alcohol / tincture evaporation- what happens to THC

[Grow Tech]

Greetings All,
I've been doing tinctures lately and been wondering about something.

Once I have my finished tincture, how does evaporation of the alcohol through either passive evaporation or gentle heating ( i realize heating alcohol has to be done with extreme care) impact the THC concentration. My guess would be that the THC / Cannabanoinds that are attached to the alcohol that evaporates will move to alcohol molecules that have not evaporated leaving a higher THC concentration / lower alcohol concentration mixture. This is only a guess and I'm hoping someone with some chemistry knowledge can shed some light.

I realize heat degrades THC but if a gentle heating, say 200 degrees F, seems like it could tone down the alcoholic content while concentrating the % of good stuff (THC)

Much Thanks

 

[boroboro]

I'm pretty sure the THC/Good Stuff will stay behind when boiling down a tincture. You probably wouldn't even get to 200F, since ethanol boils at a lower temperature.

If you cooked away most or all of the ethanol, would the dissolved THC start to precipitate out? Dunno, but as I understand it THC dissolves well in alcohols but not too much in water. If you're starting with pure ethanol this wouldn't happen, but something like Bacardi 151 might boil down enough to leave primarily water behind.

I cook the tincture (just starting to boil) for an hour or two, but in a sealed container. I usually end up with about 90% of what I started with, with a lot of the remainder probably staying in the buds that are strained out.

How strong are you making it?

 

[panopticist]

Hey, you should check out Smoking Moose's tincture thread...

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=97190

He makes it sound like adding heat to a tincture degrades the overall quality. In a few of his posts in this particular thread he talks about using Cointreau as a good alcohol to make tinctures with. It's 43% alcohol which is enough to pull out most of the THC, but isn't as astringent/strong as something with 50% or more alcohol content.

Sounds like just what you need.

The idea is to let it sit long enough to completely saturate the alcohol with THC from the beginning using a slightly lower strength alcohol, rather than boiling off excess higher-strength alcohol at the end (losing THC in the process).

Either way, his thread is one of my favorites concerning tinctures and has a lot of good info in it. Go check it out...

 

[Grow Tech]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I have seen ( and posted) on smoking mooses thread. I mentioned passive evaporation in my question here too. I believe heating at some point is critical to convert the THCA to THC but i usually accomplish that by heating my herb prior to soaking in 100 proof schnapps. I soak my herb in a jar for a week then pull the herb out and put a fresh batch of THC-THCV converted herb into the same alcohol.

If I were to leave my jars uncovered for a period of time, the resulting tincture will surely have some of the alcohol evaporate off even without heating.

Thanks again for posting

 

[bounty29]

The issue of heating tinctures needs some more discussion, Smoking Moose said it degrades the quality but what is his definition of quality? He's of the view that tinctures are solely for medicinal use. The best guide I saw on making tinctures definitely included heating it and boiling off some of the mixture, this was supposedly a key step in making the tincture really effective. I haven't tried it, but I've seen people vouch for just about every way.

 

[panopticist]

The issue of heating tinctures needs some more discussion, Smoking Moose said it degrades the quality but what is his definition of quality? He's of the view that tinctures are solely for medicinal use. The best guide I saw on making tinctures definitely included heating it and boiling off some of the mixture, this was supposedly a key step in making the tincture really effective. I haven't tried it, but I've seen people vouch for just about every way.

I'd like to see the guide you've mentioned...

I've not made a tincture, but am increasingly interested in the idea. I'm not interested in using it medicinally, so your method might be what I'm looking for. Either way, I'd be interested in seeing how the two methods stack up.

 

[bounty29]

That's the real shitty part, it was on these forums but the member deleted his account and posts and pictures. Let me see if I can dig anything up...

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=38833

I'm sure you could scrounge up enough info from quotes and other posts to figure it out for the most part.

 

[boroboro]

Hey, thanks for the tip, I hadn't read that before. The anti-heat viewpoint, though, seems to be coming entirely from Smoking Moose. He may be speaking more from a medicinal than recreational point of view. Changes in CBD/CBN compositions due to heat may not be desireable for some medicinal users.

I'm a real believer in adding a bit of heat, though. See this thread: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=95343

I have so little experience, though, that it's hard to say. I've only made a few tinctures without heating, and there's probably been so much variation in bud quality that it would be hard to keep track of all the causes and effects.

 

[bounty29]

Hey, thanks for the tip, I hadn't read that before. The anti-heat viewpoint, though, seems to be coming entirely from Smoking Moose. He may be speaking more from a medicinal than recreational point of view. Changes in CBD/CBN compositions due to heat may not be desireable for some medicinal users.

Exactly what I was thinking. Not heating may result in more medicinal oriented tinctures, but that's not what I was looking for. Once I have some excess bud maybe I'll try a side by side with and without heat.

 

[panopticist]

That's the real shitty part, it was on these forums but the member deleted his account and posts and pictures. Let me see if I can dig anything up...

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=38833

I'm sure you could scrounge up enough info from quotes and other posts to figure it out for the most part.

I see what you mean...

So it sounds like this guy would take 9 grams of bud and leave it in a fifth of Bacardi 151 for a week or two. After a while, he'd reduce this mixture down to 2/3 or 1/2 and then consume one shot at a time.

It might have something to do with the boiling, or it might have something to do the the dosage taken. Smoking Moose is recommending a few drops sublingually or a few sprays in the mouth, while the original poster of the link Bounty pointed to is downing 1.5 oz per dose.

Personally, I'd take the shot. Sounds like fun.

The only thing that throws me about heating the tincture is the fact that THC is alcohol soluble. That means that the THC wouldn't suspended in the liquid, but would become a part of it, right? Therefore burning off alcohol is burning off THC? I'm no scientist...

If it's the decarboxylating effect of heating that you're looking for, I'd imagine that that'd be better served by heating the bud prior to placing it in the alcohol.

 

[bounty29]

I distinctly recall him saying he'd put water in a crock pot type thing, and then put the bottle of bud+151 in that until and inch or two had boiled off. He also added water back to the boiled off solution to get it back to the original volume.

It was definitely 9g per fifth of 151. Being alcohol soluble means that the THC will bond to alcohol, evaporating it off however will not diminish the amount of THC. Just thing about how BHO and ISO are made. They run alcohol/butane through the bud, all the good stuff bonds, and then they evaporate off all the alcohol/butane, leaving behind nothing but the good stuff.

 

[panopticist]

I distinctly recall him saying he'd put water in a crock pot type thing, and then put the bottle of bud+151 in that until and inch or two had boiled off. He also added water back to the boiled off solution to get it back to the original volume.

It was definitely 9g per fifth of 151. Being alcohol soluble means that the THC will bond to alcohol, evaporating it off however will not diminish the amount of THC. Just thing about how BHO and ISO are made. They run alcohol/butane through the bud, all the good stuff bonds, and then they evaporate off all the alcohol/butane, leaving behind nothing but the good stuff.

Gotcha.

 

[Papulz]

i usually end up with about a 2-3 gram dose of liquid containing about .125 grams of dissolved hash. you could theoretically get different doses down to the max saturation point of the oil in the solvent.. just use a gentle double boil or uncap it.

everytime i make it i use heat to aid the extraction.. and there certainly is a change of effects when you heat the tincture long enough.. similar to the change in a baked good.

 

[mazzakush]

what about a middle ground of not boiling it all off and just trying soaking herbs in alcohol for a while and then heating it gently.... maybe put it back and add more fresh herb?

I've only done cool tincs and warm oils (oh, and cool oils) before... no heated tincs... sorry can't help with experience

 

[bounty29]

One thought I've had, not sure if it's relevant or not...

You can get effects from eating uncooked straight cannabis, but you need to ingest a somewhat large amount of it. If you cook it, you need less. Would this hold true to tinctures? No heat tincs needing more bud than heated ones to get the same effect? I'm still unclear about the effects of heating and decarboxylization and how it pertains to different ingestion methods.

 

[Grow Tech]

Hey All,
It sounds like smoking moose starts with some very good water extracted then BHO'ed medicine. I am using tincture / alcohol extractions on roughly manicured herb so I have no illusion of being able to achieve the 6-8 drops dosage. What I have been able to achieve using a recipe I received from Vancouver Island Compassion Society is 6 sprays from a fine mist bot.tle works. Heres ther link for that recipe
http://www.thevics.com/cannamist_recipe.htm
Their recipe starts with the conversion of THCA-THC (decarboxilation)

Here's what they have to say about the topic

"In whole-plant cannabis, THC content is expressed as THCA (tetrahydrocannabolic acid) prior to decarboxilation into THC, which takes place when cannabis is heated during cooking, and smoked or vaporized ingestion. THCA is a mild analgesic and anti-inflammatory but does not have good affinity with our CB1 receptors, so in order to make a THC-rich tincture that has many of the same therapeutic effects as smoked ingestion (including rapid absorption, quick relief and ease of self-titration), we must convert the THCA in the plant matter into THC prior to extracting it through an alcohol "

Their process involves heating the herb prior to putting it in the alcohol. Greater potency is achieved by running the same alcohol over two batches of herb over the course of a couple weeks. Go check the link for complete details.

Only thing is that due to all the plant material used and the room temp "steeping" environment those two weeks, it def has a "green" taste. Not horrid but not yummy.

I'm willing to give up the faster onset of effect and have really been enjoying using my tincutre / alcohol based extractions to make edibles. There are a ton of "Liqour Cake" receipes out there and Medicated Banana Fosters over waffles is one of the best ways to start a Sunday i've found. Done right the green taste just blends into the food. Thing is...to avoid screwing up the recipes I want to start with as concentrated tincture as possible. This is where my intrest in evaporating a % of my volume off lies. If you leave a jar of 100 proof liqour out / un covered it will reduce down pretty quick. Even a 25% reduction would help. I guess the question is if the exposure to oxygen and extra time at room temp ( I would evaporate it off after straining out the plant material soaked for 2 weeks) would be counter productive.

Peace & Medicated Orange Spice Muffins

 

[bounty29]

I'd bet a water cure would get rid of that green taste!

 

[Grow Tech]

Very interesting...I guess I have another thing to research

 

[Guest 26753]

Sorry to chime in late here. There are great ideas coming out of this thread. I can only coment on my own experience. The real trick with any tinc is to get 100%THC saturation of the available alcohol, yet still have a palatable product - keeping in mind that sub-lingual application is the fastest uptake, directly through the many arteries under the tongue. Very little makes it into the GI as most uptake is in the mouth, not through swallowing. GI uptake of the tinc gives a very different effect, due to the liver impacting on the cannabinoids.
I know that Mullaway has found a way to do this very efficiently with his tinctures.
When you don't have heat as a factor you will find that more of the volatile terpenes will travel with the extraction process. More terpenes means more flexibility in tailoring a tinc to an illness.
Recreational users do not have these issues, and using heat to activate, as well as saturate, gives a kick ass stone. There is no real high with tinctures, so it is a very sedative effect. Med tincs are more refined I guess, and more suited to clinical application than recreation.
I am keen to try the heat activated tinc just for the hell of it.
Great thread!

 

[Grow Tech]

I'm still hoping someone can tell me what happens to the "good stuff" ( THC , turpentines ) that's dissolved in the alcohol as some of that alcohol evaporates off. My guess is it moves to the remaining alcohol to the point of saturation upon which it would start to precipitate out. I base this on what I've seen with ISO hash/oil. I'd just like someone with an understanding of chemistry to explain the science of it all.

Peace