I came across some material called “Purple Dragon” recently. It’s intensely purple. Not the “oh maybe it’s a little purple compared to this one over here” but “holy effin purple!”.
I realize that in absolute terms, the color Purple does not necessarily mean cannabis is good, it is just a pigment that you happen to be able to see in the absence of other pigments. Still, I do feel like there may be *some* ideal qualities that come with the color purple (or put another way, benefits because of what may be missing).
I’ve done some basic research and run several experiments, even discovered “Liquid Chromatography” by accident during one of the experiments. Allow me to brief you on my limited knowledge:
There are 3 major pigments in most cannabis: Green (chlorophyll), Orange/Yellow (Carotene and xanthophyll tho I’m grouping these here for simplicity) and Purple (Anthocyanin).
Most Cannabis has the color purple in varying degrees. Normally, chlorophyll levels are high enough to mask it and we can’t see the purple. Cold temperatures, genetics as well as various stress factors can force the cannabis into an ‘end of season’ mode where it will stop production of chlorophyll and instead rely on other pigments for photosynthesis. Anthocyanin can act as sunscreen against damaging UV light. Anthocyanin can also help a plant absorb more light without reaching photoinhibition and will also help plants convert all their remaining sugars to energy before leaves fall off. This is the same process that causes trees to turn red every fall and then lose their leaves. Put another way, Anthocyanin is the perfect tool to help plants manage declining photosynthesis and to help them squeeze out the last bit of energy out of the food stored inside themselves.
Taking that line of thinking slightly further, Anthocyanin seems to help the buds “Cure” a bit while still on the plant. This is new subject matter so these are fresh thoughts, let me know if this sounds a bit crazy.
We all know that chlorophyll can make for a harsh smoke and will gunk up hash oil in poor extraction. Knowing that purple cannabis is extremely low in chlorophyll, could it be possible that purple cannabis is in general a ‘smoother smoke’? Properly slow cured cannabis should have lower levels of chlorophyll also (though my feeling is that it still has much more). Of course there’s the chance that anthocyanin is just as harsh when it exists in high concentrations. Does anybody have this information?
I was curious to make some Hash out of this Purple Dragon. I did some research and ran some experiments.
Anthocyanin is water soluble, like Chlorophyll is to an extent. Carotene and xanthophyll are NOT water soluble. So a well done QUICK iso or ethanol wash (90% or higher) will get a golden oil with little if any purple. A BHO run will be completely yellow/gold as Anthocyanin does not seem to dissolve at all into butane.
With 90% ISO, the iso doesn’t start picking up visible purple until after 5 minutes although it will appear purple once scraped up.
Using 70% ISO, the iso will turn purple fairly quickly, and it will take on a deep brown/purple tone if left for over 5 minutes.
(in both cases I’d like to point out that most ISO washes I have done using regular green bud, the iso turned dark WAY faster, leading me to believe this stuff has much lower levels of chlorophyll).
Now during evaporation of the 70% is where things get interesting. Because the ISO evaporates more readily than water, when the evaporation is nearing the end you will have a higher concentration of water. At this point the orange carotene will precipitate (PPT) out as orange/brown chunks on top of the liquid and this can be poured through a coffee filter like winterizing. (NOTE: I’m pretty sure these “precipitates” contained lots of active THC but I wasn’t going for pure oil here, I was going for Purple oil just for fun).
I did this, and the coffee filter trapped these brown chunks and a pink/purple liquid came out. From here things got a bit messy, because I was basically evaporating an unknown mix of iso/water and precipitation abounded as the film evaporated. This is what I meant by “accidentally discovering liquid chromatography” above. As the mix fully dries, it will form rainbow rings according to the % of iso at the time of that ring’s evaporation. Typically this will look like purple puddles surrounded by orange or yellow rings on the outside. If you warm and scrape this, it will look a deep purple. It will smoke well but it will be fairly high in residue (as seen on glass nail after dabs). After all, in this process I went out of my way to add extra water to pick up an ‘undesirable’ pigment.
What I am curious about, is if there’s anything that can be done to keep the % of iso more constant during the final evaporation, to avoid the pigments precipitating out at different rates (aka, accidental chromatography? Hehe).
Also, during the first stage where I filtered out orange/brown PPTs, is there a chance that I basically filtered out the majority of the actives?
I am interested if there is a way to extract the color purple into the hash without losing potency through PPTs which may contain actives. This is mostly just for fun as there’s no practical reason (that I know of) to want it.
Part of me just wants to see some purple shatter, although I realize it is likely impossible.
I realize that in absolute terms, the color Purple does not necessarily mean cannabis is good, it is just a pigment that you happen to be able to see in the absence of other pigments. Still, I do feel like there may be *some* ideal qualities that come with the color purple (or put another way, benefits because of what may be missing).
I’ve done some basic research and run several experiments, even discovered “Liquid Chromatography” by accident during one of the experiments. Allow me to brief you on my limited knowledge:
There are 3 major pigments in most cannabis: Green (chlorophyll), Orange/Yellow (Carotene and xanthophyll tho I’m grouping these here for simplicity) and Purple (Anthocyanin).
Most Cannabis has the color purple in varying degrees. Normally, chlorophyll levels are high enough to mask it and we can’t see the purple. Cold temperatures, genetics as well as various stress factors can force the cannabis into an ‘end of season’ mode where it will stop production of chlorophyll and instead rely on other pigments for photosynthesis. Anthocyanin can act as sunscreen against damaging UV light. Anthocyanin can also help a plant absorb more light without reaching photoinhibition and will also help plants convert all their remaining sugars to energy before leaves fall off. This is the same process that causes trees to turn red every fall and then lose their leaves. Put another way, Anthocyanin is the perfect tool to help plants manage declining photosynthesis and to help them squeeze out the last bit of energy out of the food stored inside themselves.
Taking that line of thinking slightly further, Anthocyanin seems to help the buds “Cure” a bit while still on the plant. This is new subject matter so these are fresh thoughts, let me know if this sounds a bit crazy.
We all know that chlorophyll can make for a harsh smoke and will gunk up hash oil in poor extraction. Knowing that purple cannabis is extremely low in chlorophyll, could it be possible that purple cannabis is in general a ‘smoother smoke’? Properly slow cured cannabis should have lower levels of chlorophyll also (though my feeling is that it still has much more). Of course there’s the chance that anthocyanin is just as harsh when it exists in high concentrations. Does anybody have this information?
I was curious to make some Hash out of this Purple Dragon. I did some research and ran some experiments.
Anthocyanin is water soluble, like Chlorophyll is to an extent. Carotene and xanthophyll are NOT water soluble. So a well done QUICK iso or ethanol wash (90% or higher) will get a golden oil with little if any purple. A BHO run will be completely yellow/gold as Anthocyanin does not seem to dissolve at all into butane.
With 90% ISO, the iso doesn’t start picking up visible purple until after 5 minutes although it will appear purple once scraped up.
Using 70% ISO, the iso will turn purple fairly quickly, and it will take on a deep brown/purple tone if left for over 5 minutes.
(in both cases I’d like to point out that most ISO washes I have done using regular green bud, the iso turned dark WAY faster, leading me to believe this stuff has much lower levels of chlorophyll).
Now during evaporation of the 70% is where things get interesting. Because the ISO evaporates more readily than water, when the evaporation is nearing the end you will have a higher concentration of water. At this point the orange carotene will precipitate (PPT) out as orange/brown chunks on top of the liquid and this can be poured through a coffee filter like winterizing. (NOTE: I’m pretty sure these “precipitates” contained lots of active THC but I wasn’t going for pure oil here, I was going for Purple oil just for fun).
I did this, and the coffee filter trapped these brown chunks and a pink/purple liquid came out. From here things got a bit messy, because I was basically evaporating an unknown mix of iso/water and precipitation abounded as the film evaporated. This is what I meant by “accidentally discovering liquid chromatography” above. As the mix fully dries, it will form rainbow rings according to the % of iso at the time of that ring’s evaporation. Typically this will look like purple puddles surrounded by orange or yellow rings on the outside. If you warm and scrape this, it will look a deep purple. It will smoke well but it will be fairly high in residue (as seen on glass nail after dabs). After all, in this process I went out of my way to add extra water to pick up an ‘undesirable’ pigment.
What I am curious about, is if there’s anything that can be done to keep the % of iso more constant during the final evaporation, to avoid the pigments precipitating out at different rates (aka, accidental chromatography? Hehe).
Also, during the first stage where I filtered out orange/brown PPTs, is there a chance that I basically filtered out the majority of the actives?
I am interested if there is a way to extract the color purple into the hash without losing potency through PPTs which may contain actives. This is mostly just for fun as there’s no practical reason (that I know of) to want it.
Part of me just wants to see some purple shatter, although I realize it is likely impossible.
