QWET + lazy purge + VG/PG = e-cig juice?

[sekirety]

Howdy all. I've been looking into ways to load my e-cig (a Vision with clearomizer, wick, etc.) with medication, so as to evict smoking from my life. Probably sounds familiar!

I came across a comment (trying to link, but guessing I can't yet?) where the poster reports success with a 4:1 ratio of solution to BHO, where the solution itself is 3:1 ethanol/glycerin. I think the ethanol is both to lower the viscosity and to keep the oil itself in solution.

Unfortunately, I can't easily lay hands on BHO, and (safely) making it is prohibitively ass-paining at the moment. I made a miniscule amount of QWISO the other day, and it seemed pretty good. After reading the above, I'm wondering:

Is there any reason to fully purge the QWET if you eventually want it in an ethanol solution anyway? That is, do you see any problems with making a batch, "purging" until it's a desired volume, and mixing in VG/PG? Seems like a simple/quick workflow.

Thanks everyone! This board is a great resource.
-SK

 

[exploziv]

So you want to get drunk too, not only high? cause vaping ethanol will get you very drunk fast. it could also be a danger if the vape atomizer gets high enaugh to ignite the ethanol..
I would not do that, at least not with more research and careful testing before hand.

 

[sekirety]

Thoughts on this:

1. Ethanol seems to be a pretty common base for both flavorings and "payloads" in vaping fluid. If anyone has anything to add here, I'm all ears. I read the Skunk Pharma blog post on portable pen vaporizers, in which they discuss using ethanol to suspend acetate, and then mention "flashing it off?" I don't particularly like the sound of that. But then again, I didn't necessarily mean "purge it until it's 3/4 of the desired yield volume." It seems like you could purge/reduce it enough that the total ethanol wouldn't be a fire risk, and address the viscosity/solution issue separately. (I.e., with something less flammable.)

My question is about purging: Obviously, you need to completely purge QWISO because you don't want to vape isopropanol. Vaping SMALL amounts of ethanol is a different story. I'm thinking: ethanol evaporates slowly, it's probably easier to work with before it's completely purged, and you're just going to put it back in an ethanol solution anyway to get it into the juice. It seems like it makes sense to just use the last of the extraction solvent to get it into the VG/PG mix.

2. Even at 3:1 concentration, the amount of ethanol you'd be vaping would be tiny. Think about this: my clearomizer holds about 1.5mL of fluid. That's 1mL of ethanol for a whole tank, which I would imagine ingesting over a couple of days. For comparison---obviously GI intake is different, but still---that's roughly 5% of the total ethanol in a single shot of 80 proof booze.

So... Does this make sense? Or (I'm a noob, so) is there some benefit of a full purge that I'm missing? I'm ready to try it in a pretty small run, which I'd be happy to document.

 

[exploziv]

From what i know, glycol is used as a base, along with vegetable glycerin. Never heard of ethanol as a base in (nicotine) vapping, and if you talk about it as a base for flavourings, then yes it may be, but they are used at 5% (usually 2%) rate, so the percent of ethanol in the final vaping fluid, if any, would be neglijable.
You may be right about not getting drunk enaugh for the quantity you will use for vaping, but you need to make sure it is safe before doing it. Keep in mind that ethanol vapour is almost completely absorbed by the lungs, compared to regular drinking, where just a part of the alc. is absorbed.
And I'd do the extraction with ethanol too, instead of iso (98-99% foodgrade grain alc.), to keep it food safe. How do you know when you purged all iso? better be on the safe side.

 

[sekirety]

And I'd do the extraction with ethanol too, instead of iso (98-99% foodgrade grain alc.), to keep it food safe. How do you know when you purged all iso? better be on the safe side.

Right, that's my point---I'm talking about using QWET, not QWISO. And since it will be food safe from the get go, I'm wondering about evaporating it into a pliable sludge, instead of being paranoid about fully purging it, as you would have be with QWISO.

Ideally, the nearly-purged QWET would retain enough ethanol to aid in mixing it---you wouldn't have to wait for it to completely dry out and then redissolve it in the same stuff.

 

[sekirety]

From what i know, glycol is used as a base, along with vegetable glycerin.

Also: by "base," I meant for the extracts---yeah, the "base" of the final product is usually glycol/glycerin.

 

[Gray Wolf]

No need to fully purge the ethanol and then add some back in.