bho or iso from bush weed?

Which would be a better method? Im thinking bho cuz im going for quality rather than quantity, but iso seems much cheaper esp when you salt out the water of 93% making nearly pure iso alcohol. I mentioned in a previous post that these buds are from india where I am currently located. They make charas from a different variety up north but grow fatter budded indicas in the south for smoking as "ganja" I already tried dry sifting with 100 micron silk screen but the kief still tastes bad and doesnt seem oily at all. When I press it it justs crumbles and when I burn it, it wont hold a flame like the charas will. The method of drying and curing for commercial growers here emphasizes quantity rather than quality. I have some seeds from some local ganja that are germinating and im curious to see how they turn out properly cured and sensimilla.

Thanks for the help

Am I missing something or does this site not have a hash/extracts subforum? My question doesnt exactly pertain to my own grow, but I didnt know where else to post it. Maybe ill try reposting in the general discussion or rather have a mod move this one to a place where it will get more attention

Peace

Hello thelespauls1,

We do have an extracts sub-forum, it's located here: https://www.rollitup.org/concentrates-extracts/

However many people post questions regarding resin, hash, extracts in this sub-forum so it's quite alright.

With regards to your question; BHO is the most common way of extracting resin but using Isopropyl is not far behind and the methods are quite similar.
I would argue that BHO is somewhat easier and quicker, whereas Iso is cheaper.
However it all comes down to your preference, with regards to quality I don't really see any huge difference in quality if we assume you are using pure solvents in both cases.

Dry sifting is very different, you will not get oil out of dry sifting and the purity of the end product will not be the same as when you use BHO/Iso.

I'd suggest buying a little amount of BHO and and little amount of Iso and trying out both methods to see which you prefer, but in general the two methods really aren't that different and produce very similar results.

^^^^thanks! Thats the kind of informed response I was hoping for. Ive done my research already but there seems to be a dearth of information and data on extracts from bushweed.

How do u feel about acetone? I just tried to make a small sample with maybe 5-6gs of de seeded de stemmed bushweed with 100 ml acetone. I shook for one minute then strained through a handkerchief and let it evaporate on a wide dish. Within 15 mins with the fan on full blast id say 90% of the acetone is gone. How long should I let it dry for? Its got a very greenish goldish brownish tint to it and I can easily see vegetative matter albeit tiny settling in my evap dish. I dont mind cuz this is just a test run with some shitty weed. If it works out Ill try it out with the $4 for 200gs of bush trim and buds. Full of seeds but so cheap, I couldn't resist an experiment. Please keep the ideas flowing

Btw I wish I could sample some legit oil iso or bho but at home I live in a non medical state and here, its the one extreme of excellent charas to shitty weed. In all honesty I would nornally consider most if not all low mids if not shwag outright. The charas is great but I feel like its time for extracts to be introduced to this country.

thelespauls1 said:

^^^^thanks! Thats the kind of informed response I was hoping for. Ive done my research already but there seems to be a dearth of information and data on extracts from bushweed.

How do u feel about acetone? I just tried to make a small sample with maybe 5-6gs of de seeded de stemmed bushweed with 100 ml acetone. I shook for one minute then strained through a handkerchief and let it evaporate on a wide dish. Within 15 mins with the fan on full blast id say 90% of the acetone is gone. How long should I let it dry for? Its got a very greenish goldish brownish tint to it and I can easily see vegetative matter albeit tiny settling in my evap dish. I dont mind cuz this is just a test run with some shitty weed. If it works out Ill try it out with the $4 for 200gs of bush trim and buds. Full of seeds but so cheap, I couldn't resist an experiment. Please keep the ideas flowing

Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with using acetone for extractions.
I know that ethanol, hexane and liquid CO2 are viable options but I think there's a reason for why most people use either BHO or iso.

You have to be attentive when you are extracting, if you leave the plant material soaking for too long you will not end up with a pure product (as you yourself said; "greenish .. tint").
This is also why many people choose BHO, the crystallization (and therefore extraction) is rapid and leaves you with a very pure end product.

You should let all the solvent evaporate, as I mentioned in my last post, some evaporate faster than others if we are speaking about particular methods used, isopropyl alcohol takes longer to evaporate due to the need of soaking the plant material in a large amount of liquid, whereas BHO is normally sprayed over the material as a gas (using a container) and thus leaves less liquid to evaporate.
If you take proper precautions and do it outside or just with proper ventilation you can speed up the process by heating the extraction container (pyrex containers are great for this purpose).

It's really rather easy to get started with extractions using isopropyl alcohol and if you are meticulous in your approach it'll leave you with very pure oil.
It's very easy to spot the difference between low grade oil extractions and high potency oil (colour & taste wise).
If you have the equipment and stomach for learning and applying some knowledge you should perhaps try out making wax after you've familiarized yourself with oil extraction, we have a masterful wax maker who frequents this site, he has made extensive guides and some great videos, look up Matt Rize.

Butane is fool proof (not talking safety here lol) because it is almost completely non polar it doesn't like picking up the polar nasties .. chlorophyll and those bitter plant acids etc, because its non polar it will prefer to pick up the plant fats and more non polar compounds.. this can leave you with, a taffy like bright yellow consistency that appeals to people who don't know how to spot quality hash..it can be winterized in a polar solvent to remove those extra fats pulled....
With polar solvents a quick wash must be used or you end up with dark green sludge that is black when balled and tastes horrible..there are more polar constituents in the plant and are more detrimental to the taste and perceived quality....but if done properly it will yield shatter as it doesn't extract all those fats and waxes..if done properly and quickly it will yield a better quality than butane..like dissolves like and thc is somewhat polar to be able to cross blood brain barrier and cross back over while being held in the blood, fresh cannabinoids are also in the more polar carboxyl form(which is why they need decarbed to cross the bb barrier).butane would prefer to pick up the plant waxes both being non polar
Butane is dirty, I don't care which brand you use..doesn't necessarily mean harmful mind you
Iso is perfectly clean..the process to create iso-hydrating propene is efficient and only creates iso..where as butane has to be separated from heavier and lighter components...
Iso is much less dangerous. Butane has a flammability rating of 4 iso 3. Iso has a lower explosive limit/ lower flammability limit twice as high as butane and it doesn't boil at room temp, releasing fewer dangerous gases at a time. You don't have to worry about static causing an explosion or fumes pooling in places such as your sink or corners with iso... butane must be done outdoors while iso can easily be done indoors..

So butane will yield higher(~20% avg) and that high yield will be of decent quality...iso is much more of an art, it takes alot of practice work and effort but if your able to tame that beast it will yield a much more pristine product..at a lower yield ~10%
https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/medicating/2848515d1381092810-first-2-qwiso-batches-please-744.jpg
The purest hash I've ever seen on any forum....almost pure white.. you can't get that quality through butane

Butane is looked down upon by the hash world (well the knowledgeable people) hexane is more non polar than butane with its longer carbon chain. It is less aggressive and allows upto a 12 hr soak before any green tint is apparent and with the higher BP it is in the same class as iso..and can be done indoors..with caution obviously

Hexane is superior to butane in every way

Butane is used because its cheap easy and foolproof
in no way is it because its better

Now then...where did you manage to find 93%
I assume that's a typo and you meant 91% as that's the azeotrope % with water
Salting out is easy enough and will give you ~98% iso..its not that big of a deal though....but collectively any marginal improvement will make a huge difference when its all said and done..thc hates light and vapor pressures aren't linear...you should evap at the lowest temp possible to not degrade compounds and preserve them(not boil off)
Naphtha and acetone and other "store" chems are nasty and possibly carcinogenic..they aren't nearly as clean as even butane..butane has to be fairly clean to not clog lighters and give a flame that doesn't sputter..

Now based on what you've said about your process....you should do a lot more reading in iso extractions if you don't want a dirty product..you want plant contact with the solvent under 30seconds and that's including filtration, freeze everything at least 24hrs

There's so much that needs said here..I suggest you scour the c&e section
Try these first... https://www.rollitup.org/concentrates-extracts/765363-i-am-newbie-extracts-questions.html
Read my post and the links that went with it

thelespauls1 said:

^^^^thanks! Thats the kind of informed response I was hoping for. Ive done my research already but there seems to be a dearth of information and data on extracts from bushweed.

How do u feel about acetone? I just tried to make a small sample with maybe 5-6gs of de seeded de stemmed bushweed with 100 ml acetone. I shook for one minute then strained through a handkerchief and let it evaporate on a wide dish. Within 15 mins with the fan on full blast id say 90% of the acetone is gone. How long should I let it dry for? Its got a very greenish goldish brownish tint to it and I can easily see vegetative matter albeit tiny settling in my evap dish. I dont mind cuz this is just a test run with some shitty weed. If it works out Ill try it out with the $4 for 200gs of bush trim and buds. Full of seeds but so cheap, I couldn't resist an experiment. Please keep the ideas flowing

Click to expand...

Acetone works fine too. I would ensure that the acetone evaporates thoroughly, ensuring no residue is left from impurities which would negatively effect the end product/endanger your health.

Just follow an alcohol extraction technique and you will get the same end product.

I'd personally go the alcohol route personally as its safer.

Fuckkk I just wrote like a huge summary of my reseatch and my phone decided to restart....

Anyways here we go again but im going to break it into a few posts for insurance incase it happens again


So basically we have

1) butane honey oil aka bho:

Pros:
Easily available for most people

Easy to build extraction tube- essentially just a capped tube with one hole on one cap for the input of the butane nozzle and a myriad of small holes on the other end for the drainage of the extract. This can be further filtered of particulates with a coffee filter.

Most popular and well known of the extracts.

Butane is highly nonpolar so it shouldnt pull too many inactive plant waxes and sugars etc which make for bad tasting extract. The teks ive seen always end up with a golden amber coloured sticky oil thats translucent and will shatter if struck while frozen. The wash time is also necessarily quick since it just flows down the tube through the bud/trim.

CONS OF BHO:

HIGHLY RISKY if done without proper safety considerations such as no smoking, adequate ventilation preferably outside when its breezy.

Must be pure and from a reliable company. The mirror residue test is commonly suggested to check for impurities. Ive also heard this works with other solvents is this true? Unfortunately the only butane available o me here in india is some no name brand that doesnt list any details, not even if its isobutane or regular. Its fairly cheap- about $2 usd for a 550ml can. Ml for ml its just a little bit cheaper than acetone here

2) isopropyl alcohol (QWISO)

PROS:

cheap and easily available for most people at ther local pharmacy. Unfortunately ive tried 5 in my area and none have it. All they have is some useless 25% ethly alcohol probably denatured but useless anyways to me.

Easy to purify to near 100% via salting out the water. Simple Nacl will do.

Quick wash of 30-60 seconds then filter drain into shallow pryex dish and let dry completely. Slowest of common solvents to evaporate though (to my knowledge)

Less risk of fire compared to butane or acetone, but still very flammable so do outdoors in breezy conditons.

Quality can be quite excellent when the tek is mastered.

CONS

I dont have access to it easily lol. Im sure I could teack some down but for now im going to experinent with the ither two first.

Long drying time.

Less selective when stripping the solutes. If over washed, nasty chlorophyll and sugars etc will make for a poor tasting product. Hence the quick wash. A misjudgement of 30 seconds can ruin a batch.

PROS

easily accesible to me. My pharmacist has pure lab grade stuff for about $0.85 usd/ 100ml

Low boiling point equals faster drying time. Nit as fast as butane but much faster than iso.

Highly nonpolar

Should be done when acetone is REALLY COLD. Supposedly this makes the extraction more selective to active molecules. Havent really read a great explanation of why this is true but I left my first experiments solvent deep in the freezer over night.

CONS

Still have to mitigate the risk of fire by going outdoors etc
Some people feel it leaves an unpleasant taste and odor. I found this to be partially true but im not sure if its from the acetone or just the poor conditions of my bush weed.

Yesterday I tried doing the acetone tek

I washed about 30g of de seeded crushed bush weed in a jar and added 100ml of pure acetone. Shook for 45-60 seconds and then drained and filtered through an old t shirt. I cant seem to find coffee filters here. India is so strange sometimes. Simple thjngs like iso or coffee filters become annoyinglyw unavailable. Missing my burgers #badhindu

Anyways I left it to dry in a shallow stainless steel plate under a fan in a well ventilated room. After about 30 mins prob evaporated 95% and by rwo hours it was dry to touch and no noricable acetone odor. I scraped this stuff up and made a very sticky black ball. I tried smoking some throug a bong with some tobbacco as a filter and it tastes bad. Not like acetone but def not like hash. Im thinking I let it wash for too long and what im tasting is chlorophyll and plant waxes. Not pleasant at all.

Now the thing is I posted earlier another thread about the poor quality and odd taste/smell of the kief from dry sifting with a 100 micron screen. Its pretty much similar in taste. Just goes to show shitty in equals shitty out. Skmething about the way rhey ry it here strips all the flavor. In my experience ive seen local ganja farmers just hang up chopped whole trees in the rafters with only a minimum of trimming. Mainly just fan leaves are removed. They dont practice pulling the males either so the seeds are quite prevalant. Im talking like 150 seeds in a tollah (ten grams). Makes me feel like its impossible to get a good extract out of my material. Im starting my own small grow so I can show my dealer what is possible with a little tlc and proper curing. I go back to the us in the beg of may and theyre just seedlings now o I hope these local genetics will ripen in time.

Until then im going to continue to look into extracts through other methods and try the acetone with skme slightly better weed. Still seedy but not as much as the cheaper stuff but still just a mids look to em. Pressed from the looks of it. About $1.85 usd per ten g.

I also tried an extraction of the cheaper charas my dealer has thats not extremely strong, but still gets you high. That stuffs about $17 usd per ten g and the best quality cream charas is double that price or the same amount. The resulting extract via acetone from the cheaper hash was much better tasting and pleasant to smoke. From 2 grams I got back about .6-.7g back. Will definetely be doing that again.

Attached are sime photos of my first attempt. Will post more as I refine my skills.

Thanks again for the great help guys. I try to do my reading thoroughly before I post, but as I said earlier theres a dearth of searchable data of peoples own experiences with refining commercial grade brick weed. So if u have personal experience with extracting from BUSH WEED please share.

From left to right:

The weed im working with

The failed acetone extract mixed with the shitty kief. Ended up looking quite similar to charas but completely different smell. Catches a flame very quick, but the smoke is just gross.

Residue from second test batch of 30g of bushweed. As u can see a lot of veg matter got in, I guess I need to find coffee filters.

First experiment with just 10gs starting materials dried unscraped residue

Kief colleected from shitty bushweed via a 100 micron si k screen. Like I said looks like kief but tastes nothing like it.

Oops double posted a pic

A piece of the high quality cream charas next to a cig for size comparison. This stuff is So awesome it doesnt need to be cleandd up. Next time I pick up the cheaper charas ill post a pic. Its a lot harder n less malleable than the good stuff but catches a flame quick and tastes decent through a bong.

Result of my cheaper hash extract of 2g starting material. I think I got like a 30-35% return which I think is good for ok hash.


Ok guys now that ive posted pics and shown that ive done my research can anyone with PERSONAL FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE WITH EXTRACTS FROM BUSHWEED please share your tek and feelings on the various methods

Thankssss

Oh yeah my next experiment with acetone is going to use a rig like one for bho. Reason being I want much less contact time with the green to reduce planr waxes and chlorophyll. Looks like even 45-60 seconds is too long for my grass. Ill report back my findings.

I started out running brick weed.. $400 a lb.. good mex, fluffy, visible trichs, nice smell when broken up and very fresh.... age and quality of the trichomes will obviously have a lot to do with the finished product.. the process to make hash from brick is the same as good bud, you get out what you put in..it can improve poor quality bud by removing traces of mold through a micron syringe..and also by removing any debris and poorly cured plant matter..a micron syringe is a wonderful tool...if your bud is over 3 months old it will be decarbed and make a taffy most likely.. if its a late chop or wasn't cared for, it will have many amber heads and that also hurts the quality.


" for qwiso you can do fresh frozen or dry frozen. Dry is more likely to be free of chlorophyll and plant juices etc.. but with a complete dry also comes terpene loss. water has a similar boiling point as the lighter terpenes(when I say terpene I mean all flavorful compounds including esters and everything else). Whether fresh or dry it should be frozen along with the solvent. Now obviously the solvent won't freeze I just mean let stabilize in your freezer. At least 24hrs.. you want it frozen to slow the dissolution into the solvent, iso is quite aggressive and you should limit contact with plant matter as much as possible(30seconds including the filtration is pretty good), it will dissolve roughly 80% of the cannabinoids on contact. The freeze will also trap any remaining moisture and limit plant acids from being leached, this is also why cutting or grinding the herb after its frozen is very important and also freezing the scissors you used. If it gets above freezing you can risk releasing the internal plant juices or freeze over trichomes preventing their extraction....freeze the mason jar as well to prevent condensation from freezing. This will tend to happen as you fill the mason jar with your frozen ground herb

I hope I'm not scaring you away from using fresh frozen..its really pretty easy but like all aspects of qwiso, can turn gnarly quickly..I tell people a lot that qwiso is very much an art. It can yield black goop or a white powder..none of the processes are to difficult but each step is extremely important.."

Take your frozen mason jar with the now frozen ground bud(not too ground, leave whole what you can, if its dense indica that might not be possible)
Take the lid disc thing out if the mason jar and replace with mesh of some sort..this mesh will hold back most of the plant matter..iso in the jar, quick swirl if you like..make sure fluid completely covers the bud..be quick, bout 20 seconds here..pour the fluid from the jar into a metal reusable coffee filter or your choice of holder that allows fluid to pass easily....no matter what you use you should double up paper coffee filters.... your not gonna want to use any heat to evaporate all that iso..within 20-24 hrs it will be ready to smoke..if its in a thin film and you didn't attempt to collect the hash before it was finished, it will be purged..you can tell when its purged by the color and texture, it will lighten as it purges and lose any multicolored creaminess, will also be shatter at room temp if done properly


If you want to learn...you have to read
https://www.rollitup.org/concentrates-extracts/765363-i-am-newbie-extracts-questions.html
All the links I put up

Thanks for the links xxx I read it earlier but it doesnt mention much about acetone as a solvent. Still excellent reading though thanks.

We don't use acetone....
The production of leaves nasties....benzene for example

U mean the acetone is not pure? It is lab grade 99.9% pure according to the bottle. I have read that some people have ended up with funky smells but I always thought that was due to either not fully purging or excess of plant waxes and chlorophyll. Please elaborate on how benzene gets into the final product.

Thanks

"Acetone is produced directly or indirectly from propylene. Approximately 83% of acetone is produced via the cumene process, as a result, acetone production is tied to phenol production. In the cumene process, benzene is alkylated with propylene to produce cumene, which is oxidized by air to produce phenol and acetone:"
http://www.chromatographyonline.com/lcgc/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=666757&sk=&date=& &pageID=2
List of 99% or better acetone analysis 21 brands

"All 21 acetone sources were found to contain four of the common acetone impurities expected; diacetone alcohol (2-pentanone,4-hydroxy-4-methyl-), mesityl oxide (3-penten-2-one,4-methyl-), phorone (2,5-heptadien-4-one,2,6-dimethyl-) and phenol"

"A large number and broad range of different chemical impurities were found, dependent upon the acetone source. These chemical impurities ranged in complexity from simple organic acids, alkanes and olefins, to a variety of substituted benzyl compounds (to highlight just a few)."