Refine Your Cannabuter: Better Taste, Simple

[Hobbes]

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Refine your Cannabutter.

After you make your Cannabutter (by whatever method):

1. Bring a pot of water to a good boil and reduce heat to simmer.
2. Put all of your butter in the water, as soon as it's melted turn off the heat.
3. Stir for 15 minutes, taking the floating butter to the bottom of the water, stirring in a top to bottom circular motion.
4. Put the pot in the fridge (on a pad so the fridge doesn't melt) until the butter hardens, then put the pot into the freezer for a few minutes to make it more solid. (for ease of extraction)
5. Use a sharp knife tip to cut the butter from around the outside of the pot. Lift out the Cannabutter disk, let the water drip off.

Your butter, or oil, will have bonded with the cannaboids so when you put the butter in hot water the water soluble terpenes, chlorophyll and plant matter will go into solution with the water and the Cannabutter will float above the foul mix. You will have fantastic butter, like you made it from honey oil.

I started refining all of my butter after making Lava Butter from Volcano dregs, simple and makes eating canna-foods a whole new experience.

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[karmabud]

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Refine your Cannabutter.

After you make your Cannabutter (by whatever method):

1. Bring a pot of water to a good boil and reduce heat to simmer.
2. Put all of your butter in the water, as soon as it's melted turn off the heat.
3. Stir for 15 minutes, taking the floating butter to the bottom of the water, stirring in a top to bottom circular motion.
4. Put the pot in the fridge (on a pad so the fridge doesn't melt) until the butter hardens, then put the pot into the freezer for a few minutes to make it more solid. (for ease of extraction)
5. Use a sharp knife tip to cut the butter from around the outside of the pot. Lift out the Cannabutter disk, let the water drip off.

Your butter, or oil, will have bonded with the cannaboids so when you put the butter in hot water the water soluble terpins, chlorophyll and plant matter will go into solution with the water and the Cannabutter will float above the foul mix. You will have fantastic butter, like you made it from honey oil.

I started refining all of my butter after making Lava Butter from Volcano dregs, simple and makes eating canna-foods a whole new experience.

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I have heard of just straight up making cannabutter this way ( as opposed to making it first then doing this to it ) that way you dont have to strain the pot , it all sinks to the bottom and butter goes to the top . seems to sound like it should work well .

 

[turkish420]

Nice post Hobbes! We made some canna-butter the otherday. crock-pot 3/4 full of water, 1 pound butter, 1/2 oz dro. on high for 2hours, on low for 1 1/2. strained with cheese cloth. fridge over night. That shit came out pretty good for my first time makin it.

 

[StreetRider]

You are right on.

If you make your butter, then run it in fresh clean water again it takes alot of that green taste that some people complain about.

I think alot of people are going to miss the fact that this makes it cleaner.

 

[Hobbes]

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I found a simpler way to refine butter/oil:

Put the cannabutter in a large pyrex mason jar (the more water the better the refinining) and pour in steaming hot water, fill about 3/4. Have a second pyrex container on hand, the same size or larger than the first jar. I use a 2 liter pyrex measuring cup, you could use another mason jar but it must be a wide mouth to get the butter out easily when it hardens.

Put the top on the jar and shake. You'll need oven mitts or a dish town for the heat. Be careful when you shake the jar, the heat from the water will expand the air and if the lid isn't on perfectly tight hot butter will squirt out. Shake up and down easily once or twice to see if the lid is on well. After a couple of shakes it wouldn't be a bad idea to let some of the heated air out of the jar to lower the inside air pressure. Shake for a few minutes to get the chlorophyll, terpins and plant matter (bud & leaf bits, dregs flower, etc).

Pour the mix in the pyrex dish or wide mouth mason jar, or leave in the first jar if it's a wide mouth - less loss. Pour steaming hot water in the first jar, cover and shake to get the rest of the butter that's on the walls, I usually do this twice. Clean your tools (spoons, forks, strainers, etc) with hot water poured over the jar to get butter lost. Pour all this into the wide mouth mason jar.

Into the fridge or freezer to speed cooling and hardening. When the butter hardens into a hard disk cut around the container wall and lift out the butter disk with forks or a spatula. Get the bits of butter out with a spoon or strainer, pour out the foul water, scrape out the rest of the butter. A narrow mouth jar would make removing the butter more difficult.

I found that I lost butter during boiling and on the walls of the pot, and I had to boil out doors because of the smell of boiling Volcano dregs. Absolutely disgusting. I made my last batch of Lava Butter using Dr Jay's Black Out Budd Butter recipe, slow cooker in my grow room so the air filter could take care of the smell - there was hardly any smell except when I stirred the mix. The jar method for refining took care of the rest of the smell.

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**edit**

Explosion Warning!

I was walking my hounds, thinking about jar refining among other things, when it occurred to me how the shaking of the jar would make 750 ml of water - at 200F+ - contact 250 ml of air - at say an average of 100F. The water would stay about the same temperature but the air would heat up instantly, and try to expand - building pressure.

A rule of thumb for tire pressure is that for every 10 degrees F the temperature changes the tire pressure will change by 1 psi. If we heat the 250 ml (1 cup) of air in the 1 liter jar to 200F we get an increase of 10 psi.

I learned the hard way that even if you think the top is on tight, it may not be. I lost a quarter of my butter on one run, scalding water and boiling fat all over my hands. It took me a second geyser to figure out something was wrong, then a few minutes to think through what I was doing. And that I got off lucky, if the jar had a hairline crack or wasn't a mason jar and the top was tight it could have exploded, scaling more of me with boiling oil and sticking me with with glass shrapnel.

When you have the hot water and butter in the jar put the flat lid on the jar (not the screw on part) and let the air heat up and pop the lid up a few times. It'll let the air inside heat up and the density and pressure won't be as high. It still would be a good idea to shake straight up and down, gently, once or twice and crack the lid to let some of the heated air out.

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[slabhead]

hey Hobbes, when I lift up the butter slab there is a thin lumpy whitish layer on top of the water. A lot of it sticks to the butter brick but can be rubbed off like a curd.
My question is should I be using that strata or discarding it?
Many thanks for the info

 

[Hobbes]

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Hey Slabhead!

That white layer is the protein from the butter. By boiling the butter we are making a sort of ghee - the layers of the butter are separated by weight with the water on the bottom and the fat on the top.

I haven't found anything about cannaboids and protein binding, or if there will be cannaboids mixed in with the protein. I don't know how much foul taste is left in the protein. I'll look around the net and when I find something I'll post it in this thread.

If you're concerned about this a way around it is to boil your butter before making your cannabutter - make your own ghee and make cannaghee. There will be no protein to absorb foul taste or to loose cannaboids in. If you make a large amount of ghee at one time you'll have it on hand when you need it, save some time. Ghee in India is sometimes kept for years before eating, it's the protein that goes bad.

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[slabhead]

OK so that is normal then I guess. Do you use that along with the butter or scrape it off? Thanks for the knowledge.

 

[Hobbes]

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I use it if I haven't made ghee ahead of time. I figure that most of the foul taste is in solution with the water and the protein should be as good as the butter. Ghee will give you a slightly more potent butter.

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[kappainf]

Refining butter is awesome, good thread!!

 

[fdd2blk]

OK so that is normal then I guess. Do you use that along with the butter or scrape it off? Thanks for the knowledge.

i put it under cold running water. anything that rinses off, rinses off.

 

[slabhead]

I'll have to do that next run. Thanks for the tip fdd.

Man, I wished I had learned about the butter ages ago. Incredible. canna-cinnamon toast is my new breakfast of choice. 10g per slice is nice.

 

[fdd2blk]

i used vodka in my last batch. WOW. i could barely make my bed before i fell into it.

i put 7 ounces of trim in the crop pot with a fifth of 100 proof stoli's. i let that soak overnight. the next day i added 2 pounds of butter and water and brewed it until all thje alcohol evaporated off. the taste is much more flavorful.

 

[Hobbes]

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That's a fantastic idea! I've got to give that a try too. Thanks fdd.

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[regrets]

A friend of mine just told me about this alcohol method, but I wasn't really paying much attention honestly. I have a lot of left over Everclear from making a very small test batch of tincture, and I just made 7 sticks of cannibutter last night, would it be worth rerunning this batch in the alcohol and water, or would I be better off just making more butter (can't ever have too much really) using the alcohol method. My palate is very sensitive to weed, although I have gotten some recipes down to a science, anything that can decrease the green flavor would be great, and well worth the extra effort.

 

[Hobbes]

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regrets I MacGyvered an Alcohol Reflux Extractor last night, I think if you used that on the remaining plant matter you will get out the most resin possible, then you can refine that with the Extractor to remove virtually all chlorophyll and terpin taste and distill out the alcohol if desired.

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DIY: crock pot Alcohol Reflux: resin Extractor, tincture Refiner, alcohol Distiller (and now cannabutter refiner)

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Crock Pot lid with hanging coffee basket

1 hour of reflux extraction (started with clear vodka solvent, 40% alcohol):

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I followed a forum link to the Cold Finger Extractor by Eden (diagram and link below) and three things came to mind very quickly:

1. The diagram brought up an instant image of the evaporation/rain cycle poster in my grade 4 class 35 years ago;
2. I figured I could make one in less than an hour from kitchen items;
3. They were charging $395 for the equivalent of a Pyrex coffee pot, Pyrex cone shaped dish, and a metal coffee basket. About $385.05 more than I paid for a much tougher 16 cup Pyrex measuring cup at Canadian Tire and $389 more than i paid for the crock pot above.

http://www.edenlabs.org/home_light_commercial.html

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A reflux extractor is very simple:


In a closed system the alcohol is heated above it's boiling point (79C) but below water's boiling point (you gotta look that up yourself);

1. the heated alcohol rises as steam until it hits the ceiling of our reflux system (upside down crock pot lid), the water stays liquid in the heated reservoir below;
2. we put ice/snow/cold water on the top of the reflux apparatus (crock pot concave lid turned upside down) so when the alcohol steam hits the cold glass/plastic it condenses and gravity pulls the water droplets down the convex upside down crock pot top until;
3. the alcohol droplets collect at the bottom/center of the upside down cover and drip downward to the metal coffee screen basket hanging from the cover;
4. The dripping alcohol (still warm), which is a higher percentage than the alcohol in the reservoir (but not 100% alcohol), drips through the marijuana in the coffee basket carrying: dissolved resin, terpins, chlorophyll and some plant matter into the heated reservoir below.
5. As well, alcohol steam will rise and work through the marijuana in the coffee basket. (the same way water steam in a coffee maker will rise and go through the coffee grinds and drip bitter coffee after a pot is done, so we remove the coffee grinds as soon as the hot water drips through).

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Now we can: refine the alcohol tincture; remove the honey oil for use elsewhere; and/or distil alcohol. This step couldn't be simpler:

1. Change the coffee filter for a sold metal cup. Done.

The alcohol (and some water) will collect in the cup, most of the water will stay below in the heated reservoir with the resin, water, chlorophyll, terpins and plant mater. If you are refining or extracting honey oil remember to add hot water to the reservoir after the alcohol is extracted to the cup, you want to keep the chlorophyll, terpins and plant matter in solution while letting the non water soluble resin sinks to the bottom. Put things in the fridge until the water is cold before pouring the water out – so all the resin falls out of solution.

The alcohol collected in the cup will be of a higher percentage than what you started with and will be much cleaner than the reservoir but you may want to distill it again, after cleaning out the reservoir, to make it taste better and to raise the percentage of alcohol. After several reflux distillings we can take 40% vodka up to 60% or 70% - a higher percentage will take a more complex reflux device.

I'm going to refine my tincture and do a butane extraction on the remaining grinds in the basket to see how efficient the reflux extraction was. I'll post some results later today. Anyone who gives this a try please post your results, pics and any advice you can give us.

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Items needed: (substitutions can be made, don't go out and buy anything until we go over what you can replace items with – ie crock pot – coffee pot with screw off handle and spout (flat rimed); flat rimmed Pyrex bowl, plate, cooking dish; stove)

- Crock pot
- Coffee basket
- Wire / screws to connect coffee pot to basket
- Floating kitchen thermometer Fill your crock pot with water and check the temperature at the different levels - we need 80C+, the higher we go the quicker the extraction; if we go too high we evaporate more water.
- Ice
- Towel (to remove the melted ice water from the lid, stay low tech)
- I'm adding an I-bolt for a handle for the concave side, the screw has to hang below to hold the basket.
- Rubber washer to ease tension on the glass cover if you reverse the handle. If you have a glass knob handle just make a wire noose to hang the coffee basket.

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Explosion, Fire, Disaster beyond Saving Private Ryan's beach scene warning!

Alcohol is flamable in it's liquid form at 50%, or 100 proof that the press gang isn't watering down the crews rum. It is explosive in it's gaseous form - the alcohol steam we are refluxing. If a flame hit's that gas - or any gas escaping from the extractor - you are going to have an explosion. No smoking, no flames, no other heat sources, no electric sparks, no wearing wool on a dry day.

Don't become a statistic.

This is a relatively safe reflux apparatus because - very little pressure can be built up (the lid will pop up), there is no open flame, there is very little alcohol gas produced in the volume of a small crock pot. BUT operator recklessness will cause a problem.

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I'll be back with results from refining, distilling and running a butane extraction on the plant matter to see how efficient the reflux extraction was. I'll post design improvements and cooking dishes we can substitute for the crock pot and lid - the deeper the "cold finger" comes into the heating reservoir the quicker the extraction (more cold surface area for alcohol condensation). Anyone who has suggestions, advice or a better design please contribute all you can.

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[slabhead]

Say Hobbes, have you ever used acetone as the solvent for a tincture? Will it work like the ethanol does? Thanks for all the great info.

 

[Hobbes]

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I've never used acetone as a solvent slabhead, I'm moving away from toxic solvents and butane SCFE and towards alcohol reflux and subcritical CO2 extraction. Acetone is thought of as the second best non critical cannabis resin solvent, after petroleum ether.

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Acetone is the organic compound with the formula OC(CH3)2. This colorless, mobile, flammable liquid is the simplest example of the ketones. Owing to the fact that acetone is miscible with water it serves as an important solvent in its own right, typically as the solvent of choice for cleaning purposes in the laboratory. More than 3 million tonnes are produced annually, mainly as a precursor to polymers.[2] Familiar household uses of acetone are as the active ingredient in nail polish remover and as paint thinner and sanitary cleaner/nail polish remover base. It is a common building block in organic chemistry. In addition to being manufactured, acetone also occurs naturally, even being biosynthesized in small amounts in the human body.

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Toxicology

Acetone is believed to exhibit only slight toxicity in normal use, and there is no strong evidence of chronic health effects if basic precautions are followed.


At very high vapor concentrations, acetone is irritating and, like many other solvents, may depress the central nervous system. It is also a severe irritant on contact with eyes, and a potential pulmonary aspiration risk. In one documented case, ingestion of a substantial amount of acetone led to systemic toxicity, although the patient eventually fully recovered. Some sources estimate LD50 for human ingestion at 1.159 g/kg; LD50 inhalation by mice is given as 44 g per cubic meter, over 4 hours.


Acetone has been shown to have anticonvulsant effects in animal models of epilepsy, in the absence of toxicity, when administered in millimolar concentrations. It has been hypothesized that the high-fat low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet used clinically to control drug-resistant epilepsy in children works by elevating acetone in the brain.


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Flammability

The most common hazard associated with acetone is its extreme flammability. It auto-ignites at a temperature of 465 °C (869 °F). At temperatures greater than acetone's flash point of −20 °C (−4 °F), air mixtures of between 2.5% and 12.8% acetone, by volume, may explode or cause a flash fire. Vapors can flow along surfaces to distant ignition sources and flash back. Static discharge may also ignite acetone vapors.

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I see acetone as too dangerous for the non-chemist to use. For us attic scientists who may not have the first line of defense of training and safety procedures, the second line of defense of a non-toxic solvent that is relatively safe to use is a must.

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[slabhead]

Alrighty then. I wasn't gonna cook it off, just thought about doing a soak and evap <outside of course>. If that would work. I hear you on the inexperienced chemist blowing themselves up. Not bragging but I've got a few years of lab work under my hat from college to career. The acetone is available free whereas the ethanol is quite costly. Appreciate the words of wisdom. slabhead

 

[Hobbes]

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Slabhead I'd put you in the chemist department with college chemestry lab experience, I don't imagine they'd let you in there without teaching safety. It's people like me - or those girls who roasted themselves by smoking while evaporating butane from a SCFE - who have to be so careful. There are things we take for granted that can put us in the hospital. Like taking a smoke after all the hard work is done. Common sense is not so common.

To evaporate butane I float a pyrex dish in a tub of steaming hot water out doors, acetone has a boiling point of 57 C so it would evaporate fairly quickly with a non flamable soak.

From what I can find on the net acetone doesn't leave any residue behind either, very nice end product.

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