Heading out to skate fir a bit and then play some disc golf with my brother. Gonna be a good day.
Tincture people,yet another question. I have reduced this down to about 1/3 of original content. It appears to have a little oil on top and also these black dots. Is this normal? The black dots look like oil droplets in the fluid.
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Ouch, I'm sorry to see that and I hope this is helpful:
I've never had mine separate like that but I use a more polar solvent (isopropyl usually). I also decarboxylate my weed so it is very dry and finally I never 'steep' an extraction. Mine is a lossy process with only about 85% retention because I hate filtration. Even with a one step with Everclear if you only shake less than 1 minute when it's absolutely ice cold you shouldn't pull that much contamination.
As you boil off the alcohol it also leaves behind (
concentrates contaminants) all those elements you don't want making your solution cloudy. The black dots are chlorophyll, longer soaks extract that as well as all the plant terpenes, anthocyanin's, trich heads, microvegetation from the shaking/shearing process etc..... BTW you can prove that by pulling out a black dot and smearing it on a paper towel and you'll see it's actually green.
At this point I'd cool my solution to 0F and pass it through a #1 lab filter, the waxes will clump and your filter will remove a lot of that. You can try it with a couple coffee filters and see if that will take out enough that you're happy with it.
Lab #1:
Add a Buchner funnel and vacuum pump and you can do it easier and faster. Actual lab filters take a lot longer than coffee filters and so the addition of vacuum speeds the process.
Lots of youtube videos about using Buchners for winterization. I hope that helps you out. If you need any specific help feel free to PM.