a week then it's usually at a good strength to try out. 12-18 drops is what I take every 4-6 hours as a maintenance dose for pain. It's great in coffee, Gatorade or just about anything you can eat or drink. Mine has a very strong weed/plant taste due to the 7 day soak. Doing a shorter soak makes for a better flavor but I want the whole plant extracted so I don't mind the taste.

I use pure ethanol

Dehydrated alcohol. You can inject the shit.
My pharmacist orders it for me.

FirstCavApache64 said:

I use an ounce of decarbed bud and cover it by about 1/2" to an inch with Everclear. I do a long 7 day soak which some don't like because it extracts a lot of plant materials. As far as dosage with mine, I reduce the liquid I get from the extraction down from 8 ounces to 2 ounces by open air evaporation over about a week then it's usually at a good strength to try out. 12-18 drops is what I take every 4-6 hours as a maintenance dose for pain. It's great in coffee, Gatorade or just about anything you can eat or drink. Mine has a very strong weed/plant taste due to the 7 day soak. Doing a shorter soak makes for a better flavor but I want the whole plant extracted so I don't mind the taste.

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Thanks for the thoughtful reply, that's all good information. I tend to grow too much so that at any point I can skip a grow and still have enough to cover my wife/med patient. So far, I haven't skipped or lost a grow, so basically I've always had more than we need. Over the years the abundance left room for a lot of experimenting with tinctures, butters, and before they made it a felony in Oregon, hash. I think the first time I made tincture I soaked it for a month! I have no recollection of who told me to do that, it was back in 2016. We learn as we go.

I ended out using 4oz of buds in a liter of 151, covered it by about an inch. I've heard elsewhere about open air evaporation, we'll try this first as is, and if it seems too weak we can let it evaporate down. My wife has a crazy high tolerance. Last time I made tincture it was strong enough that I'd count out six drops for myself, she'd pump a whole dropper full into her tea and come back for more an hour later. She needs to smoke less so we're revisiting various forms of edibles.

So you use tincture like an edible? Instead of sublingually, your wife just drinks it?
My wife can't smoke either, due to COPD, which is why I'm so determined to
make a tincture. She doesn't want to eat it, and has a very bad time smoking it
due to coughing. I am not sure if a tinc will work for her, actually. But I have to
try to figure a tincture out, by testing on myself that I think might work for her.

Thundercat advised me on making tincture from some shatter i bought at the store
as follows:

Thundercat said:

If you have access to shatter, or any other extract/concentrate I would just dissolve that in a tiny amount of alcohol and make your own tincture to dose with. There would be no smell just dissolving the product, and if you started with your 81% shatter you would know there is 800ish mg in the total batch. Then just decide how much you actually need to take to get the resulting effects you want.

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You can just drink it, yeah. I find something fatty with it helps it work better.

doughper said:

So you use tincture like an edible? Instead of sublingually, your wife just drinks it?
My wife can't smoke either, due to COPD, which is why I'm so determined to
make a tincture. She doesn't want to eat it, and has a very bad time smoking it
due to coughing. I am not sure if a tinc will work for her, actually. But I have to
try to figure a tincture out, by testing on myself that I think might work for her.

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Infused coconut oil is painfully easy and deceptively potent. I have a shot glass in my fridge and tear pellet sized pieces off that make me sleep 13 hours a night. Can hardly get high because of how fast it knocks my dick in the dirt.

My wife can't and won't drink it, because then it becomes and edible, and the
effects last way too long. Would that be your experience?

Chris Farley said:

I have a shot glass in my fridge and tear pellet sized pieces off that make me sleep 13 hours a night. Can hardly get high because of how fast it knocks my dick in the dirt.

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Well, you tear pellet sized pieces? So that means you eat it or do you administer it sublingually?

I always found it to hit around 30 minutes, not an hour or so like food edibles. It does last about the same amount of time. and is a very similar high to edibles.

So I have this shatter which is as follows:

RSO+GO
Lemon Haze | 1g1@$25.00
Shatter
THC 68.37% CBD 0.2%
Sativa 81.21%, an amber colored shatter.
The package says "ethanol used as solvent"

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And will I need to decarb that stuff? And if so, how?
And then whether I decarb or not, can i merely mix it with
some everclear 190 proof, and make an effective tincture?

I guess i'm just really hung up on sublingual adminstration of it, rather than smoking or eating.
But how the hell do i know since all the store bought tincs i tried are no-high, and the two times
i tried to make it from a bud and also from an RSO those two times did not work either. So I want
to try this shatter, that I posted above.

Humanrob said:

I haven't made tincture for a couple of years, so I was watching a YouTube video to refresh my memory, and without explaining the specific reason the person doing the tutorial specified using *clear* alcohol (she used vodka). I ask, because I've made tincture in the past using 151 rum, which is not clear, and I'm wondering if anyone knows the downside to using 'brown' alcohol vs. clear?

Thanks --

Click to expand...

she just wants you to not ruin the taste of pure weed with some coloring and barrel smell of the alchohol. she wants you to have a neutral green

doughper said:

Well, you tear pellet sized pieces? So that means you eat it or do you administer it sublingually?

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Eat it. Cold little chips. Did i see you on reddit today asking about dark vs clear liquor making edibles?

doughper said:

So you use tincture like an edible? Instead of sublingually, your wife just drinks it?
My wife can't smoke either, due to COPD, which is why I'm so determined to
make a tincture. She doesn't want to eat it, and has a very bad time smoking it
due to coughing. I am not sure if a tinc will work for her, actually. But I have to
try to figure a tincture out, by testing on myself that I think might work for her.

Click to expand...

Yes, we use tincture as an 'edible', adding it to tea or sometimes I fill a shot glass halfway with orange juice, put a half dozen drops in, and take it like a shot. The beauty of it is that you get to control the dose each time specifically having as much or little as you are in the mood for, using the eye dropper.

If you make a relatively weak batch and start your wife 'low and slow' and let her build up gently, maybe she can learn to trust edibles. I can't smoke, so I've been doing only edibles for over a dozen years now, both THC and CBD (only about 20% tincture, the rest in other forms). Every once in a while I'll take some sublingually, but my wife can't handle that, drops of 151 rum left under your tongue starts to burn pretty quickly. I can't imagine doing that daily, but maybe you get used to it, I've never tried doing it frequently.

The higher the alcohol content the better it will work for extraction, and the high ethanol liqueurs are clear. If your using 151 that means there’s 25% something else that will not extract and add off flavors. If you want rum flavored extract then use 151 and make drinks, works great. If you want a clean tasting extract use QWET, or do a longer soak for more extraction which gives you more weed flavor. Just a matter of what you want in the end.