Method to Remove Contaminants from Butane (cheap&easy)

I've been struggling to figure out how to remove the contaminants from shitty butane stuck in BHO, when suddenly it struck me that you could perhaps clean the butane before using it to make BHO, something which now seems obvious... but I vape a lot of oil, so hey, sometimes I'm slow.

Towards that end, I took one of my smaller (8"x2"OD) glass extraction tubes and filled it halfway with activated carbon and half with fullers earth then fixed a screen on the wide end, so the extraction tube was loaded as it would be with herb. The tube I had laying about as I no longer use that method of extraction; I now use the chilled butane in a jar soaking method, its much more efficient and yields much more and needs no special equipment besides. The carbon and fullers earth I got off of Amazon for a couple bucks each. The filter was metal mesh and came with the tube, but Id imagine a brown coffee filter would do just as well, as would a homemade extraction tube.

I ran 1 can of contaminated Vector 5x from a case I had previously found to have upwards of 5g lubricant oil per can and 1 can of Powerlite from a case I had previously found to be contaminated with a small amount of oil and a (relatively) large amount of mercaptans. I emptied each of these into their own evaporation dish (9" Pyrex pie pan) and left them outside on a pot of hot water to evaporate. No greasy residue nor smelly mercaptan was detected, a remarkable improvement! Both dishes were sparkling clean.

This suits my current extraction technique well; currently I discharge the chilled butane into the soaking jar directly, but I could just as easily discharge the butane into a tube filled thusly and let it filter down to the soaking jar. A lot more needs to be confirmed with this technique. I have no idea how much carbon and fullers earth is enough, and how many filtrations one can do per unit of carbon and fullers earth, and even if this is truly removing 100% of the contaminants. To confirm I will have to run a full case of conatminated butane and see if I get any residue, but as it is I would consider this an acceptable way to make medicine if I was unable to find any other option. IF it proves to remove all contaminants it would be a godsend: imagine being able to use the cheap $3/can butane and getting the same safe quality extract as the $8/can yields!

Dude do u even know of winterizing.

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vector shouldn't even be sold imo
don't cheap out on butane, no need to try and clean something your calling "contaminated" when there is quality butane out there
if your not willing to spend the money on good butane then you shouldn't be making extracts.
I too use the long soak method and it just isn't necessary with quality butane

this has been brought up before so, definitely a good question/idea..

Dan, no need to be snarky. Ive already done lots of tests with winterizing, and this is what I found:

In my experience, winterizing only seems to remove anything when done on BHO made with impure butane that is contaminated with "mystery oil". I clean plate test each case of butane I buy, but I've a friend who used to like Vector or whatever the scam du jour the headshop was selling. We both had an oz of the same weed, I made mine into BHO using clean butane, he made his using Vector 5x. This was a couple years ago, and I was curious about this winterizing thing bc the reasoning behind it didnt make sense, so I suggested we give it a go. We used Everclear. I winterized and filtered nothing, bc, surprise surprise, the solid waxy lipids that are cannabinoids dissolve equally well in butane and cold ethanol, as does the solid waxy lipids that make up a fraction of a percent of my BHOs (according to the local cannabinoid analysis shop). My friend on the other hand, filtered out almost a full gram of white hard wax that looked exactly like the stearic acid flakes you get for candlemaking.
What was the reason for this? After all, we used the same weed, the same extraction and winterizing techniques, the only thing different was the butane. So we clean plate tested his butane and, of course, there was a good 3g of lubricant oil contaminants. Which makes sense. The stearic and oleic acid they put into butane to lubricate lighters dissolve in butane and hot ethanol but not cold ethanol. True, both these are minor components in the plants natural oils and so could theoretically be removed by winterizing, they only make up a few mg, esp in the flower material, though even an extract of the leaf would'nt yield anything like what folks report pulling out from winterizing.
I've tried winterizing BHO made from clean butane and a couple different strains since then, never succeeded in pulling anything out. I've known folks who winterize and always filter a lot out, but they also use butane I've tested and found contaminated with oil. I should note that although the winterizing removed some of the oil contaminant from my friends BHO, it didnt remove all of it.
If you winterize and remove a lot of hard wax, try a clean plate test of your butane; discharge a can into a dish and let it evape completely. Run your finger across, then smell it. If it feels greasy or has visible oil, or it smells, its contaminated.

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My bho regularly tests as 99% actives without winterizing or other pseudoscience voodoo, and winterizing my extracts yields nothing BC I use pure butane. While we are dispelling myths here: its not the tech that determines the physical form of your extract, its the chemical makeup. THC is white powder, CBC a chunky yellow wax and CBN and the rest are brown to clear oils. You can vacuum purge and whip how you like, but you can't turn high CBN shatter into high THC budder, though heat will degrade THC into CBN and iso will oxidise it as well, so you can turn anything else into shatter. So more thought should go into strain selection if one desires to achieve earwax or budder.

It's high time to unmask pseudoscientific and tell the truth, winterization is a white mythical voodoo powder, depending on variety and method of vacuum earwax whipping.

the new ronson is best for canned butane.. check out skylighters threads on forums for best to worst list for canned butane.. the guy put alot of work . time .. effort. to show everyone.. what we should be using if we cant use a closed loop and preclean the butane before using.