Happy Pi Day

prostheticninja said:

You would probably have a better time grabbing the ISO off the shelf and whipping up a pan of that rather than the straightener for rosin. In my experience, it's waaaaay easier to mix together some trimmings and alcohol, strain it, and wait for it to evaporate than it is to get a respectable rosin yied your first couple times out of the gate.

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Alcohol? Straining trimmings? Meh, I think I'll just stick to what I've always done.

I have been curious about the 'vaping', though, but only because I've been taking various types of smoke into my lungs for over 30 years and I would like to live a few more years....
(I'd only wanna put weed in the vape thing, though; none of that flavored chemical crap or the like.)

prostheticninja said:

I was going to buy a t shirt press from a buddy, but after running a preliminary batch on there, I changed my mind. Rosin is oh so tasty, but I'm making oil, not candy. I would rather have an easier time making oil and still think it tastes amazing, or just clean kief.

Rosin, to me, is like a sports car: really enjoyable to use, but I wouldn't trust myself to make a good one.r

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Interesting to hear your experience, thanks. I have concentrates (@cannabineer, thank you), and coconut oil edibles and qwiso (which is ass kicking). As usual I'm just curious

curious2garden said:

I keep eyeing my 12 ton press. But I keep thinking I should try it on a hair straightener first. Although I bet if I didn't like it it would be simple to resell my plates, decisions, decisions.

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I only get around a 1/4 lb. of trim leaves at a time.

I asked someone here who knows about such things, he said not enough for big boy toys, try the hair straighter.

Big_Lou said:

Alcohol? Straining trimmings? Meh, I think I'll just stick to what I've always done.

I have been curious about the 'vaping', though, but only because I've been taking various types of smoke into my lungs for over 30 years and I would like to live a few more years....
(I'd only wanna put weed in the vape thing, though; none of that flavored chemical crap or the like.)

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Yep; alcohol. Either Everclear or the kind you get from the drug store to clean your wounds (but when you're in a pinch, what's the difference ). All you gotta do is stick that in the freezer like you are looking to actually enjoy your alc and not slug it down like a bum. Put your trimmings or bud or whatever you want to use in a mason jar and stick that in the freezer when you put your alcohol in there. Take a nap or go to a show or something.

After that, when your gear is good and chilled, dump the alcohol until it just covers your frozen greens. Mix it together with a fork for like a minute or so, then use that fork as a strainer and you transfer your alcohol to another mason jar. Once you have transferred all the alcohol from the original, mixing, jar to the other one you just put two coffee filters in mouth of another mason jar. Use the band to hold the filters, then dump your liquid though. Once it's filtered, dump it in a Pyrex pan and wait for a few hours to days until it's done. Be careful though! No bowl breaks around the pan as the fumes are flammable (I have evaporated literally a gallon of alcohol at once, more than once, and have never had a fire/explosion practicing common sense methods like airing out my porch when I have to evaporate in there or evaporating in my truck with the windows down in the summer).

I hear you about just smoking buds though. I much prefer a super dank nug than a couple really good dabs. There's just something that is lost in translation. Less so in drysift or bubble hash, but there is definitely something lacking in hydrocarbon solvent extractions.

As far as the vape goes, I definitely get that. I have a hand me down Magic Flight Box and that thing is the bees knees. I like that it doesn't use a metal heating element like normal pens. I also have an O-Phos from W9 Tech which is an oil pen, but I have nothing but good things to say about W9. I've gotten freebies every time I have ordered, and their customer service actually has more an 86 IQ points between them so that's a refresher. Good fucking folks.

prostheticninja said:

You would probably have a better time grabbing the ISO off the shelf and whipping up a pan of that rather than the straightener for rosin. In my experience, it's waaaaay easier to mix together some trimmings and alcohol, strain it, and wait for it to evaporate than it is to get a respectable rosin yied your first couple times out of the gate.

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I would reserve the term "rosin" for solventless heat-expressed oleoresin cannabis. The other stuff is a solvent extract.

Mind you, I am a huge fan of solvent extracts and consider myself a good maker of those. I have not yet tried pressed rosin, and I am intrigued. For me, it is the dilemma between yield and quality(ies).

cannabineer said:

I would reserve the term "rosin" for solventless heat-expressed oleoresin cannabis. The other stuff is a solvent extract.

Mind you, I am a huge fan of solvent extracts and consider myself a good maker of those. I have not yet tried pressed rosin, and I am intrigued. For me, it is the dilemma between yield and quality(ies).

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Me too. Or for like a varnish/shellac type type coating.

I can make a decent batch of ISO, but my BHO game is off. I rarely ever blast, as I don't own my own chamber and pump, but I sometimes I can get at one. When I can, I have noticed I don't yield nearly as much as I thought I would. My thought is that I should be yielding at least 4% more than ISO. I think that because if ISO yields were comparable to BHO, why wouldnt people be running it on a commercial scale. I don't know. Weird shit. I'm ready to buy a set of bubble bags and give my mind a rest lol.

I think rosin tastes slightly better than solvent extracts, but to me, that doesn't justify switching methods. Like I said, I'm not making candy.

prostheticninja said:

Me too. Or for like a varnish/shellac type type coating.

I can make a decent batch of ISO, but my BHO game is off. I rarely ever blast, as I don't own my own chamber and pump, but I sometimes I can get at one. When I can, I have noticed I don't yield nearly as much as I thought I would. My thought is that I should be yielding at least 4% more than ISO. I think that because if ISO yields were comparable to BHO, why wouldnt people be running it on a commercial scale. I don't know. Weird shit. I'm ready to buy a set of bubble bags and give my mind a rest lol.

I think rosin tastes slightly better than solvent extracts, but to me, that doesn't justify switching methods. Like I said, I'm not making candy.

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I have bubble bags. Screening tastes better to me.

I think that ice water washes away a little something extra.

Of course I just do small amounts, but still I like taste. Both get you high though.

tangerinegreen555 said:

I have bubble bags. Screening tastes better to me.

I think that ice water washes away a little something extra.

Of course I just do small amounts, but still I like taste. Both get you high though.

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My newest thing that I am obsessed with is dry sifting and then pressing the Kief for rosin. Yields well, tastes superior and I KNOW when I cough my lungs out there is no way it's because of any residual solvent.

Bob Zmuda said:

My newest thing that I am obsessed with is dry sifting and then pressing the Kief for rosin. Yields well, tastes superior and I KNOW when I cough my lungs out there is no way it's because of any residual solvent.

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Good idea and good point. What do you sift it down to? You put it in filter bags when you press it? What micron?

I have this section of steel mesh that is a smaller size (micron wise) than my grinder screen. Don't know what size it is, but it cleans it up a bit. I would like to get a set of screens and do some real sifting, but I usually only have a gram or so of kief on hand so it doesn't seem like enough to make it worth it.

How do you get kief to clean?

tangerinegreen555 said:

I have bubble bags. Screening tastes better to me.

I think that ice water washes away a little something extra.

Of course I just do small amounts, but still I like taste. Both get you high though.

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I just want to smoke a huge bubble hash joint lol. Oilers are cool and all, but I think a big, chunky, bubble joint would be the bees knees.

prostheticninja said:

Good idea and good point. What do you sift it down to? You put it in filter bags when you press it? What micron?

I have this section of steel mesh that is a smaller size (micron wise) than my grinder screen. Don't know what size it is, but it cleans it up a bit. I would like to get a set of screens and do some real sifting, but I usually only have a gram or so of kief on hand so it doesn't seem like enough to make it worth it.

How do you get kief to clean?

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I have a series of screens and I also have bubble bags. I usually do dry ice through the bubble bags no water.

I only press the first bag after the work bag I think it's 73u? Or something.

I use stainless steel screens either 25 or 50 micron. They fold well and keep their shape so I make little mesh envelopes. Fill them up and press away. No contaminants that way.

prostheticninja said:

Me too. Or for like a varnish/shellac type type coating.

I can make a decent batch of ISO, but my BHO game is off. I rarely ever blast, as I don't own my own chamber and pump, but I sometimes I can get at one. When I can, I have noticed I don't yield nearly as much as I thought I would. My thought is that I should be yielding at least 4% more than ISO. I think that because if ISO yields were comparable to BHO, why wouldnt people be running it on a commercial scale. I don't know. Weird shit. I'm ready to buy a set of bubble bags and give my mind a rest lol.

I think rosin tastes slightly better than solvent extracts, but to me, that doesn't justify switching methods. Like I said, I'm not making candy.

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I believe isoporopanol has two disadvantages as an extraction solvent. The first is that it evaporates slowly and distills at a highish temperature. This means that an unforced evaporation could take weeks to remove any apparent solvent, by texture or smell.

The second is that it has a rather sharp odor and flavor. So it isn't as fall-off-a-log easy to do as blasting with butane.

I make sure my yield is high because I have a setup that purifies and recirculates the solvent. I get an extract that isn't as clean as a first-run butane batch, but I've recovered 99+% of what there is to get. That appeals to the greedy-guts in me.

cannabineer said:

I believe isoporopanol has two disadvantages as an extraction solvent. The first is that it evaporates slowly and distills at a highish temperature. This means that an unforced evaporation could take weeks to remove any apparent solvent, by texture or smell.

The second is that it has a rather sharp odor and flavor. So it isn't as fall-off-a-log easy to do as blasting with butane.

I make sure my yield is high because I have a setup that purifies and recirculates the solvent. I get an extract that isn't as clean as a first-run butane batch, but I've recovered 99+% of what there is to get. That appeals to the greedy-guts in me.

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I agree that it takes quite a while to finish evaporating as compared to other solvents I have run like acetone. Most I've ever run at once was about five and a half quarts of ISO. Yeah, I wasn't dabbing that night lol. Or the next one. Or the next

Those circulating systems are the way to do it. You can always dewax out the junk, but I probably wouldn't waste the time if it's for myself lol. Do you recover your solvent as well?

Also, what would you consider an ISO texture? I have noticed my oil always follows like a pattern where it changes states from a bit sappy, to more like wax. I used to think that it was from residual solvent, but I feel like I would be able to taste it much more strongly, especially when it is sap like.

prostheticninja said:

I agree that it takes quite a while to finish evaporating as compared to other solvents I have run like acetone. Most I've ever run at once was about five and a half quarts of ISO. Yeah, I wasn't dabbing that night lol. Or the next one. Or the next

Those circulating systems are the way to do it. You can always dewax out the junk, but I probably wouldn't waste the time if it's for myself lol. Do you recover your solvent as well?

Also, what would you consider an ISO texture? I have noticed my oil always follows like a pattern where it changes states from a bit sappy, to more like wax. I used to think that it was from residual solvent, but I feel like I would be able to taste it much more strongly, especially when it is sap like.

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I will have to give acetone a try. I generally use hydrocarbons because they give a clean extrzct "up front". However I have recently had the experience that an alcohol (EtOH) extract and a hydrocarbon extract of the same plant yielded materials with different medicinal qualities.

I used to dislike polar solvents because they can dissolve non-lipid "harshies". Now I'm wondering if I've thrown out the baby with the bathwater. I've focused on extract cosmetics more than effects.

As far as texture is concerned ... I don't think the solvent makes a big difference so long as the solution isn't heated much. My hypothesis centers on THC being liquid and THCA being a waxy solid. Ime high-THCA extracts crystallize to give the classsic "ear wax" texture, but the hydrocarbon or quick-wash alcohol extracts
aren't much different ... except the alcohols are poor solvents for the fixed plant waxes that demand an alcohol step to remove them.

cannabineer said:

I will have to give acetone a try. I generally use hydrocarbons because they give a clean extrzct "up front". However I have recently had the experience that an alcohol (EtOH) extract and a hydrocarbon extract of the same plant yielded materials with different medicinal qualities.

I used to dislike polar solvents because they can dissolve non-lipid "harshies". Now I'm wondering if I've thrown out the baby with the bathwater. I've focused on extract cosmetics more than effects.

As far as texture is concerned ... I don't think the solvent makes a big difference so long as the solution isn't heated much. My hypothesis centers on THC being liquid and THCA being a waxy solid. Ime high-THCA extracts crystallize to give the classsic "ear wax" texture, but the hydrocarbon or quick-wash alcohol extracts
aren't much different ... except the alcohols are poor solvents for the fixed plant waxes that demand an alcohol step to remove them.

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I used MG Chemical's acetone off of Amazon. No Bitrex in there like in the Walmart Reserve acetone lol.

Ive run a couple batches of ethanol oil, but never against a control. I would like to run a test like that, but I don't have the easiest access to spirits of that caliber. I bought a distillation set up a couple weeks ago though, so maybe I could figure something out.

Very interesting theory. Next time I make candy, I will keep my oil for a while, and see how she settles. The decarboxylation of the starting material would yield a product that is very high in THC-A, eh?

My theory for the state change is this: terps are just simple alcohols (to my knowledge), and like dissolves like, so when you extract it with alcohol you get a terpy product that makes your oil thin. As the volatile terps break down and evaporate, your oil takes on a waxier and thicker consistency.

Scientific, I know lol.

Man math is fucking outrageous.

prostheticninja said:

I used MG Chemical's acetone off of Amazon. No Bitrex in there like in the Walmart Reserve acetone lol.

Ive run a couple batches of ethanol oil, but never against a control. I would like to run a test like that, but I don't have the easiest access to spirits of that caliber. I bought a distillation set up a couple weeks ago though, so maybe I could figure something out.

Very interesting theory. Next time I make candy, I will keep my oil for a while, and see how she settles. The decarboxylation of the starting material would yield a product that is very high in THC-A, eh?

My theory for the state change is this: terps are just simple alcohols (to my knowledge), and like dissolves like, so when you extract it with alcohol you get a terpy product that makes your oil thin. As the volatile terps break down and evaporate, your oil takes on a waxier and thicker consistency.

Scientific, I know lol.

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I enjoy distillation. i have a setup with a long, insulated column that assists me in cleaning up solvents. I will distill any acetone I use before. Thus Bitrex etc. won't be an issue.

With acetone, a major issue is water as an impurity. Distillation is just the thing to address that issue!

Distillation is a matter of patience. Look up "reflux ratio" and "theoretical plates" if you are interested. If at first you don't succeed, do not be surprised. there is some learning curve. Acetone or vodka are two excellent test articles for learning the craft. A good thermometer is essential imo.

THCA goes to THC upon decarboxylation. Decarbed oil has no THCA or CBDA or xxxA materials.

Many of the terpenes are simple hydrocarbons, and I think of them all as oily. They are not fussy about their dance partners and will dissolve with ease into alcohols, hydrocarbons and any solvent of intermediate polarity.

I once had a batch of an Indica extract go solid. I kept some of that for "seed crystals". That worked on a newer batch. Heating that stuff made it go liquid, and it would not recover its solid state even after seeding with known solid from that same batch (before heating). This suggests to me that the THCA is responsible for the "waxification" of some extracts, especially butane extracts that were never warmed.

cannabineer said:

I enjoy distillation. i have a setup with a long, insulated column that assists me in cleaning up solvents. I will distill any acetone I use before. Thus Bitrex etc. won't be an issue.

With acetone, a major issue is water as an impurity. Distillation is just the thing to address that issue!

Distillation is a matter of patience. Look up "reflux ratio" and "theoretical plates" if you are interested. If at first you don't succeed, do not be surprised. there is some learning curve. Acetone or vodka are two excellent test articles for learning the craft. A good thermometer is essential imo.

THCA goes to THC upon decarboxylation. Decarbed oil has no THCA or CBDA or xxxA materials.

Many of the terpenes are simple hydrocarbons, and I think of them all as oily. They are not fussy about their dance partners and will dissolve with ease into alcohols, hydrocarbons and any solvent of intermediate polarity.

I once had a batch of an Indica extract go solid. I kept some of that for "seed crystals". That worked on a newer batch. Heating that stuff made it go liquid, and it would not recover its solid state even after seeding with known solid from that same batch (before heating). This suggests to me that the THCA is responsible for the "waxification" of some extracts, especially butane extracts that were never warmed.

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I have a 400mm jacketed Graham condenser. I read that should be long enough to distill most solvents. I do not have a column though, in the sense that it comes up out of my rbf to the distillation head, then to the condenser. I just use a distilation head. Is the column (like a Vigreux) necessary? I tried to run my setup the day I got it, but my cooling water didn't really flow through my condenser that well so I stopped the heating to prevent any mishaps from incorrect cooling. It may have been my water pressure though as well, as I was only using gravity to pull it through the condenser.

And my mistake with the decarbing! Makes sense though DEcarboxylation takes away a group to get THC. Considering the THC-A in that respect, your heating hypotheses does make sense. Crystal seeding with oil though? I'm not very sure how seeding works, chemically, but that's seriously cool stuff; doing it with oil. How did it go hard? Just from sitting around? Hard like shatter in a sheet, or hard like a sandstone or something where it is more loose?

cannabineer said:

I believe isoporopanol has two disadvantages as an extraction solvent. The first is that it evaporates slowly and distills at a highish temperature. This means that an unforced evaporation could take weeks to remove any apparent solvent, by texture or smell.

The second is that it has a rather sharp odor and flavor. So it isn't as fall-off-a-log easy to do as blasting with butane.

I make sure my yield is high because I have a setup that purifies and recirculates the solvent. I get an extract that isn't as clean as a first-run butane batch, but I've recovered 99+% of what there is to get. That appeals to the greedy-guts in me.

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You misspelled Isopropanol, just saying

curious2garden said:

You misspelled Isopropanol, just saying

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