Stripped down oils: what makes for the different effects?

Hey y'all. I'm fairly new to concentrates beyond old-school hash.

The market pushed me towards producing cartridges for weed pens so I have been playing with the oils and have settled for the time being on pentane as my main solvent, either as a clean-up step after an ethanol extraction or using it straight away for small batches.

I've been quite surprised at my results as far as which strains I like and why. For instance, I have been running a train wreckbx "problematic plant" for a little while. In the flower form (while it has terrible structure) I really liked it, pungent (camphor), strong, pretty fast and not really an up or a down high. Just strong. As an extracted oil, it hits me like an indica.

The plant that really made my head spin on this issue was the Acapulco Gold I ran. The first, faster plant I used I just blended with my other stuff, because the oil was so obvious it wasn't going to give much oil. The second plant went at least 5 weeks longer. in fact, I had nothing to hash except the AG1, which was more than a qp on half a scrog screen. So, it was hashed separately... I won't even talk yield #s, because they were pathetic. HOWEVER. Holy SHIT!!! that stuff is stellar!

My most run plant is a (Highland MexxBlueberry) x (Grapefruitxblueberry) and it yields well and give stellar oil.

The method I use strips most of the terpenes (of course), so I'm assuming it's the cannabinoids... but it certainly seems like it's not down to delta 9 THC.

What are the master's thoughts?

Not a master only a novice.

I'm also going to try pentane seems like we are in a similar boat. I don't think I'd blow myself up with butane but after lots of research bubble hash is really a luxury. I'd love to make all bubble hash. As you are realizing however for a single person grower, processing your material whether buds or trim is a lot of work.

Pentane I might be able to build a recovery still as Gray Wolf has and keep costs down. With butane I think you need a recovery pump or the equipment is expensive to say the least.

Once attempting all of these steps it becomes clear why the costs are what they are. I don't agree with commercial weed selling $50 grams at dispensaries. But what you will find as you have described above is the yield can be low. I have got about 10% yield from ~12% thc outdoor but the extract wasn't super clear and it was with iso. In order to get a really nice product (what I would call vape quality as opposed to edible quality) it works best to be quick in my experience. Vigorous shaking with dry ice cooled solvent and crumbled buds for only 20 seconds before squeezing. I thought about like a rosin press only cold and used with solvent "dry ice vice" only I'm not sure if smashing the bud will make more chlorophyll and stuff in the product.

For edible use only I believe this is easier and safer because no worries if I eat a little plant wax and chlorophyll. It's probably good for us. Ingesting or vaporizing any trace amounts of organic solvents sounds completely gross. But in practice we are comparing this which might be ppm consumption to combustion or smoking. Not sure where vaporizing bud fits in but I'm inclined to say that possible ppm levels of solvent in your extract may be the lesser of two evils compared to smoking 100% flower to get your fix. Edibles/capsules might be the way to go but that's starting to get away from recreational dabs.

The yield aspect deserves a lot of attention I feel. Because yielding 10 grams of diamonds from a pound and throwing the rest away sounds pretty luxurious or wasteful. I'm exaggerating but that is what happens - if you want the best smokable dab possible, clear gold full melt you basically just take the very top off or skim the surface during the extraction process. A quick shake and press before purge. Different process but similar idea with bubble hash - this is the way I would prefer to present my product to friends and anyone I wanted to impress. Actually sifting kief however and making bubble hash is a lot of labour. A pound of bud may only cost a few hundred bucks now but the labour to make bubble hash is probably in the thousands.

Now if my interest is a little different, not to get clear diamonds but to safely extract and reasonably purify all of the thc, all of the yield, as much as I can get out of the plant without extracting brown stem wax and leaf material. Then my extraction process can be different, more like Rick Simpson Oil with two consecutive three minute soaks in solvent. This is where it gets tricky. Because the truth is I probably want something in the middle of these two aforementioned processes. And if I go for the full extract or full spectrum can I still partition some for diamonds or is it better to mix the diamonds into the rest of the extract? This is a side note but if you produce diamonds that means you are either selling a separate "lower grade concentrate" or you are throwing the rest away. Six one way half dozen the other, would you rather split and vape them separate or keep together. As a grower I am not in a position to just skim the surface and toss the rest away.

Iso has a higher boiling point so if you use heat to evaporate you'll find you boil off a lot of the terpenes or whatever. This means that what is left is very small. The live resin they make with all cold processed butane and no heat, it has a nice flavor and I am sure they get a a large yield that way. But the majority of the bulk in the live resin is flavouring or terps insert favourite word here. I don't know if either of us is 100% correct but what's happened is they have found a way to cut their product (concentrates) and sell it as a good thing. I.e. 0.1g thc + 0.2g terpenes is better than just thc. Not exactly accurate or substantiated in my opinion but maybe there are some nice things or benefits about having more stuff more terpenes in your extract. Different scenario from using terpenes in the food/perfume/chemical industries.

Growing marijuana to produce scented oils is extremely cool in its own right but I don't want to confuse that with me getting high. I don't remember getting high from orange oil or pine sol perfume you see what I'm saying 0.1g of thc extract gets you high. Way higher than the bho sold in dispensaries. This doesn't fit perfectly with terpenes as a sales pitch - what I have found in my own experience is that "watering down" your "thc extract" with "terpenes" makes the extract weaker in effect by volume. Much less potent, sure there is more flavor I can agree with that. I suppose I could be exaggerating or biased it is possible or I have not bought the right $100 gram yet. That is when they call something "subjective" - there might be a claim of terpenes helping the effect but if I'm an end user and find live resin is weak and short lasting doesn't that also count as a claim/opinion?

Even this is a topic for discussion since most of us (growers, processors) would probably prefer the larger bulk yield including as much of the terpene segment as possible without plant waxes or any ash forming stuff when vaporized. It's kind of a tall order to demand higher quality at a lower cost than what the big producers/dispensaries are currently offering. Every step matters, from your cost to grow it all the way to who trimmed it and how far it had to travel to the processor. There are about a million steps that can all accumulate to the final eventual cost. For one guy it might be a tremendous amount of work but at the end your overhead is not that difficult to calculate. I don't know if it's worth it to sell but surely worth it to produce vs purchase, that is kind of where we are at now.

Bulk helps you to sell product by weight and the terps add flavor but the truth is that it is far weaker per gram. I don't want to get in a debate, it's complicated, because terps are nice, but only thc really gets you high and 0.1 gram of boiled down iso or Rick Simpson Oil might have the same thc amount as 0.3-0.5+ grams of live resin. It also completely flies in the face of the thc % numbers they write on stickers if I am saying that it is all cut over 1/2 by volume. But that's just like my opinion man, can't argue with a sticker lol. The sticker says 76% or sometimes 89% thc and the hit doesn't last 1/2 as long as the stuff I made at home. Both things cannot possibly be true can they? I don't mean to sound silly, my iso extract is not 200% thc.

These are just observations I've made. I would also like to yield more with the live resin. You can evaporate iso cold with a fan on a large flat glass tray which I think actually works better. The problem is that the "iso terps" kind of mix with the volatile cannabis terps, at least in my opinion or to a degree. Iso is relatively hard to purge meaning everything else is gone and/or you can taste the iso profile kind of. Not good.

Likely someone here has processed larger amounts. Perhaps a bho or pentane expert will chime in with some tips.

Pentane I have not used yet but I am looking forward to the product. My dry ice iso and ethanol extractions have both come out really nice in the past, especially quick small batches. Pentane is the closest alkane (smallest) next to butane or in other words the first/smallest organic solvent which is liquid at room temperature. Might make saving it or recovery easier. I do not know how the product compares to butane. The physical aspect of dealing with liquid solvent might change your extraction process a bit.

Let us know how it goes looking forward to sharing notes. I've also looked into CO2 but the expense starts to get beyond me compared to a $2 bottle of iso from the store.

Can anyone recommend processors in Norcal? I'd trade some of the product or even pay if the product was good. But I don't have 10-100 pounds more like 1/2-1 pound at a time.

i should be getting a lesson on making extract based ecig liquid soon, have a mate who says he has cracked it. will be interesting to see what he has come up with.

I forgot to add in that long winded post something about the vape liquid. Once you have extract, in my limited experience it is thinned with polyethylene glycol molecular weight 400 and then vegetable glycerine and/or propylene glycol. The wax, oil, like shatter bho what have you is too thick to go through a vape cart. Cannabis resin doesn't readily mix with water or oil. Vape liquid the kind you put nicotine in, this will not dissolve thc oil unsurprisingly. So the PEG400 breaks the surface tension or dissolves the oil. Now its viscosity can be further reduced with VG or PG. Like I said my experience with this is limited and I am not sure what up to date tips and tricks are currently used. I find that 0.5 gram of what I make at home is far stronger than a cartridge which says 500mg or 0.5 gram of thc on the side, with either high 70s or high 80s thc concentration on the label. So I would have to thin a 0.2 g ball of resin to about 0.4 g or even 0.5 ml to get it to go though a cartridge. At that point however it's a little too thin and leaky and tastes like solvent/thinner. Probably works better when there is more bulk terpene fraction or a thinner product. But I don't know how they homogenize it and get it to stay together. The carts I made stayed homogenized no problem but the oil was too thin. If I could figure it out I would do it but for now seems like too thin too much solvent quite low thc. I need to find a happy medium where I can squeeze my solvent soaked weed with a cheesecloth evaporate it and load up cartridges if possible. If the big guys are using a chemistry lab almost like a chemical manufacturing plant or oil refinery or perfume factory then it is becoming less likely what they produce is comparable to what we make at home. Separating and remixing the terpene fractions and what not, pretty much beyond what a lot of us can do at home. Just speculation on my part. It almost comes full circle where I wouldn't say butane is better actually I want to avoid it but the big producers are using so much technology behind it there might be reason to look into the other extraction methods.

yeah i know the problems, but he claims to have found a way. i will share it once he shows me. also, i will believe it when i see it, lol.

Terpenes are the way to go for thinning it, no question.

Freezer frozen Pentane has basically zero vapor pressure, and only pulls out the best of the best in my limited experience.

I'm on my phone currently so I have not read all of the responses yet.

Thanks for responding.