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somehow made wax...

beeline816

New member
so the process started with 5 grams of high quality well cured buds (unknown strain) broken in to small nugs up to fit better in the glass extraction tube. The column was then frozen for a few hours in a zip lock. Then it was run into a pyrex pie plate through a 50 micron SS screen. The plate was sitting on top of hot tap water. After the initial hot water purge the plate was brought in and put on a crock pot heating plate which was keeping the plate around 140F for an hour or two. After the majority of large bubbles dissipated the oil was scrapped onto a piece of parchment paper. At this point the oil looked like shatter. The glob was then flattened in-between the paper to about the thickness of a nickel and put back on to the 140F pyrex plate. It was then covered with a pot cover and allowed to purge for another 3 hours. This is where things got interesting when it was first left on there it clearly became more viscous and stilled looked like shatter but upon returning later it looked like a honeycomb that would come out of a vacuum set up. The oil which now is wax passes lighter test and no popping when touch against a hot nail. The yield from the first run was .7g. So can anyone shed some light on how this became wax.

Also on a side note there seemed to still be some good stuff left in the column after the first run so it was removed, ground up, and re ran with an additional 2 coffee filters ontop of the screen to hopefully stop so of the really fine plant material in there. The yield from the second run was .3 of even dryer golden wax.
 

nakadashi

Member
Looks nice, sorry I have no insight as to how and why things wax up as I am trying to figure that out definitively for myself.

Random question though, what is this "lighter test" that you mentioned?
 

blastfrompast

Active member
Veteran
I'm guessing the lighter test is where you use the heat of the flame to heat the bho and if it is still purging you get "flare-ups"

Don't touch flame to bho tho..
 

nakadashi

Member
LOL I have never heard of that, I would imagine that if it were so underpurged it would be visibly apparent and not need a flame test..
 

norcal_sourD

Active member
Perhaps spreading it out into a thin layer in your pie dish, followed by making it thinner when you placed it in parchment is responsible. Add to that co2 and butane molecules escaping your rapidly decarbing mass, would cause the "honycomb" like structure of the product. Once they escape, the mass kind of "crumbles" and collapses upon itself to make what you are left with...I'm no expert however, I just play one on tv..:biggrin:
 

Momerath

Active member
This sometimes happens when you add to much heat (140 is too much heat btw, at least for maximum terpene retention. Shoot for 115 or under) and/or when you have agitated your oil and trapped air bubbles inside (creating nucleation sites) or both. Usually happens under a vac but I have seen it from just heat alone.

It usually happens when you heat good shatter too long ;)

I have run into tons of this. I have noticed it happens more with strains/plants that were either harvested earlier, or are sativa dominant, containing a high level of THCA. I have had oil from a sativa honeycomb up on me on a 100*f water bath after 3-4 hours, and that was without vaccing at all. On the flip side, I have noticed that older material or strains not high in THCA have a harder time honeycombing up and tend to stay clearer and "oilier" if you will.

Hope this helps :)

Either way looks like it was some good nugget that made that wax, enjoy!
 

beeline816

New member
thank you for the replies, and yes the lighter test is very non technical quick test of sorts to see if there is flare ups from trapped butane.
 
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