Maximizing extractions

[Nickog]

If I am summarizing this right... when you make kief or bubble hash, you are breaking off the trichomes, full of their resin. You press them to break the trichomes and release the resins. There will still be trichomes left behind. The heads break off easier then the stalks.

When using a solvent, through agitation, the solvent displaces the resins, not dissolving the trichomes, but pushing the resin out of the head or stalk. The resin dissolves in the solvent. Hence, if you evaporate all the liquid, you have an oily mass left. Plus any plant matter and possible trichomes that broke off.

 

[Gray Wolf]

In a kitchen, can you tell me how I can reflux boil the extraction?

There are several easy ways that come to mind.

The first is not to reflux, but just boil the material in the open air and let the alcohol evaporate off. Just start with enough extra alcohol to leave enough to complete your process.

You can do the same thing with a Graham type condenser and salvage the cooked off alcohol. Attached is a DIY out of copper tubing and a stainless salad bowl.

You can pick up a boiling flask and Alhin condenser.

You can make a chilled head out of a stainless mixing bowl filled with ice.

GW

 

[Nickog]

There are several easy ways that come to mind.

The first is not to reflux, but just boil the material in the open air and let the alcohol evaporate off. Just start with enough extra alcohol to leave enough to complete your process.

You can do the same thing with a Graham type condenser and salvage the cooked off alcohol. Attached is a DIY out of copper tubing and a stainless salad bowl.

You can pick up a boiling flask and Alhin condenser.

You can make a chilled head out of a stainless mixing bowl filled with ice.

GW

If you can just boil off the alcohol, what would be the purpose in the reflux process other then letting you walk away and now worry about everything evaporating. I tend to let everything evaporate in a pyrex glass pan sitting in side of another pan with water. Are you saying that adding heat vs. letting it naturally evaporate at room temp helps the chlorophyll and other water soluble flavoids evaporate?
My tinctures taste terrible!

 

[cocktail frank]

when i make bho, it knocks all the heads clean off the stalks.
mainly due to the freezing temps of the spewing tane.
so i would say bho is one way to maximize your extractions.

 

[Gray Wolf]

If you can just boil off the alcohol, what would be the purpose in the reflux process other then letting you walk away and now worry about everything evaporating. I tend to let everything evaporate in a pyrex glass pan sitting in side of another pan with water. Are you saying that adding heat vs. letting it naturally evaporate at room temp helps the chlorophyll and other water soluble flavoids evaporate?
My tinctures taste terrible!

The heat decarboxylates the mix to make it more orally active and does help break down the chlorophyll.

As you have noticed cold alcohol extract produces a greeeeeeeeeeen flavored product. After cooking it will have more of a floral flavor and bouquet, but still leaves a bitter after taste because if its concentration.

Chlorophyll is water soluble, so if you freeze the plant material to tie up the water, and use chilled alcohol with quick wash techniques, you can minimize the initial pickup.

I personally remove all the alcohol from my oral meds and replace it with ingredients that taste better and speed up its absorption.

GW

 

[jump117]

Hi Nickog, thanks for your invitation!

... soaking in 96% alcohol for 30 days, ...

My tinctures taste terrible!

I know people do it, I see no reason in soaking longer 10 minutes even for making tinctures.
QWEtOH is the best basement to any further chlorophyll free drinks and drops. Ask Grey_Wolf to help.

How can you extract more of the trichomes without all the plact material? Or, is there a way to seperate the plant material from the trichomes after the extraction?

I can not comment on dry or ice-water sifting, I'm not experienced in these techniques.
From the common sense disease prevention is always easier than cure, it is much easier to prevent pollution of extract than to get rid of it later.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=137662

Cool pix, thanks!

tried freezing your bud before the extractions? Suppost to work better

Hi B. Friendly, I agree. The most effective is freezing undried plant matter. When the matter is dry I'd reccomend to re-humidify it in steamer and then freeze.
Dry plant material soaks up the solvent inside its body. Undried material is full of juice, after freezing it is full of ice, the absorption becomes impossible.
It protects from pollution.

... the vigorous 20 second shakes of lightly chopped not ground greenery leads to a satisfying yield at minimum 10% yield of original weight.

Hi Buju09, vigorous shaking improves a fluid exchange while chopping opens a previously covered parts of a flower.
Both directed to improve washing.
As vigorous shaking may rumple the unwanted plant matter as chopping does it.
Both causes a pollution of the extract together with improving an amount.

Bud structure reminds the structure of a tree with main stem and branches.
I cut off the branches using manicure scissors.
Starting from bottom to top I disassemble buds into elementary clusters.
This way I open previously covered parts of a flower with a minimal damage for epidermis (skin) of a plant.

Percentage of original weight is a semi-blind integral characteristic that includes both as efficiency of growing as the completeness of extraction.

Out of interest, what do trichomes look like under the microscope after they have been extracted?

Maybe trich heads don't dissolve or get eaten through but rather the solvent just enters in and out of trichome cuticle pores. You'd think that they must dissolve the heads or cause rupturing, if solvents can extract so much of the goods so quickly. Perhaps rather than dissolving the trich cuticles they just soften them, causing them to rupture.

The question is, how do the solvents get inside the trich heads? Do they dissolve the head cuticles (sheaths), soften the cuticles until they rupture or penetrate through cuticle pores? I've never seen any literature on this before but some micro shots of trichs after extraction may give the answer.

Hi Gunna, I have pictured them many times.
Younger trichomes dissolve entirely including the upper part of its stalk. They look like a smooth fused columns.
Seniors have halo of disc cells on top of a stalk, the remainder of the gland heads.
As we all know trichs harden with time that allows later to dry sift them without freezing. The harder the stronger it is against a solvent.
Kief-shaped residues on the filter were always a bunch of stalks, I have never seen any sheaths.
I'm not equipped enough to make good shots of what I see in microscope. Excuse the quality of pix plz.

... add ether and the oil would seperate out and float on top and you could remove it with a pipet or seperator flask.

.. or any other non-polar solvent. I used this polar-nonpolar chain even to extract from pipe resin. It works but opposite chain of nonpolar-polar works better.

The shafts are thicker walled than the bulbs and both are full of the cannabinoid oils and resins that we seek. ...
The thinner maybe already ruptured heads would ostensibly dissolve first, leaving the material in the tubular stalks last.

Hi Gray Wolf, with all my respect to you I am an adept of Paul G. Mahlberg and Eun Soo Kim.
In their description of the physiology of THC trichomes stalks do not contain useful resins. Good resin is generated and placed only exclusively in secretory cavity above the disc cells.
I quoted them as many others quoted them.

I coloured and added two ICMag photos in the original diagram from -

THC (TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL) ACCUMULATION IN GLANDS OF CANNABIS (CANNABACEAE)
Paul G. Mahlberg and Eun Soo Kim,
Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA; and
Department of Biology, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea

The perfect pictures of glands anatomy posted by Dr.Know in the thread - Trichomes Galore

I tend to let everything evaporate in a pyrex glass pan sitting in side of another pan with water. Are you saying that adding heat vs. letting it naturally evaporate at room temp helps the chlorophyll and other water soluble flavoids evaporate?

I use a white smooth soup bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.
Additional heat accelerates the evaporation and saves time. White makes collecting more visible.

when i make bho, it knocks all the heads clean off the stalks.
mainly due to the freezing temps of the spewing tane.
so i would say bho is one way to maximize your extractions.

Nevertheless, together with useful resin butane extracts some unwanted waxes and fats.
They are poorly or completely insoluble in ethanol. Some are separated at room temperature, the other after the freeze.

 

[Gray Wolf]

Hi Gray Wolf, with all my respect to you I am an adept of Paul G. Mahlberg and Eun Soo Kim.
In their description of the physiology of THC trichomes stalks do not contain useful resins. Good resin is generated and placed only exclusively in secretory cavity above the disc cells.
I quoted them as many others quoted them.

Thanks for the excellent post and new insight Jump!

I will accept it on the basis of M&K's credentials, as it is counter intuitive to me looking at the trichomes through a microscope.

I look forward to reading the whole report!

GW

 

[Nickog]

The heat decarboxylates the mix to make it more orally active and does help break down the chlorophyll.

As you have noticed cold alcohol extract produces a greeeeeeeeeeen flavored product. After cooking it will have more of a floral flavor and bouquet, but still leaves a bitter after taste because if its concentration.

Chlorophyll is water soluble, so if you freeze the plant material to tie up the water, and use chilled alcohol with quick wash techniques, you can minimize the initial pickup.

I personally remove all the alcohol from my oral meds and replace it with ingredients that taste better and speed up its absorption.

GW

I did what you suggested and heated a tencture that smelled so bad I could not even get to tasting it! It was made with 96% polish vodka. (192 proof) After soaking and shaking for 3 weeks, I strained it and UGHHHH!!!
I heated it very slowly, for days, got it down to an oil. I mixed a tiny bit with glycrine and it looks like it is seperated into tiny black specks suspended in the glycrine. Should I use something other then the glycrine?

 

[Nickog]

I know people do it, I see no reason in soaking longer 10 minutes even for making tinctures.
QWEtoH is the best basement to any further chlorophyll free drinks and drops. Ask Grey_Wolf to help.

Help Grey Wolf! What is QWEtoH?

Hi B. Friendly, I agree. The most effective is freezing undried plant matter. When the matter is dry I'd reccomend to re-humidify it in steamer and then freeze.
Dry plant material soaks up the solvent inside its body. Undried material is full of juice, after freezing it is full of ice, the absorption becomes impossible.
It protects from pollution.

Could one place the bud/trid on a strainer, let water rinse over it without pressure or agitation, then freeze to re-hydrate dried matter or is the steaming better for adding heat or a more controlled amount of water?

or any other non-polar solvent. I used this polar-nonpolar chain even to extract from pipe resin. It works but opposite chain of nonpolar-polar works better.

What are non-polar solvents?

 

[Gray Wolf]

I did what you suggested and heated a tencture that smelled so bad I could not even get to tasting it! It was made with 96% polish vodka. (192 proof) After soaking and shaking for 3 weeks, I strained it and UGHHHH!!!
I heated it very slowly, for days, got it down to an oil. I mixed a tiny bit with glycrine and it looks like it is seperated into tiny black specks suspended in the glycrine. Should I use something other then the glycrine?

The same constitutes that are soluble in one solvent are not necessarily soluble in another. The non solubles are flocculating out. I haven’t found any of the alcohol or PET ether extracted honey oils that will completely dissolve in glycerin.

Among other things, the 8% water in your Polish vodka would have picked up the water soluble chlorophyll, which is non-soluble in glycerin.

You can chill the glycerin in the freezer to change the density between the globs and glycerin, and filter some of them out using a soup strainer, but not all and as you notice, the globs aren’t tasty either.

I might suggest that do a couple of things. The first is start with a quick wash extraction, rather than a long soak, so that you don’t start out with so much chlorophyll.

The second is to consider just making the oil itself taste and flow better, so that you can take it directly. I was going to suggest searching for my post on Holy Shit sublingual, but couldn’t find it myself, so here is the Graywolf Holy Shit formula:

10 grams Honey Oil purged and decarboxylated
3 grams Virgin un-refined coconut oil (*Almond or other in cold climates)
.7 grams Cinnamon leaf oil (Newdirectionsaromatics.com)
.7 grams Cinnamon bark oil (ditto………………)
.3 grams Liquid gum myrrh (ditto………………)
1 gram Cinnamon candy flavoring oil concentrate (Loranneoils.com)

I add the rest of the ingredients to the honey oil while it is still hot from decarboxylating and reheat it while stirring well, before decanting into dropper bottles.

• About any vegetable or nut oil will work to keep the honey oil more liquid and ease dispensing. I use coconut oil when I can, because of its medium chain triglycerides, which appear to help speed absorption. Unfortunately it doesn’t flow well when cold.

Three drops are pretty close to 1/8th (.127) grams of honey oil at the above ratios and the mixture can be taken sublingually.

GW

 

[Gray Wolf]

Help Grey Wolf! What is QWEtoH?/quote]

I'm predicting that is Muscovian for the Quick Wash process using a fine sipping grade of 190 proof 96% Ethanol.

Not sure where you are at, but we use Everclear or Clear Springs from the liquor store in Oregon.

GW

 

[gunnaknow]

What are non-polar solvents?

Try typing the term into google. You might not understand the chemistry, so to put it into layman's terms, highly non-polar solvents do not mix with highly polar solvents. Water is highly polar, so any solvent that doesn't mix with water is non-polar. Think of all the liquids that don't mix with water. All of the solvents/fuels from the crude oil (petroleum) industry, cooking oils/fats, turpentine, essential oils etc.

 

[jump117]

on re-hydration

on re-hydration

Could one place the bud/trid on a strainer, let water rinse over it without pressure or agitation, then freeze to re-hydrate dried matter or is the steaming better for adding heat or a more controlled amount of water?

To have a benefit in further extraction we need to soak up whole plant body except for trichomes over its epidermis.
Trichs have to stay dry over the surface of re-hydrated plant.
Water film or drops on the surface are not allowed. Use magnifier to control.
Trichs stalks are short and even a small amount of water on the surface will block glands from extraction.
You can use any method of humidification, steamer, spray or strainer, the way doesn't matter,
we want flexible and elastic plant matter without visible water on its surface.
In my opinion steamer do it the best way.
When nevertheless any excessive water is visible it has to be removed.
Put it in mason jar, close and place to a warm place.
After a while an excessive water condensates onto glass walls.
Replace a plant from a misted mason jar into a dry one and repeat until achieving a good condition.
Then disassemble bud into clusters, freeze it and extract.

QW (EtOH = Ethanol)
QW (ISO = Isopropanol)

 

[Nickog]

10 grams Honey Oil purged and decarboxylated
3 grams Virgin un-refined coconut oil (*Almond or other in cold climates)
.7 grams Cinnamon leaf oil (Newdirectionsaromatics.com)
.7 grams Cinnamon bark oil (ditto………………)
.3 grams Liquid gum myrrh (ditto………………)
1 gram Cinnamon candy flavoring oil concentrate (Loranneoils.com)

Is honey oil BHO? If so, can I use a different oil method?

 

[Backward_Z]

Cool thread, but I've always been wary of "get every last drop" methods.

Then again, I'd sooner go without than scrape the resin out of my bowl.

 

[gunnaknow]

Is honey oil BHO? If so, can I use a different oil method?

Honey oil is just a term used for any light yellow/brown coloured oil that hasn't been contaminated by impurities such as chlorophyll. BHO is just honey oil that has been made with butane. Many solvents can be used to make honey oil, although non-polar solvents in particular are more likely to produce a honey coloured oil. Polar solvents such as alcohols can only produce honey oils if the extraction time is very short. Unless a secondary extraction from the alcohol solution is done with a non-polar solvent but we don't need to go into all of that. The terms honey oil and butane honey oil aren't particularly accurate by the way. You may like to read a discussion that I once had with Jump on this issue.

On the other hand, solvent extractions of a resinous kind, from dried plant materials are called oleoresins. BHO fits that description, unless you use fresh, undried cannabis.....

The word "oil" is very misleading, yes. An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and is hydrophobic but soluble in organic solvents. Hash oil possess the last two properties but is only liquid at ambient temperatures if some of the solvent remains. Due to the fact that hash oil of the past almost always still contained solvent, it appeared as if it possessed all three qualities and was therefore considered an oil by many......

It could still be called BHO but the O should stand for oleoresin, not oil. Ofcourse, the word honey is as ambiguous and inaccurate as the word oil and also wouldn't be accepted in taxonomy. It certainly doesn't contain honey and it often isn't even honey coloured. However, the acronym BHO is too well recognized now to be worth the hassle of changing it, so it's easier just to keep the "H" and let it stand for hash, as it is primarily an extract from the material and substances that make hash. Solvent extracts were originally known as hash oil anyway, so it makes sense to keep the term hash. So hash oil becomes hash oleoresin and butane honey oil becomes butane hash oleoresin, BHO. People can call it butane honey oil if they want, that's their business. It might not be an accurate description but it's the getting high that counts.

It was my research on concretes and absolutes that once allowed me to inform you that alcohol would remove any waxes and oleaginous substances remaining in the BHO. However, I never went as far as to say that BHO treated this way would technically be called an absolute. This is because absolutes are extracted from concretes and BHO is not necessarily always a concrete. Concretes are typically the waxy extractions from fresh plant materials. If the cannabis is fresh and undried when extracted, then it certainly meets one of the definitions for a concrete...

On the other hand, the term “concrete” is also occupied by non-butane waxy and fatty extractions.
Sub-Zero-Concrete? Low-Temp-Concrete? LTC?

Butane hash concrete, BHC? It lends some continuity to the terms that people are already familiar with. BHO and BHC. Butane hash oleoresin and butane hash concrete.

 

[jump117]

Hi Gunna!

I believe that you have offered a very successful and understandable terms !

BHO - Butane Hash Oleoresin (from dried);

BHC - Butane Hash Concrete (from un-dried).

 

[gunnaknow]

Hey buddy.

 

[Gray Wolf]

Quote:
10 grams Honey Oil purged and decarboxylated
3 grams Virgin un-refined coconut oil (*Almond or other in cold climates)
.7 grams Cinnamon leaf oil (Newdirectionsaromatics.com)
.7 grams Cinnamon bark oil (ditto………………)
.3 grams Liquid gum myrrh (ditto………………)
1 gram Cinnamon candy flavoring oil concentrate (Loranneoils.com)

Is honey oil BHO? If so, can I use a different oil method?

What GK & J said.

 

[englishrick]

is hexane any good for taste?,,,

i used to do the dip quick method with iso but it never tasted asgood as BHO,,,,im searching for optimum taste

will BHO make the most tasty`est product?,,,

i use a handblow pryrex tube for BHO extaction at the min,,,an when ive got time i freeze the plant matter to stop the clorophill from leaching,,,,how can i achive the optimum taste from my product?,,can i improve on my current method?

it seems the dip method is supirior to the honneybeeextratortube,,,,,,,, if only the solvent were non polar the dip method would rain supreem,,,would it not?