Making Tincture with Medshed - 2013 Recipe

Hola Rollers! I have been refining this recipe over the last couple years and finally feel like I have it in "final" form.

Here is a little pictorial of how to make alcohol/glycerine tincture. Don't worry if you are on an alcohol-free diet, the alcohol is evaporated during the process.

Ingredients To Make 1 oz Tincture
6 g Bubble Hash (I use 73, or a mix of 73 and 25 micron)
Enough Everclear to cover the hash
1 oz Vegetable Glycerin

Dose per ml = ~100mg THC (assumes 50% THC of bubble hash)
Dose per drop = ~5mg THC

Instructions
The photos below are from making a 3 ounce batch of tincture (18 grams of hash)

Break up/shred hash into small pieces



Put Hash and Everclear in 4 ounce canning jar



Shake/stir to break up some of the hash.



Place canning jar in small crockpot with water filled almost to rim of the canning jar

• This creates a water bath
• Put lid on canning jar but don't screw on, just set the lid on top

Put lid on crock, turn on crock and let cook until alcohol evaporates (about 3 hours)

• You will be left with goo at the bottom of the jar

Let cool overnight then add glycerin to jar, heat crock and stir real well



Cook for 4 more hours, stirring a couple of times then strain through a permanent coffee filter



I like to let things sit for at least 12 hours at this stage to make sure all the goodness has been filtered through. You can press the goo in the coffee filter but it tends to push small chunks through the filter and decrease the tincture quality.



Transfer final product into a dropper bottle


This recipe can be increased/decreased to whatever volume of tincture you want to
make. Just adjust the ingredients proportionately.

I have done this recipe with dry ice hash as well but the strength
will be cut in about half. I also found the end product not to be as clean
as you get using bubble hash.

Nice, seems simple enough really. Wonder how good it would be with some BHO, probably pretty good. I'm in the process of winterizing some BHO right now for the first time, using Everclear. I've had a tincture once but didn't know what to expect, and i don't even know if it was made properly. I didn't feel any different, but i'm constantly burn through the day so maybe i also smoked too much at the same time haha. Some time i want to either have an edible or tincture first thing in the morning and then just go take care of my girls and see how i feel an hr later.
If i made a tincture with BHO i'd probably use winterized bho and then just dissolve it straight into the glycerin since it's already been dissolved in Everclear and filtered once. What do you think about this with your tincture experience?

650baquet said:

Nice, seems simple enough really. Wonder how good it would be with some BHO, probably pretty good. I'm in the process of winterizing some BHO right now for the first time, using Everclear. I've had a tincture once but didn't know what to expect, and i don't even know if it was made properly. I didn't feel any different, but i'm constantly burn through the day so maybe i also smoked too much at the same time haha. Some time i want to either have an edible or tincture first thing in the morning and then just go take care of my girls and see how i feel an hr later.
If i made a tincture with BHO i'd probably use winterized bho and then just dissolve it straight into the glycerin since it's already been dissolved in Everclear and filtered once. What do you think about this with your tincture experience?

Click to expand...

I'm sure it would work with BHO. I have no idea what the dose proportions would be but it would definitely be stronger than straight bubble hash.

The only added recommendation I have is to be sure you heat the BHO/glycerine mix for 7 hours or so. Chef C shared a great article with us last year that gave the required heating period at different temperatures for maximum THC extraction. That's how I landed on 7 hours at ~170 degrees.

Credit to Jump 117 for the graph and Skunk Pharm Researchers for having such great info.
This is a neat graph approximating the max THC achievable with given temps and times.

--doesn't apply directly to tinctures though. just referencing it as "cool" lol

Thanks Med. I've been making coco caps, but dealing with caps is generally a pain. The tincture appeals to me greatly. I'll make some when/if I actually get to a harvest.

I have a question for you if you don't mind. How many ounces of buds (I assume you use buds to make the hash? Or trim?) do you need to get 6 grams of hash? Also, for the 2nd cook with the glycerin, is that in a water bath with the lid on? Thanks again, I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Hey Bubba - I've made caps before too and I feel the same way about the hassle factor. I like the flexibility of dosing with the tincture. You can easily manage your dose by the number of drops you take. Best of luck on your upcoming harvest...

Good questions. On the bud to hash conversion. I just recently started weighing to see how efficient I am with the hash process. FWIW, I hash up the entire plant except for some of the prime buds that I keep back for joints, sharing with friends, etc. The last two plants I harvested turned out like this:
* Northern Lights #5 (small plant, not vegged long) - 10 ounces of "fresh frozen" bud right off the plant, dried for about 24 hours, yielded 9.7 ounces of dried hash
* Apollo 13 BX - 27 ounces of fresh frozen bud -> 22.6 dried hash (that's what is in the photos on this pictorial)

I use a drill with a plastic paint stirrer attachment to make my bubble hash. I beat it until I see only broken trichome stalks on the plant material when looking through a microscope. That usually translates to about 20-30 minutes of stirring.

For the 2nd cook with the glycerin I actually do a water bath with the lid screwed on the jar to minimize evaporation. I forgot to mention that in the original post. In fact, I generally add a little more glycerin (maybe 10% more) than I expect to have in finished product. It seems like some of the glycerin always evaporates and/or gets absorbed in the waste material.

Now that I'm typing this message, I also remember that I had promised to post my Rice Creepers recipe for you earlier and didn't do that so here it is:

To Make the Budder
3.5 g Bubble Hash (I use a mix of 25, 73 and 120 micron)
2 T Butter
2 T Coconut Oil

Servings per batch = 32
Dose per serving = ~50mg THC (assumes 50% THC of bubble hash)

• Break up/shred hash into small pieces
• Put Hash, butter and oil in 4 ounce canning jar
• Place canning jar in small crockpot with water filled almost to rim of the canning jar
  • This creates a water bath
• Put lid on canning jar but don't screw on, just set the lid on top
• Put lid on crock, turn on crock and let cook for about 7 hours

I like to cook for a couple hours, stirring a couple of times to break up the hash and get everything distributed, then turn off crock and let cool over night. The next day cook for the remaining 5 hours.
To Make the Creepers
.5 cup Chocolate Chips
.25 cup Butterscotch Chips (optional - you could use .75 Chocolate Chips instead)
.25 cup Peanut Butter
3 cups Marshmallows
1.75 cups Rice Crispies

• Melt chocolate chips and peanut butter (I use microwave on power level 7), mix in melted budder from crock until thoroughly blended.
• Add marshmallows and heat (power level 7) until melted.
• Add Rice Krispies and stir to get even distribution of all ingredients.
• Put in 7 or 8 inch square pan and smooth out to evenly distribute the ingredients. Let cool then remove from pan - in one piece. Cut into 32 equal size squares.

Medshed

Good stuff, man! I've been fooling with tinctures a bit recently, but haven't gotten nearly this fancy. Nevertheless, my next purchase is likely to include a mini crock pot for this purpose.

Question, though: have you used any other solutions besides glycerin? I'm thinking about trying honey, but I'm not sure if it's stable enough. Also, any suggestions for a non-sweet solution like the glycerin?

Cheers, and thanks for the great info!

Thanks Jus Naturale. I have not worked with any solutions other than olive oil, glycerine and coconut oil. I think I've seen recipes that use Agave but have no personal experience with it.

Sorry - I'm kind of a one trick pony in the tincture arena. This recipe works consistently for me so I stick with it. There is a cooking section on RIU you may want to poke around there and see what concoctions you can find. https://www.rollitup.org/cooking-cannabis/

Med

Medshed said:

The last two plants I harvested turned out like this:
* Northern Lights #5 (small plant, not vegged long) - 10 ounces of "fresh frozen" bud right off the plant, dried for about 24 hours, yielded 9.7 ounces of dried hash
* Apollo 13 BX - 27 ounces of fresh frozen bud -> 22.6 dried hash (that's what is in the photos on this pictorial)

I use a drill with a plastic paint stirrer attachment to make my bubble hash. I beat it until I see only broken trichome stalks on the plant material when looking through a microscope. That usually translates to about 20-30 minutes of stirring

Click to expand...

Thanks Med. a couple of more questions if you don't mind... Sorry if I'm being a pest lol

I didn't realize that you can skip the bud curing process, but I believe that I understand... since you are looking to process the hash down to the trichomes innards, and filter out the rest, there's no reason for the slow dry yeah? And the freezer is a dryer in reality, if its a frost free fridge.

Do you have suggestions for bubble hash bags? I saw a 5 bag set on Amazon for $60... that seems low though. 1/2 hour on a drill motor driving a mixer sounds like a work out no pain no gain

Bubbagineer said:

Thanks Med. a couple of more questions if you don't mind... Sorry if I'm being a pest lol

I didn't realize that you can skip the bud curing process, but I believe that I understand... since you are looking to process the hash down to the trichomes innards, and filter out the rest, there's no reason for the slow dry yeah? And the freezer is a dryer in reality, if its a frost free fridge.

Do you have suggestions for bubble hash bags? I saw a 5 bag set on Amazon for $60... that seems low though. 1/2 hour on a drill motor driving a mixer sounds like a work out no pain no gain

Click to expand...

There is always the $42 ipower 8 bag set on amazon, I'll put up an idiot's guide when I try them on some trim next week.

Bubbagineer said:

Thanks Med. a couple of more questions if you don't mind... Sorry if I'm being a pest lol

I didn't realize that you can skip the bud curing process, but I believe that I understand... since you are looking to process the hash down to the trichomes innards, and filter out the rest, there's no reason for the slow dry yeah? And the freezer is a dryer in reality, if its a frost free fridge.

Do you have suggestions for bubble hash bags? I saw a 5 bag set on Amazon for $60... that seems low though. 1/2 hour on a drill motor driving a mixer sounds like a work out no pain no gain

Click to expand...

Hey Bubba - you are definitely not a pest. We all learn through trial and error, so I figured I'd try to help some others learn from my errors...

If you are keeping your hash to smoke, there is a bit of a curing process. Since we are talking about cooking the hash, the "curing" happens as you cook. Basically, the purpose of freezing is to preserve the buds/trim until you are ready to process them. You could also dry your material and make hash from that. I won't claim to be a hash expert. I have friends on another forum that are trying multiple methods of hash making to find "the ideal" method - and they make great hash. Their ultimate goal is Full Melt hash with relative ease of processing.

I'm just trying to get the trichomes off the plant material so I can cook with it. I want relative ease of processing to get to maximum quantity of consistent quality. I can adjust my cooking process to account for varying quality levels, but it is easier if quality is consistent from hash batch to batch.

Regarding bags, I am a fan of the original Bubble Bags. I know you can get bags for less money, but I've used cheaper bags (borrowed from a friend) and they just didn't feel like they would hold up for long. They didn't seem to be of the same quality, but they served the function just fine at the time. Much of it depends on how much hash you make. I hash almost everything I grow so I go for quality bags that will last a long time.

Finally, regarding the time on the drill. I'll just say that it is a long time, but I always spread it out over a couple hours. I'll mix for 10 minutes or so, go do something else for 30 minutes or so and come back. I am fairly seriously considering a Bubble Now machine though because I think that would make life so much easier - especially when it comes time to process the outdoor crop.

Med, do I need a 5 or 8 bag set? I also see bubble machine sets with just 3 bags. Not a big difference in price -40 bucks or so. From your recipe, it looks as though you only use 3 mesh sizes, 220, 73 & 25 correct?

Medshed I use my smaller bud and sugar leaf to make my tincture,

Why do you use hash? Isn't it more work to make the hash then the tincture?

Does it come down to dosage?

Bubbagineer said:

Med, do I need a 5 or 8 bag set? I also see bubble machine sets with just 3 bags. Not a big difference in price -40 bucks or so. From your recipe, it looks as though you only use 3 mesh sizes, 220, 73 & 25 correct?

Click to expand...

Hey Bubba. I feel like you need fewer bags for tincture than smoking. Mostly because smokers are always looking for the "full melt", which might be found from different mesh sizes depending on the strain.

I use the 220 to filter the plant material then the 120, 73, and 25 for the hash. That means I end up with 3 grades of hash. I usually keep some 73 back to smoke and use the rest for tincture and creepers. I use the lowest grade for the creepers.

Sir.Ganga said:

Medshed I use my smaller bud and sugar leaf to make my tincture,

Why do you use hash? Isn't it more work to make the hash then the tincture?

Does it come down to dosage?

Click to expand...

Sir. It is more work to make tincture from hash. Ultimately, it is a matter of personal preference. I just don't like the chlorophyll taste you get from trim/bud tincture. Tincture made from my recipe tastes just like the smell of the hash it is made from.

It is also easier to get stronger doses from hash based tincture, and I think it is more efficient. The extra plant material in bud/trim based tincture holds a lot of liquid and it is harder to squeeze out all the goodness without getting plant material floating in the final product.

I bought some Bubble Bags and I found a metal mixer for the drill motor... I would prefer plastic but all they had in plastic was a paint mixer which had small looking blades. Can you describe your plastic mixer? Is it a paddle type? Do you recall where you got it?

Also, the Bubble Bag instructions call for "mixing the material in a separate bucket" if you plan to use a power mixer. I assume this is to protect the filter from damage... Do you do this?

Last question... I promise. Do you leave the hash on the blotter screen to dry? Or put it on butcher paper? Oops that was 2 questions lol.

Good questions, Med probably has better answers, since I have only done the bubble bag process once, but what I discovered was that it messy, so need a hard floor, need 2 - 5 gallon pails, I was able to mix in the 220 bag with a metal paint stir attachment on a corded drill that kept getting wound up with material because I failed to chop up the trim finely enough, this stir attachment has smooth perimeter circular disk about 2 inch diameter with fins vertically oriented on top, learned that I should have run the material at least 2 times and not discarded after just a single wash. My nagging question is what to do with the liquid after the last screen, it must be loaded with thich contents and tossing it seemed a waste.

Is this the line to pester Medshed with questions?

Hi Bubba - I got my mixer at Home Depot or Lowes, don't remember which. It is a plastic spiral looking blade about 3" in diameter at the widest part. It is red, if that helps. It was in the paint section.

I do the mixing in a bucket with no bags in it. That way you can get all the edges and bottom without beating up your bag.

I have dried my hash on the blotter screen in the past and it worked fine. I would fold the screen over the hash and press with a paper towel or cloth towel to get excess moisture out. Then let it sit on the screen with the screen on a newspaper to soak up more water. I recently saw a good tutorial over in the Subcool section of RIU where the guy didn't use the drying screen. He squeezed the water out of the bag and then dumped the hash into a pyrex dish so he could break it.up with a knife to let it dry faster. I'm going to try that method on my next run. In fact, I bought a washing machine too.

Look up the Fench Canoli hash thread on Sub's section for more on that.

I have also moved away from using the pressing screen, i just throw the hash onto a pyrex dish, and let it dry naturally, breaking it up helps a lot though. This helps to keep the oils in the hash rather than pressing them out. Quality at least doubled doing it this way.
I had an experience this last run of my wisk chipping off metal flakes when i put it on my drill, ruined the whole batch. From now on no more drill for me, just good old hand stirring until i can justify a washing machine.
420c- i always have the same question about the wonderful water we are tossing, used to give it to a guy who put it in his coffee in the morning and it helped his stomach. Same guy whose wife called CPS, no good deed goes unpunished i guess. Now i just toss the water, always pains me to do so, but it turns bad quickly.

Good point on doing multiple runs 420c. I have traditionally done 2 runs and the second produces about as much as the first. Frenchie (in Subcool's section) says he does 5 or more runs with his washing machine method. I don't see a problem with tossing the used water. You should have gotten all the good stuff caught in your bags so the water should be just broken trichome stalks and other debris.

I tried one of the metal stirrers and didn't like it so I went back to the plastic one. I just looked it up, it is the "Workforce 5 gallon Helix" paint mixer at Home Depot.