What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Inexpensive, Wet/Dry, Veg/Flower, 8-Minute CBD Test You Can Do At Home!

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
The cannabis community needs an economical, simple, easy to replicate, accurate, home CBD test.

Here it is...(full details and photos)

In a nutshell:

1 Dram vial
Add 500mg sodium hydroxide
Add 35mg dry cannabis (or same approximate SIZE, wet sample)
Half fill vial with 91% isopropyl
Shake 2 minutes, making sure everything is moving
Fill to shoulder of vial with 50% isopropyl
Shake 2 minutes
Add 250mg activated charcoal GRANULES
Shake 2 minutes
Let sit 2 minutes
Done

Canna-Tsu, at 7 weeks of flower, at 8 minutes:
cropped-Only-30mg-of-Canna-Tsu-Week-7-of-Flower.png


VERY low quality Blue Dream at 8 Minutes
cropped-Very-Low-Quality-Blue-Dream-at-8-minutes.png


Enjoy, and make sure you pass it on. :tiphat:
Thank you to those of you who answered my questions in the original thread on this type of test. It took me about a week of intensive work to figure this out, I know you'll appreciate how accurate it is.

Edit: Multiple feedback has confirmed a few things:
- Harvested flowers provide the most accurate results for a strain
- Clean scissors/equipment between tests to eliminate cross contamination
- Glass vials clean out significantly quicker and more reliably than plastic
- Photos against a white background at same time intervals make for easy comparisons
- Granular works quicker than pelleted charcoal

A HUGE Thank You Goes Out to:
Clearheaded, for posting the original information "easy home CBD test, easier then beam"
G.O. Joe, for clearly answering with exactly the information I was looking for. (You saved me WEEKS, maybe months?, of additional testing. THANK YOU!)
Bongstar420, for posting some additional information which jogged an idea.
&
Everyone else who participated in the thread!
Take a bow gentlemen, you've earned it and I thank you for it. :D
Save
Save
 
Last edited:

Ringodoggie

Well-known member
Premium user
Incredible job Curt. Very nice of you to share.

I already ordered the carbon in pellet form. I assume I can just crush mine and have granules, not pellets?

You have a PM, BTW.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Incredible job Curt. Very nice of you to share.

I already ordered the carbon in pellet form. I assume I can just crush mine and have granules, not pellets?

You have a PM, BTW.
I'm pretty sure it'll work, with being crushed to small chunks. Powdered makes a mess, the pellets didn't release enough oxygen fast enough. The pellets will work whole (same weight as the granules), you will have to wait longer for the full color change. Play around with it. :D

Got the PM, greatly appreciate the heads up. You rock!
:tiphat:
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Please, would someone with CBD isolate, AND a great head for math, please work this up and take photos for a CBD% color chart? Please?

I'm getting very accurate results, when everything is weighed out correctly and strict shaking times are observed. (When working with plants, remember to clean your scissors between samples! lol)

I'm sure it will take some work, and I know the community will benefit greatly. Thank you to whomever ends up working on this. :D
 

Ringodoggie

Well-known member
Premium user
I have some Med Tree Continuum 'on the hoof'. I'll need some time before she is anything thing to test but as soon as she's ready......

I also have a whole brood of her babies right behind her so I'll be doing plenty of testing. I'll try to verify anything I can as soon as I can.

Thanks again from all of us.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
My pleasure, happy to share stuff that works well.

Remember, you can test vegging plants and get a good idea of which ones you want to focus on. ;) You can compare a lot of plants (I recommend 3 tests for each plant) and be able to pick out the higher lower percentages. Saves a lot of dough if you can narrow down your "submitting this to the lab" samples quickly and cheaply. ;) (Cannot stress enough, clean your scissors between clipping samples. lol)
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
To answer a couple questions of the same variety from other sources on the net. Wet samples...

I didn't weigh wet samples, since I figured there would be a lot of variation in water weight and what not. So, ideal 'weight' will vary according to the sample being taken. The important part is to keep the sample "size" about the same as a 35mg dry sample. Any smaller and there can be too little CBD to change color for comparison. Too much and the sample ends up clogging the test and making for less accurate results.

Once you weigh your sample 'size,' you can use the same weight for each of your other wet samples. Anyone have an idea on which parts of a plant produce the highest CBD during vegetative? I took straight leaf from the Canna-Tsu, and you can see the light purple in the tech I posted.

Be sure to post up your results, along with strain name and any details you figure might be important. :) Pure Awesome! :D
 

bigbadbiddy

Active member
Impressive and an absolute game-changer!

I wouldn't call it terribly exact because the tint of purple is what gives you the indicator of how much CBD there is and the tint of a color is always very subjective.

BUT
For home use? This is really amazing!
The very least you can do is rate your samples from lowest to highest CBD content.

Which can often be enough.

If you need exact results, you can still send in the sample that was "most purple" or "darkest purple".

The fact that you can analyze samples from veging plants in this manner is the true game changer I believe. You can basically tilt the odds of finding a higher CBD concentration in your favor before having to flower it out and sampling the buds. Amazing.

Really can't believe my luck stumbling across this, thank you so much, all who were involved in coming up with this!

Now if there was a similar way to test for THC ... :D

I mean there must be.... Somebody swap out some reagents and let us know :D
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
My sentiments exactly. :)
I know the CBD testing labs won't like it, this is significantly cheaper. You're correct though, this will save the community a lot of time and money. I'm looking forward to the explosion of CBD rich strains coming out in the next few years. :D

Yes, there is a THC test. No, I haven't seen anyone post ingredients yet, dangit. :D
 

bigbadbiddy

Active member
Well there were/are several THC and CBD tests around online.

But they all have something in common:
You pay 100 bucks for like 20 tests or something and they are no more exact than the test you posted.

That's why the same test only for THC would be revolutionizing.

I have some Z8xafghan haze beans in the fridge that I wanted to pop when I go on my CBD quest and I was always worrying about how I actually determine a high CBD plant in that line. Just by lack of high? That didn't seem neither scientific nor conclusive.

This method now affords me an easy and affordable solution to that problem.

If I could do the same with THC, I could confirm my personal impressions from testing samples myself and hone in on potent cultivars.
This would allow me to turn my focus on more subjective things such as how I personally like/dislike the terpene profile and more subtle nuances of the effect.

Would love that but for now, on the medical side of things, I have that and I am ever so grateful for it.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
If someone posts the chems and such used for THC testing... I'll do the same if I can. :)

Yeah, the $50-100 for a kit was turning me off as well. So glad I can help you speed up your project, without costing you a fortune. :D Massive step forward. :D
 

bigbadbiddy

Active member
That would be awesome man.

I mean this revolutionizes (I don't think that's hyperbole) CBD breeding for home growers.

If we could get the same for THC, it would revolutionize home breeding period.

Would be interesting to know how the information of these reagents showing CBD concentration in a sample came to light. Because I bet the same information is available for THC but hasn't surfaced yet.

Wouldn't surprise me if the info on the reagents for CBD testing was leaked by accident or at least not on purpose. The companies producing home test kits surely know and it wouldn't surprise me if some intern or something leaked the info.

Because I agree, both testing labs and the home kit producers must hate you guys right now. I already made copies of everything because it also wouldn't surprise me if they try to legally pressure you to take down that info or something.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
TYPO ALERT:
Should have read 500mg, instead of 700mg for the sodium hydroxide. Damn. Everything else is correct, I happened to copy the 700 from notes of a single test. The one which realized 700mg was too much. It won't burn, but it gets hot and there's too much for an accurate test.

Sucks, but them's the breaks. OP has been edited to reflect the correct information.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
So? What's the verdict? Does it work as advertised? Are there any changes/improvements we should know about?

Anyone having any difficulties? :D
 

thejact55

Active member
Very cool indeed. Assuming sodium hydroxide is readily available online? Ill google it.
Thanks for sharing this. No doubt at some point ill give it a shot.

Edit- missed that there is a link. Ill do some reading :)
 

bigbadbiddy

Active member
I'm waiting for someone who told me he will run this against the lab results he has for a strain and see if it's conclusive.

I expect it will be and plan to buy the necessary components once the guy confirms.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Sodium hydroxide is Lye. Red Devil Lye is 100% Sodium Hydroxide and Rooto 100% Household Lye is as well. Hardware store. :)

Looking forward to comparative results. All I have is Tsue, which I've been told (and experience tends to agree) is very high in CBD. Considering the deep purple it throws, I'm inclined to believe it. :)

Awesome :D
 

thejact55

Active member
I have some cbd critical cure, that no doubt is high cbd. I have some jilly bean that i suspect has little.
Generally i run landrace, in which this could be very helpful. I often suspect high cbd in nepal, lebanese and some affie/paki strains. This test can help prove, beyond a smoke test.
I posted a link to this page on my thread, in hope of more exposure and results from others.
 

Latest posts

Latest posts

Top