Alcohol Extraction

motherlode · Oct 21, 2011

phenotyper said:
I basically ditched my bubble bags for QWISO hash. I have not used them in months. Just ran a gallon jar of bubba trim and popcorn, drying as we speak. THE BEST PART? PURPLE HASH OIL. Pictures coming in my other thread.

Bruno, for my gallon extraction, I used about 2 quarts of 91% alcohol. However, if you want to be frugal, you can probably get away with less. I don't mind, I'd rather waste ISO than hash.

Also, I have a great new method that worked super well for making this stuff:

You'll need:
1-2 Gallon plastic mixing bowl
Gold Coffee Filter
Cheese cloth
2 Basket Filters with varying sizes of holes (small large)
1 Quart jar
32 oz Mug (BIG)
Seedling heating mat
Latex Gloves (I don't handle any of this stuff by hand, alcohol dries out my skin too much)

First, freeze all of your trim and put the ISO in the freezer for about a half an hour before the extraction.

Stack, small filter -> cheese cloth -> big filter and then put on top of mixing bowl.

Add iso to quart with trim, shake vigorously. I like to mash it up a bit too with the latex gloves on. I'm not too worried about small impurities gained by leaving slightly longer.

Dump contents into filter. Let drain, squeeze/press it out and set aside for a second extraction (if you want).

Continue until all trim is processed.

Remove top filter.

Squeeze out cheesecloth into gallon container.

Remove bottom filter.

Now, put gold filter on top of the mug, and slowly pour the contents of the 1-2 gallon mixing bowl through the gold filter. At this point a ton of the sediment is gone so it should flow rather easily.

Discard contents of gold filter.

Pour mug or mugs into pyrex dish.

Place under seedling heating pad.

For a second extraction, I'll place ice cubes in it, run it again, and remove the what remains of the cubes.

Best of luck, sounds like you'll have a ton of killer headstash oil.

this sounds awesome - 2 questions

whats a "gold" coffee filter?

and how long you shake you iso/weed?

SodaLicious · Mar 25, 2012

this extraction was at room temperature, 72 F, 99% iso timed for 3 minutes, stirred every 60 seconds. leaf was room temp, and iso was room temp.

Graywolf · Mar 26, 2012

QWET and QWISO both produce excellent oil, but have vastly different soak times, as Iso is more agressive than ethanol. Here is how I would recommend doing it:

http://skunkpharmresearch.com/qwet-extraction/

http://skunkpharmresearch.com/qwiso/

Big Moe · Mar 26, 2012

Hello folks,
I want to jump in here as I see our friend Greywolf is present and I would urge people to follow his advice. Skunkpharm deals in science and not conjecture. Every process is finely detailed and the reasons given for each step taken are clearly explained as to the chemical changes taking place to arrive at the safest, cleanest extract.

Thanks to his vast knowledge and experience I have become a committed oil fan and I know I am getting the best product possible by following his instructions.
I would also like to mention that my very limited experience has shown me that the end product is highly strain dependent so if you are disappointed by your results, try another strain. You may be very surprised at the result by using the exact same process. My first go had a powerful punch but a gawd-awful taste but a different strain was a beautiful light amber with a complex fruity/ lemony citrus taste that was spectacular.
Trimming becomes far less of a chore when you know some nice treats are waiting to be had at the finish.

If this post sounds like I'm a Greywolf fan boy then you would be correct. I'll always take solid science over bullshit and nobody can deny that our area of horticultural interest is filled with too many examples of unsubstantiated bovine effluvia.
This isn't to say that there aren't many different ways to skin the same cat but if you're new at extraction then you'll want to decrease your chance at making a mess of it.

Howdy Grey, mrcreosote wishes you and yours the best.

Graywolf · Mar 26, 2012

Hi bro! Thanks for the good thoughts!

deep buddy · Mar 26, 2012

motherlode said:
you make oil for smoking with everclear?

mind sharing your extraction method?

I got 1.75 liter of the 190 proof and a big bag of nice trim all set to go

hey heres that tek if you still want it. i will say this most always leads to a black or very very dark oil. but it tastes like choc thai sticks.

i got this method from an older head pretty basic it also gives you tincture if you want.

we used 4-5 0zs of popcorn and sugar dry.
pour alch over material in large pot.
heat till warm not hot and let sit at least over night.
filter out plant matter.
evap to 1/5-1/10th of starting alch.
pour off alch before it evaps all the way!!! very important!!
youll be left w/ a black or dark brown oil that will dry out or harden in a week or so w/out a vac.

this is a very body narcotic type profile every time i make it no matter what strain used. idk why. but super simple.

i make iso too. his is kinda a special/boutique type thing.

Jack MeOff · Jun 2, 2012

I use Bacardi 151 proof, plus an equal amount 80 proof. I soak it for 2 months. Strain out a tincture that does not taste bad, mostly strong rum. An eyedropper full or two is roughly a heavy bong hit, but the buzz is slower and more body, and lastes longer - great for sleeping.

Graywolf · Jun 2, 2012

I make a delightfully Amber Dragon tincture by doing a QWET and then not evaporating it down all all them way.

Also a Brown Dragon pot wash, by washing out my equipment after purging and decarboxylation, with 190 proof and evaporating that down some.

Turtle Man · Jun 17, 2012

Has anyone had the opportunity to fully purify their iso and compare that to proper vac-purged bho as far as quality, taste, etc goes? Check out this general purifying tek regardless of what solvent you use:

Rough summary of the tek:
- Do a *long* iso wash with 99%, no need to rush since impurities will be removed
- Wash out polar impurities (dissolve in hot water, let cool and refrigerate, scrape/filter out goo, repeat ~3 times)
- Boil off volatile impurities (last time you do the water wash, slowly boil it off in a double boiler for ~20 minutes instead of letting cool)
- Precipitate nonpolar impurities (using a tiny bit of acetone and a saline bath in the freezer overnight)
- Optional decoloration (using charcol to remove the last of reddish color if desired, may lose terps??)

I see Grey's steps are doing some of this but not all? Just curious if such an expert might be leaving any steps out on purpose (like the charcoal filtering at the end) for taste or medicinal reasons?

Disclaimer: I am just looking the safest way to to feed a new vapor curve something yummy, if this tek can match quality with bho consider me thankful I don't have to worry about explosions and implosions so much :-) At the very least it sounds like this might just taste a little worse but in the end will have extract the same things butane would have?

jump · Jun 17, 2012

Long iso wash certainly extracts chlorophyll in abundance,
but the removal of chlorophyll with hot water does not work,
because the chlorophyll is insoluble in water.

Also, it can not be removed by winterization.

Turtle Man · Jun 17, 2012

Everything I'm seeing says chlorophyll is definitely water soluble. Random webpages and also Dr. Greywolf (see quote below) and the fact that its honey oil and not green oil all seem to confirm this.

http://skunkpharmresearch.com/qwiso/ said:
The answer to that is that because alcohol is a highly polar solvent that is soluble in water, the latter two techniques also extract the water solubles like chlorophyll and plant alkaloids, as well as the plant waxes and vegetable oil.

jump · Jun 17, 2012

With all respect to Gray Wolf, chlorophyll is soluble in ethanol, isopropyl, acetone and other polar solvents, but insoluble in water and nonpolar solvents. :)

Turtle Man · Jun 17, 2012

Ahhh very interesting. So then the next steps with the acetone and charcoal would be getting the chlorophyll right? Not quite sure what you meant by winterization but here are some more details on those final purification steps from another board:

Precipitate nonpolar impurities

To remove waxes you will need a small amount of acetone. Dissolve the goo in a few hundred ml of acetone in a jar. Prepare a saline bath by saturating water with salt and adding ice. Place the jar of acetone with your extract dissolved in it in the bath, and put the whole works in the freezer over night. The cold temperature will precipitate waxes and solidified plant fats as white flakes. The next morning filter your extract through a coffee filter discarding the contents of the filter. Evap the acetone. You will end up with a thick amber-red oil.

If nothing precipitates you used too much acetone. Evap some and start again. Exact amounts depend entirely on the weight and wax content of the starting cannabis, sorry.

This step can be repeated if you reduce the volume of acetone first through evaporation and then return it to the freezer.

Optional decoloration

Some impurities just don't fall into a neat category, or they aren't as easily removed.

To remove the last of the reddish coloration thin the oil with a bit of iso or acetone and add activated charcoal. Let stand over night. If necessary thin it out even more so that you can filter the activated charcoal out. It's hard to get it all. At this stage I thin the oil quite a bit and run it through a buchner with 5um filter paper using a vacuum pump. You may have to filter repeatedly to get the last of the activated charcoal out with a coffee filter.

Discard everything on the filter paper and evap for the last time.

After evaporating the solvent you are left with a very potent amber oil that is ready for use. It can be dissolved in propylene glycol or whatever for use in an e-cig or just smoked.

tedsprogz · Jun 17, 2012

you guys should read cannabis alchemy

tedsprogz · Jun 17, 2012

Chlorophyll a and b are not water soluble. b is more soluble than a, but not soluble.

Graywolf · Jun 17, 2012

Turtle Man said:
Has anyone had the opportunity to fully purify their iso and compare that to proper vac-purged bho as far as quality, taste, etc goes? Check out this general purifying tek regardless of what solvent you use:

I see Grey's steps are doing some of this but not all? Just curious if such an expert might be leaving any steps out on purpose (like the charcoal filtering at the end) for taste or medicinal reasons?

I've used charcoal, but don't find it necessary after a brine wash, and it takes out some of the good, with the bad and not so bad.

Iso is a moderately polar solvent and butane is a non polar solvent. They don't extract the same things and will never taste exactly the same, but you can get close.

Hexane and salt water washing polar extractions smooths them right out. You don't even have to evaporate away all of the alcohol before mixing it with hexane and brine. What you end up with after separation is a smooth mellow oil, that tastes mostly hashy, like a non polar extraction.

As far as tasty, our volunteer panels rated QWISO from dried and frozen material, tastier than BHO from dried material. QWET was also rated tastier than BHO from dried material.

The winner from a taste stand point was fresh frozen material extracted with BHO, which has some of the same floral undertones as the alcohol extractions. The word most often used to describe it was "fresh."

Fresh frozen QWET and QWISO were rated dead last for flavor, not from chlorophyll, but from a taste most often described as "soapy."

The winner from a smooth and mellow standpoint, on the other hand, was hands down BHO, because some of the terpenes that add floral taste, are not smooth on our lungs.

deep buddy · Jun 17, 2012

i lihe bho and qwiso, but i prefer iso to butane, better profile for my personal taste.

and iso is a cleaner safer end product imho.

this is from dry.

Graywolf · Jun 17, 2012

jump said:
With all respect to Gray Wolf, chlorophyll is soluble in ethanol, isopropyl, acetone and other polar solvents, but insoluble in water and nonpolar solvents. :)

Define soluble! I'm not a chemist, but I'll take a blundering run at this technical point.

I agree that Chlorophyll is polar and soluble in polar alcohols and ketones, as well as insoluble in non polar solvents.

Because it has a Mg ion, a hydroxyl group, and multiple carbonyl groups, it is also soluble in polar solvents like water, though definitely not as readily as something like a salt.

Water is how the plant transports it, and clearly soaking plant material in water in a water cure, turns the water green and bleaches out the plant, so something is happening.

Do you have another explaination brother Jump?

Graywolf · Jun 17, 2012

tedsprogz said:
you guys should read cannabis alchemy

Good read!

tedsprogz · Jun 18, 2012

The water is stripping the chlorophyll from the plant but it is not creating a solution with the water.

Alcohol Extraction

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