What is the best, most practical extraction method for the home grower?

I know over the years that the forums have shifted into a more industry-centric theme, but there are still plenty of us home growers out there, and I want this to be a discussion for us.

Let's talk about practical home extraction of concentrates, then, shall we? As the years go by, and the older I get, I've decided that concentrates absolutely have their place in my cannabinoid regimen, for a variety of reasons (most of which are subjective). But as a small time personal grower, in my experience it's been hard to rely on my own extractions to supply my needs fully. I've even considered dedicating entire gardens to concentrate. The problem is I then wouldn't know what the most efficient way to get it all would be, which turns me off of dedicating an entire harvest to such an endeavor. The most I'll do is a partial harvest of top shelf flowers, but far more often I end up just using trim and popcorn, because I'm afraid of fucking up something or losing an entire harvest.

Mostly I've messed with QWISO and QWET. I got pretty good at making these extractions. But I wouldn't say they are an efficient method. Lots go to waste this way. Then there is the ever-ubiquitous bubble hash, which reigned for years before BHO took off. I've never personally owned a set of bubble bags, but I've done some water extractions over the years, using coffee filters and silk screens. I've often wondered if it would be worth it to buy a set and commit an entire harvest to bubble hash. There is also, of course, dry sift. I believe this is also what dry ice hash would be defined as, right? Basically, mechanical separation of trichomes with no solvents? And now rosin is on the scene, offering another option, so there really should be a handful of methods by now that are efficient for the home grower.

The idea of having a closed loop butane extractor is out of the question for most of us. But having a rosin press, maybe, isn't. A set of bubble bags isn't too expensive, but there's a lot of work involved, with all the grades being collected, right? Same goes for dry sift, I suppose... It's laborious. QWISO and QWET are effective, but again, not so efficient. Blasting BHO in the garage is dangerous and unethical as fuck...

So what do you home growers do? Anyone dedicating entire harvest to concentrate? Lets talk about this. Share photos of our setups. Discuss labor costs and time involved. Those sorts of things.

Who wants to go first?

I've tried iso and did not like it. Butter is fine. Half ass hair iron wax was promising but i didn't upgrade to the heated presses. Then i kind of lost interest.

I've often had this exact thought though about non commercial methods that are more efficient so very interested in following along with this thread.

Rosin is something anyone can do from home and you can scale up as much as you want.
Hair straightener if you want to try it out and/or press small amounts. A small all-in-one setup (6-8tonjack/PID/plates), tho some of those can get pricey, or a larger 10-20ton jack with larger plates.

You can press bud, trim, shake, hash, keif, dry sift, etc. You can raise/lower the temps which affects yield, end product form (sap, budder, etc).

I prefer to use bubble bags with fresh frozen trim. I'd rather press buds (or smoke them) than try to use buds to make bubble.

Been playing with rosin in ccell cartridges. They're tasty and work great.

Really like the rosin. Can press some to keep in the freezer for dabbing or make oil with it for carts.

Pulling up a seat to see what others have to say, BHO is the only extraction myself and friends have done over the years. Not hard to do it safely, but packing/unpacking a blast tube over and over sucks and gets old fast as well as waiting on the purge.

I'll be interested in the answers to this too. Being in Australia with draconian cannabis laws I don't have access to the kit you Americans and Canadians take for granted. I just make cannabutter now for edibles and smoke flower. We don't have access to reasonably priced extract smoking paraphernalia either.

I have a little vac and hotplate setup to make concentrates, mostly RSO & BHO. I made some bubble for the first time in years the other day but the yield seems quite poor but it is lovely. I have tumbler for dry sift but almost never use it.

I think rosin is the way to go.



dank.Frank

Hoping to learn something here. I've made QWISO several times and never was happy with the results. Too nasty to smoke. I do butter frequently but only use popcorn and trim. I've never tried good bud in butter simply because I don't have the quantity to waste. I've thought about rosin but have just begun looking at options.

hush said:

I know over the years that the forums have shifted into a more industry-centric theme, but there are still plenty of us home growers out there, and I want this to be a discussion for us.

Who wants to go first?

Click to expand...

Inferring that "home grown" means growing for our own likes and dislikes, one method suitable for all seems unlikely.

I gave up smoking when my bronchial tubes started rebelling, and when I found that I needed concentrates to achieve the dosages that I required for medicinal purposes, so 100% of my grows for at least the last decade have gone to concentrates of one form or another.

After stripping the fan leaves, I typically hang them about 5 days or so until the small stems snap, before extracting and extract the buds, sugar leaf, and popcorn all together.

Still some trimming/breaking up to cut into about 1/2" chunks for column extraction, but way less that cosmetic trimming.

Dry sieve and bubble extractions are also highly inefficient, because around 50% or so yield, it starts to green up from plant material.

You can increase the yield with dry ice, but the increase includes a much higher percent of unwanted material like hairs.

That leaves you with how to harvest the balance and what to do with the hash.

That brings us to Rosin. You can press the hash into Rosin, and of course you can press the plant material for resin as well. If you press the plant material, you will also be leaving material behind which needs a secondary harvesting process.

Vegetable oils and glycerin are both good ways to glean the remaining goodies, if you desire those for tinctures or cooking.

QWET works and can be made more efficient by dropping the temperature of the ethanol below -50C using dry ice, so that you can soak longer without picking up chlorophyll. Ethanol extraction was the first solvent after oils and glycerin that I experimented with and is still one of my favorites.

Given today's laws on LPG extraction labs without a permit, I would choose subzero ethanol extraction as my preferred home extraction method.

While that may sound incongruous with my previous focus on closed loop LPG extraction, that was before Oregon made it a felony to extract outside a permitted lab, which is the position most home growers find them selves in.

I tumble mine, I do two tumbles a short 2-3 min, for rosin, and a longer 15-30 min run for ethanol extraction. It gives you less material that you have to work with, I tried making rosin from flower but I didn't like the little bits of trash in the rosin, and the kief from tumbled flowers uses a lot less ethanol. I am going to try GW's dry ice, I have only put it in the freezer which works but it still comes out dark which no one seems to want anymore...

I saved up and bought a small alcohol extraction unit that works under a vacuum and reclaims ninety some percent of the the alcohol. Im happy with it but the initial cost was close to five hundred dollars. It makes a nice oil and also can connect to a external vacuum pump for further processing in to shatter ect.

I like hashish very much, but i flower under less than
ideal conditions and bountiful yield is not always guaranteed.

I may make 3 or 4 grams a year as a treat.

I like ice water separation, blender to pulverize well cured bud,
passed through a funnel and small mesh screens.

Works for me and mine.


Good thread

For smoking I prefer bubble hash. For my edibles I use QWISO. I make a lot of hard candy and can use the tincture directly into the candy mix.

Risk wise rosin damn near mitigates everything. Just keep your hands clear and you're good. I personally am not a fan of it but there are some really good examples of it on the market just few and far between

Every year I do.. lets say 'some' outdoor. I enjoy honing my skills, from the total fails of 25 years ago, to the truly decent (for the UK) buds I can grow now. I can't do anything with it though. Quite a bit gets left to rot, that I would love to be able to process quickly, while still wet. ISO is just nasty, but an ethanol wash on site has crossed my mind. I have a pot still, so can reach 80% proof, and reclaim some.

A friend used to cram his freezer full. I think wet. Then without bags, he used a big bucket and ice, with a paddle. He could stir for some time (dunno) before bits of green wanted to sink. There was a flat strainer involved somewhere in this. I don't think it was half way down the bucket though. Nor used as a scoop.

His product was alright. I think flat press coloured, but black hash after working it. Not bubble, no. Nice though. Better than most, but not quite the best.

I'm leaving out so much that it's hard to walk away. Recovering just a small percentage would be something.

Gray Wolf said:

Inferring that "home grown" means growing for our own likes and dislikes, one method suitable for all seems unlikely.

I gave up smoking when my bronchial tubes started rebelling, and when I found that I needed concentrates to achieve the dosages that I required for medicinal purposes, so 100% of my grows for at least the last decade have gone to concentrates of one form or another.

After stripping the fan leaves, I typically hang them about 5 days or so until the small stems snap, before extracting and extract the buds, sugar leaf, and popcorn all together.

Still some trimming/breaking up to cut into about 1/2" chunks for column extraction, but way less that cosmetic trimming.

Dry sieve and bubble extractions are also highly inefficient, because around 50% or so yield, it starts to green up from plant material.

You can increase the yield with dry ice, but the increase includes a much higher percent of unwanted material like hairs.

That leaves you with how to harvest the balance and what to do with the hash.

That brings us to Rosin. You can press the hash into Rosin, and of course you can press the plant material for resin as well. If you press the plant material, you will also be leaving material behind which needs a secondary harvesting process.

Vegetable oils and glycerin are both good ways to glean the remaining goodies, if you desire those for tinctures or cooking.

QWET works and can be made more efficient by dropping the temperature of the ethanol below -50C using dry ice, so that you can soak longer without picking up chlorophyll. Ethanol extraction was the first solvent after oils and glycerin that I experimented with and is still one of my favorites.

Given today's laws on LPG extraction labs without a permit, I would choose subzero ethanol extraction as my preferred home extraction method.

While that may sound incongruous with my previous focus on closed loop LPG extraction, that was before Oregon made it a felony to extract outside a permitted lab, which is the position most home growers find them selves in.

Click to expand...

Gray Wolf, I was curious if you had ever tried the citric acid type extractions that are out there, or what your thought might be on its effectiveness both in yield and the de carbing aspect that happens.

Also, I was wondering if it is possible to enhance the decarbing process beyond the numbers listed in member jump117’s decarb graph.

I see a lot of people swear by multiple hour crockpot type recipes, and it seems to go against the jump117 graph as far as being needed.

I saw on Skunkpharmresearch where 4-5 different different oils were used in an extraction, and it seemed to reccomend two different three hour heatings. I realize that is now a past company for you, and maybe an old experiment, but had to ask if the extended heating seems necessary.

I use mini everything for my bho. I had bigger tubes and vacs and chambers, but after a my neighborhood started burning down from old wiring problems, I decided to ditch all that shit and just start buying already made bho.

But.. I have found that a little 6" 45g closed column and a little mini 1 quart vacuum chamber can pump out a half ounce of dab in few hours without ever having to use scary amounts of solvent.

More work, but I don't particularly like the idea of having to work with more than a few ounces of solvent at a time. A home grower really shouldn't have to anyways, ime.

So many ways to skin this cat...

Personally, I usually press flower into rosin. I make roughly a gram of product at a time and it takes about 20 minutes from jar to nail.

I usually do an ethanol wash on the chips when done for edibles.

I have done whole harvests into bubble hash (it was seeded), then press that hash. Low returns, but nice product.

Dry Ice and a shower curtain...


Cheap and very effective!

redlaser said:

Gray Wolf, I was curious if you had ever tried the citric acid type extractions that are out there, or what your thought might be on its effectiveness both in yield and the de carbing aspect that happens.

Also, I was wondering if it is possible to enhance the decarbing process beyond the numbers listed in member jump117’s decarb graph.

I see a lot of people swear by multiple hour crockpot type recipes, and it seems to go against the jump117 graph as far as being needed.

I saw on Skunkpharmresearch where 4-5 different different oils were used in an extraction, and it seemed to reccomend two different three hour heatings. I realize that is now a past company for you, and maybe an old experiment, but had to ask if the extended heating seems necessary.

Click to expand...

Sorry I've never extracted with citric acid, only degumming with it.

jump117's graph was reasonably close when we checked it out. The thing to consider is how the decarb was done. It is different when done in a thin layer on hot glass, than when herb is simply placed in the oven or cooked in a crocpot.

The multiple short duration heating to extract, is intended to remove the resin using less overall heat, but it certainly isn't the only way to do it. Long duration extractions tend to lower the THC/CBD and raise the CBN contents.