Inherent Prob. Decarbing 1:1 (THC:CBD) oil

Bmac1 · Sep 20, 2013

I have made oil in the past but the goal was always to catch a buzz. I have recently had both my mother and my gf diagnosed with cancer.

My mother is going to have chemo and radiation, my gf treatment is unknown as of yet.

How is making oil to get high different than making oil for medical purposes? is it simply heating it longer or at a higher temp?Can someone point me to a link or some more reading? Any help is appreciated.

herm@n · Sep 20, 2013

Hi Brmac,

I am very sorry to hear about the condition of your beloved ones.
I lost my wife to cancer, mt girlfriend had been diagnosed with melanoma, so has her sister. I think I know what you are going through.

I can't tell you how making RSO would be different from making recreational oil without knowing how you made your oils in the past.

Without wanting to start a heated debate, if your beloved ones are going to ingest the oil for some months (or maybe longer) I would stay clear of toxic solvents.
That is why I picked consumption-grade ethanol as solvent.
I follow the Quick Wash Ethanol (QWET) method described by GW on his Skunk Pharm Research page.

Hope this helps!

Bmac1 · Sep 20, 2013

Thanks for that and yes, it is hard to take in at the moment when the two most important women in my life are going through this.

My previous runs with oil were BHO and QWISO. Since I made the first post, Ive been on a link hunt reading about RSO and I see that it is basically just QWISO.

I am going to do my best to get some of this done asap. I have some left over sugar trim from previous runs but it will be weeks before I have enough bud to do a nice run. Im not sure I could keep up with the amounts needed for one person, let alone 2 but I will do every thing I can.

herm@n · Sep 20, 2013

There are many solvents and methods, most of them (if not all) will work.

When you use ISO you should know it is not fit for consumption. The liver will convert traces of ISO to acetone, so make sure that the solvent is removed 100% from the oil, 99% is not good enough.

That is why some use ISO to prepare RSO for topical use and Ethanol for preparation of RSO meant to be ingested.
Better safe than sorry, your women have enough to face as it is.

When you live in the USA ethanol may be available as Everclear. If you want to use it you might try to get 190-proof.

All the best to you and yours, take care!

Bmac1 · Sep 20, 2013

I will have to look into ethanol to see if it is readily available here in the great white north.

herm@n · Sep 20, 2013

That great white north is Canada I suppose?
I just found this, don't know if it is of any help.....

Bmac1 · Sep 20, 2013

Yes, Canada. Seems ethanol is much harder to find up here than I thought.

herm@n · Sep 20, 2013

Yes, there are huge differences in availability of consumption-grade ethanol between countries. It has to do with taxes and duties, use and abuse of alcohol etc.

Where I live ethanol is 7 times as expensive as ISO. Fortunately I can order it in Germany where it costs only 2.5 times the price of ISO.

I hope you can find some!

donb5 · Sep 21, 2013

herm@n said:
Yes, there are huge differences in availability of consumption-grade ethanol between countries. It has to do with taxes and duties, use and abuse of alcohol etc.

Where I live ethanol is 7 times as expensive as ISO. Fortunately I can order it in Germany where it costs only 2.5 times the price of ISO.

I hope you can find some!

Guys, if you are going to use expensive Everclear as solvent, you should consider running the main boil-off in a countertop water distiller ($130-$140 USD). The only real difference is that you will boil the oil/solvent mix down in the distiller to near the bottom of the chamber, and only the little that remains must be boiled off and decarbed the ordinary way. This way you can recover from 65-70% of the Everclear for reuse. That makes it a good bit less expensive, and also much safer as nearly all the alcohol fumes are condensed and recovered liquified, instead of set free as vapor to fill the air in the house.

This modification to Simpson's RSO instructions incorporates this technique as shown in this You Tube (link below). It's the only way I do it now, and patients appreciate the fact that the solvent is edible, and there is a much cheaper solvent bill for me of course. If you follow the instructions to thoroughly chill all the containers, tools and alcohol in the freezer before use, you'll also find that not nearly as much chlorophyll is "pulled" by the alcohol solvent, making for a more pleasant (actually less unpleasant) taste in the oil.

You Tube of water distiller & freeze method to make RSO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5h5VGqFS6mA

have a good one,
donb5

donb5 · Sep 21, 2013

I have a lot of sympathy for those discovering that a loved one has cancer. It seems the cases of cancer among loved ones and others around me has begun to explode lately.

:comfort:

donb5 · Sep 21, 2013

oldchuck said:
I think the separate strain approach is the best way to go. I think that is how GW formulates Sativex.

I'm wondering if a hemp variety of Cannabis is the best place to look for a high CBD/low THC grow. I'm wondering where I can get some data on CBD concentrations in this or that type of hemp. You see numbers on hemp THC all over because they have to stay under the legal limits. Don't they test for CBD too?

Oldchuck

I believe you'll find that there's too little resin in the fiber strains of hemp to be practical for oil making. I've been told that it is one of the parameters of hemp breeding - to arrive at a plant with low resin. All of this was told to me once by someone manning the CBD Project in California, in an email correspondence.

donb5

herm@n · Sep 21, 2013

donb5 said:
Guys, if you are going to use expensive Everclear as solvent, you should consider running the main boil-off in a countertop water distiller
[...]
This modification to Simpson's RSO instructions incorporates this technique as shown in this You Tube (link below)

That is more or less how I do it.
I use the SPR QWET method, evaporating the solvent in a SmartStill mk2, followed by a controlled decarboxylation "au bain marie" in a 120 degrees C oil bath.
Gives me nice, honey-colored, extracts.

Sam_Skunkman · Sep 21, 2013

This how you could do it, first find a pure CBD clone, so you can decarboxylize it without over doing the THC and terpenes.
CBN is formed by degradation of the other cannabinoids, mainly THC. CBN is a sedative, Antibiotic, Anticonvulisant, Anti-inflammatory.
CBN Cannabinol have 6 types and CBND Cannabinodiol have 2 types. With ring A aromatized, they are oxidation artifacts of THC and CBD respectively. Their concentrations in Cannabis products depend on age and storage conditions. CBN was first named in 1896 by Wood and its structure elucidated in 1940 by Adams.
CBMN Cannabinol methylether
CBN-C4 Cannabinol-C4
CBV Cannabivarin
CBN-C1 Cannabinol-C1
CBND Cannabinodiol
CBVD Cannabinodivarin

PG 17 Chapter 2 of Marijuana and the Cannabinoids ED by Mahmoud A. ElSohly has a chapter by Rudolf Brenneisen ofmost of all the known Cannabinoids.

-SamS

donb5 said:
Chunky - when taken as Cannabis oil I love the effects of a 1:1 CBD:THC mix, almost as much as being all-out high/stoned. I can think very well, am very calm, and noticeably ordered.

I stick by the assertion that when a 1:1 oil is decarboxylated, by the time the CBD's decarbing is complete, there will be a greater amount of CBN in the oil than otherwise would be if the oil didn't contain CBD that needed decarbing. Any decarbing of oil that has mixed principle cannabinoids at say 1:3, 1:2 or 1:1 will have this kind of issue, and it manifests itself as a prolonged time for decarbing the oil at constant temperature, to the point where the CO2 bubbles taper off. I have seen it in preparing my own oil. The THC in the oil is subjected to an excess of either heat or heating time after it is allowed its own complete decarbing. This excess of heat on the THC had to happen so that all the CBD could be completely decarbed. That extra heat is all that's needed to form CBN from THC, though I haven't tried to make an estimate of the amount of CBN that could be expected in the final oil product.

Itmight be seen as a bit of a fine point for those who have made the occasional batch of oil and don't necessarily have a burning desire to know everything they can know about it. For people making a lot of it though, I'd say it's natural for them to want to know what ends up in the oil, as well as the person who takes it feeling the urge to know what it contains. Lab analysis is great and useful but not usually available in non-MMJ states. Anyway I think I could almost guarantee that, by the time medical personnel take up what we call 'oilshining', if they ever do, they will pay attention to things like decarboxylation of mixed cannabinoid profiles and countless other details like it. I only hope oil making isn't displaced by the mere synthesizing of chemicals in a lab..

I never smoked all CBD weed, and can't imagine it except out of curiosity. I really enjoy the 1:1 THC-CBD strains especially as oil. Using two separate THC & CBD strains for extracting and decarbing separately, looks like the only sure way (to me) of ending up with roughly the cannabinoids mix as expected in the oil.

donb5 · Sep 22, 2013

Thanks Sam the Skunkman for commenting in my thread. Having read so much about you in the past, I can't help but feel honored you stopped by. And pls keep posting thought stimulating material.

donb5 · Sep 22, 2013

herm@n said:
That is more or less how I do it.
I use the SPR QWET method, evaporating the solvent in a SmartStill mk2, followed by a controlled decarboxylation "au bain marie" in a 120 degrees C oil bath.
Gives me nice, honey-colored, extracts.

Thanks for that link her@n - I have nothing but great respect for Skunk Pharm - still trying to digest all of that link to pinpoint any difference to what I'm doing now finishing oil.

I'm wondering - is the hotter oil bath for decarb (hotter, say, than a double water boiler setup), done in order to get the benefit of more final THC or other cannabinoid, than is possible with a cooler, slower decarboxylation? One can easily notice on a decarboxylation chart that with hotter runs (up to a point), more total decarbed cannabinoid is preserved, but timing is more sensitive or critical to locking in the greater amount preserved.

herm@n · Sep 22, 2013

donb5 said:
I'm wondering - is the hotter oil bath for decarb (hotter, say, than a double water boiler setup), done in order to get the benefit of more final THC or other cannabinoid, than is possible with a cooler, slower decarboxylation?

My only reference is the THC decarboxylation chart as attached.
From that chart you can see that decarboxylation at the boiling temperature of water takes ages, probably a day or more.
I understand that the progress of decarboxylation can be judged by the bubbles in the oil, the smaller bubbles being caused by CO2 escaping.
So, when I have the vessel in the oil bath, I watch the process, stir from time to time, and when all bubbles are gone I consider it done.

herm@n · Sep 22, 2013

As a newbie on this forum I can not edit my messages yet, so I continue in a separate one with what I wanted to add.....
I set the temperature of the oil bath to approximately 120 degrees C.
The vessel with RSO contains a mixture of cannabinoids, ethanol and water.
As long as there is ethanol in the mix the temperature inside the vessel can not be higher than the boiling point of the ethanol, around 80 degrees C.
When the ethanol is evaporated we still have the water to deal with, so the temperature in the vessel will slowly rise to 100 degrees C.
Only when the water is evaporated the temperature of the RSO can rise to the temperature of the oil bath.

donb5 · Sep 23, 2013

That's the chart I've used, herm@n (I think from Jump13 on IC here) actually the only one I've ever seen like it. If you notice, the chart indicates that hotter decarboxylations are not only faster but result in more quantity of decarboxylated cannabinoid (THC in this case) at the end (at peak, where heat should be cut off). That's why I might switch to an oil bath instead of using the double boiler setup again - for more decarbed cannabinoid. The double water boil setup doesn't need to go nearly all day though, it's more like +-70 min for 30 g or more of oil (THC dom. extract) to the point where it is decarbed (the small CO2 bubbles taper off). But when that same quantity of oil was the 1:1, decarbing required easily twice as much time at the same 100 C temp.

As for this thread of mine I have been believing all along that CBDA decarboxylates at higher temps, the reality is I cannot think of any documentation that says this is so, and that I might have actually dreamed it. All I truly have seen (from multiple sources) is that decarboxylated CBD has a significantly higher boiling point than the THC (THC 392 F vs . CBD 428 F). So I have no reference that says CBDA certainly decarboxylates at higher temps than THCA. But I do have the experience in decarboxylating the approx. 1:1 oil; and it takes me noticeably more time to finish (to when small CO2 bubbles are tapering off).

This is Skunk Pharm's section on 'Decarboxylation' on their website:
http://skunkpharmresearch.com/decarboxylation/ - seem very learned only still not covering quite everything I'd like to see on the subject

G.O. Joe · Sep 24, 2013

CBDA is slightly more difficult. Not much.

oldchuck · Sep 24, 2013

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea to decarb the weed before extraction drying out the water at the same time.

Inherent Prob. Decarbing 1:1 (THC:CBD) oil

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