winterizing ftw

G

goalie

Active Member
i tried winterizing a few times and i love it so much that i don't even care that it does not have great taste like my non winterized bho.

I am still trying to figure out if i like thermos soak vs blasting more, but i definitely love winterizing more than extracting / heat purging and vac purging.

With vac purging i was not very successful and i never knew if things were finished or if i was doing it properly, but winterizing really seems to have taken the guess work out and i love it.

currently working on more runs and taking pics to eventually post on absolute-shatter.com :D
 
Grow Goddess

Grow Goddess

Well-Known Member
With my experience with my iso extracts, at least with the QWISO, 4 different strains compared, all 4 after winterizing with 190 proof grain alcohol, the individual flavors were gone. I wish I did more comparing with the batches before winterizing. I just did small samples of each.
First impression for me with top notch oil, if I winterize it, it removes the flavors, but it will make it a bit more potent and more smooth, and less color.
With a lower quality oil, I always winterize it and it is 100% worth it.
I have nothing against letting 10 or 20 grams of oil sitting in a purge pan for 2 weeks with a coffee filter over it to keep the dust out and let it naturally purge until it is like a sap or shatter depending on the strain and dryness of the environment.
 
francy420

francy420

Well-Known Member
Grow goddess I almost always winterize and I don't think I lose much flavor at all actually prefer the taste to non winterized. Not sure how you are evaping but don't use any heat in the process. I usually evap my solution in a thin film for 24-36 hrs. it will still have some ethanol in it at this point. Then I vac it at 100-110 degrees and walla some crazy tasty, crazy stable shatter. Left it in my car yesterday sitting in the sun in 80+ degrees. Car was prob. over 110 and the shatter was still super brittle at 110 deg.
 
WattSaver

WattSaver

Well-Known Member
It mostly has to do with temp. Most flavor and scent terp's have a very low evaporation temp.Most of the medicinal terps have a evap temp near the THC temp. I never exceed 80 when drying out after winterizing, to keep what flavor I can (it can take me a couple of wks for a run). But many flavor & scent terps are somehow attached to the waxes that are filtered out. Just this afternoon I filtered a run, and when done and the coffee filter had dried a bit I took a wiff of the filter on the way to the trash, and the scent was very floral. So some of the terps are trapped in the wax, but not all. I prefer the winterized over not and I still can taste the difference between strains.
 
Blunter the kid

Blunter the kid

Well-Known Member
WattSaver said:
It mostly has to do with temp. Most flavor and scent terp's have a very low evaporation temp.Most of the medicinal terps have a evap temp near the THC temp. I never exceed 80 when drying out after winterizing, to keep what flavor I can (it can take me a couple of wks for a run). But many flavor & scent terps are somehow attached to the waxes that are filtered out. Just this afternoon I filtered a run, and when done and the coffee filter had dried a bit I took a wiff of the filter on the way to the trash, and the scent was very floral. So some of the terps are trapped in the wax, but not all. I prefer the winterized over not and I still can taste the difference between strains.
Click to expand...
You really purge your alcohol off at 80 degrees for a week?
I would think the alcohol would just pull moisture from the air, and by the time the alcohol is all gone, small amounts of water would be left in the dish, do u take added measures to control the humidity of the environment your purging in or was that not necessary?
Also OP if you were worried about losing terpenes during your winterization procedure then why not just use methanol, its got a bp 30 degrees below IPA or ethanol, i would say methanol or acetone would be the best choices for winterizing.
Regardless of what solvent is used you won't be disappointed if you drop in some dry ice to freeze your solution, it speeds things along and winterizes more thoroughly than placing it in the freezer the only thing to be cautious about is putting in too much dry ice at one time because it will start violently boiling lol
 
WattSaver

WattSaver

Well-Known Member
Blunter the kid said:
You really purge your alcohol off at 80 degrees for a week?
I would think the alcohol would just pull moisture from the air, and by the time the alcohol is all gone, small amounts of water would be left in the dish, do u take added measures to control the humidity of the environment your purging in or was that not necessary?
Also OP if you were worried about losing terpenes during your winterization procedure then why not just use methanol, its got a bp 30 degrees below IPA or ethanol, i would say methanol or acetone would be the best choices for winterizing.
Regardless of what solvent is used you won't be disappointed if you drop in some dry ice to freeze your solution, it speeds things along and winterizes more thoroughly than placing it in the freezer the only thing to be cautious about is putting in too much dry ice at one time because it will start violently boiling lol
Click to expand...
Yes I'll let it air dry, I put a kitchen towel over the top to keep the dust out. In the winter I may have to place on a low temp heating pad. I'm no anal scientific type so my temps do fluctuate, but I never exceed 100. I do have an advantage with humidity, I live in an arid local 25-35% normal.
 
G

goalie

Active Member
I am out of everclear and until i get more ive been thinking how i can improve my science.. for those who winterize, do you blast right into everclear, or do you water purge most butane THEN add everclear? im trying to figure out how much everclear to be adding and im finding SO many different answers online.. Usually im running 14 - 28g of flowers and kind of just eyeballing the everclear.... any advice is appreciated :)

edit - also... do temps affect winterized oil the way they do with regular blasted bho? After i winterize i usually let it air dry but then i put it on a water bath to make it tacky enough to gather together more easily - can a temp too high affect the color or consistency the way it can with regular bho that still has its waxes/fats in it?
 
Last edited:
WarMachine

WarMachine

Well-Known Member
I wait til almost all the butane is naturally gone and then I add the EC or ISO. Bubbles a bit and then stops.
 
francy420

francy420

Well-Known Member
I add ethanol right after blast. I read at a very reputable site that you add ethanol at 1 part ethanol to 2 parts butane. So if after blast you have 350mL of solution add 150mL of ethanol. Wait till bubbles stop when stired.
 
WattSaver

WattSaver

Well-Known Member
I don't think it matters how long you wait if you are going to heat and purge. I personally will wait several days after popping butane bubbles a couple of times.

As far as how much EC to add, it's not a ratio to the butane you used. It's a question of how much oil can be suspended in each oz of EC. So now you have to predict your end product.

I've found that 2.5 gms of oil can be suspended in 1oz of EC. I'm sure the threshold is higher than this but that's the max I've tried.
 
G

goalie

Active Member
Thanks for all the great replys gents. I had an interesting winterization experiment. A buddy gave me an oz of nugs that looked great, but i found when this bud was tested in a j the ash was really dark black and it kept going out and didn't taste great. Figuring it was not leeched properly . Anyway it was free so i bought a new 1 oz glass tube extractor, blasted it, winterized it, and the end product was really dark black and tacky. I HAD NEVER TRIED VACCING THE ABSOLUTE THAT rESULTS from winterization, because its always rock hard like candy, but decided to try it with this stuff and HOLY CRAP it reacted a lot under vac. Infact i tried for many many hours and it never stopped reacting. I tried it and its yucky and i'll probably just give it away. Any thoughts?
 
qwizoking

qwizoking

Well-Known Member
a j the ash was really dark black and it kept going out and didn't taste great. Figuring it was not leeched properly




Well, no to that....
 
WattSaver

WattSaver

Well-Known Member
I don't understand getting black oil from butane. Obviously something was wrong in the grow.
Was there any mold scent of taste?
 
J

JointOperation

Well-Known Member
alcohol boils off at higher temps.. meaning u lose mono terps .. so ya.. u do lose shit.. thats why people are using butane.. and other thing with low boiling points.. the lower the temps needed to evap and purge.. the more terpenes are saved in the process!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top