Extracting thc from moldy material

So I had a complete harvest go down from a combination of a faulty AC, high humidity, and then a broken dehumidifier making the room too dry.

So I am left with a lot of white powdery mildew trees. I almost threw it out in the garbage before I thought about extracting THC in a way that would kill the WPM (white powdery mildew)...

What is the best way to salvage my harvest????

Does BHO work the same way as isopropyl? Meaning, can I salvage my harvest and still procure something?

What would yall suggest that I do in my situation? I would like to just get the best meds within a low budget....


Please help

Of all the mildew/molds you can get...PM is the least of them--
Yes, BHO will kill it all-- The problem is...if it was bad enough to reduce your resin production-- If so...you will have a lower yield...the final product will be diminished...but safe--

Thanks KMK.... what would be the cheapest way to go? I see everyone praising kits from extractionexperts.... I searched DIY threads but could not find a fully functional tutorial for a SUPER newb. I've done ice water hash but that will not eliminate the PM enough to make it a safe smoke.

A friend of mine recommended that I go ISO extraction but I think he might be talking about QWISO.... I would like to just get quality vs. quantity at this point.

what about water cure? i once heard it saved 125lb of product that was wet with sea water and had mold all over. saved as in make it smokeable.

We extract oil from PMed material using BHO and then filter to 0.2 microns using a syringe filter, to remove the mildew body parts, that add a moldy taste.

I would Follow GW's instructions anything less is unsafe. The easiest way to do what he described is dissolve your bho into ethanol and run your ethanol oil mixture threw the .2 micron syringe filter to remove the bad juju.

Gray Wolf said:

We extract oil from PMed material using BHO and then filter to 0.2 microns using a syringe filter, to remove the mildew body parts, that add a moldy taste.

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Would you happen to have a tutorial thread? I've been searching but all I found was your crazy ass setup. Just looking for some simple but effective DIY from materials to process... Thanks I have quite a bit to sacrifice to the ISO gods so all help would be appreciated

wouldn't the mold spores go through a 25 micron bag?

I would wear a gas mask to prevent a fungal pneumonia depending on the size of the job. It is rare but deadly since doctors misdiagnose it as a bacterial pneumonia. The antibiotics kill your healthy bacterial flora and speed up the pneumonia accidentally.

does Dry ice method kill the PM?

Wat it do said:

Would you happen to have a tutorial thread? I've been searching but all I found was your crazy ass setup. Just looking for some simple but effective DIY from materials to process... Thanks I have quite a bit to sacrifice to the ISO gods so all help would be appreciated

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https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=155623&highlight=Mold

Ohmless said:

wouldn't the mold spores go through a 25 micron bag?

I would wear a gas mask to prevent a fungal pneumonia depending on the size of the job. It is rare but deadly since doctors misdiagnose it as a bacterial pneumonia. The antibiotics kill your healthy bacterial flora and speed up the pneumonia accidentally.

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The mold spores are smaller than 25 microns. Some under 10 microns on the skinny ends.

I've never read of Powdery Mildew being involved in fungal pneumonia. That is typically Aspergillus, the composting molds.

Wat it do said:

does Dry ice method kill the PM?

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Don't know, but probably not. Extreme cold may just put them in hibernation, and it sure doesn't take out their dead carcasses, which is where the rank taste comes from.

Mold spores will be 0.2 microns filtered and what to do with dissolved mycotoxins, are they dangerous?

jump117 said:

Mold spores will be 0.2 microns filtered and what to do with dissolved mycotoxins, are they dangerous?

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No known mycotoxins with Powdery Mildew or Botrytis, but Aspergillus most definitely produces aflatoxins and mycotoxins, which are not removed by filtration and are dangerous.

I've always wondered if it was possible to use pm material, I figured distilling and isomerizering weren't enough but nothing's needed for cleaning? That's nice to know.

Are there any with easy to remove toxins?

Before anyone asks I figured the exposure to sulfuric acid in isomerizing would decompose some toxins when I said Isomerizing and distilling probably not enough.

pip313 said:

I've always wondered if it was possible to use pm material, I figured distilling and isomerizering weren't enough but nothing's needed for cleaning? That's nice to know.

Are there any with easy to remove toxins?

Before anyone asks I figured the exposure to sulfuric acid in isomerizing would decompose some toxins when I said Isomerizing and distilling probably not enough.

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Not that I'm aware of, but I'm not a chemist. From their structure, it looks like anything destroying them, would most likely also destroy the terpenes present, including the cannabinoids.

http://irmm.jrc.ec.europa.eu/EURLs/...JRC 60040_Mycotoxin factsheet_3rd edition.pdf

I just do a quick wash in iso and strain the liquid through a mesh coffee filter. Let that evaporate over 48 hours and scrape up the resulting powder. Is that not the proper method?

I happened to extensively research into mycotoxins a couple of years ago and I discovered that aside from those that simply decompose when heated, almost all of them have melting points well above or close to 200 °C. Naturally this means that their boiling points will be much higher than 200 °C. If you vaporize the extract at below 200 °C, you should avoid inhaling almost all of the free mycotoxins. There's a little more to it than that though because mycotoxins can be bound up in inhaled spores and mold fragments, rather than volatilizing in their free form. The simple method detailed below should address that problem though.

I also discovered that while mold spores range from 1-100 microns in diameter and a 1 micron filter could filter out all of the spores, some mold fragments can be much smaller and were shown in one study to pass through a 200 nanometer (0.2 micron) filter. With this in mind, I would recommend that growers make ice hash first, so that any microscopic mold fragments are washed away in the water. The larger mold fragments and spores are likely to float, along with the weed because of how buoyant they are. The key here would be to skim or siphon them off, instead of letting them drain through the bags and letting them get stuck in the mesh with the hash. The water would also help to remove polar mycotoxins.

If you wish, you could then dissolve the hash in alcohol and pass it through a 1 micron filter but if you prepare the ice hash in the way suggested, there should be very few spores and fragments remaining in the hash.

In regard to the moldy smell, it's down to microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs). They are generally much less of a health concern than the mycotoxins but large doses of them are not good for you. Ofcourse, they also don't smell or taste nice. Any dissolved MVOCs would be removed in the water and those remaining in the mold fragments should also be removed, if you make the ice hash in the way suggested. If you wished, you could then vaporize the hash or secondary extract at <200 °C. I hope that this was useful to you.

gunna

There's one other method which has good potential. You can water cure the moldy buds for atleast a couple of hours, rinse them through again in fresh water, drain them and let them dry until they are still slightly damp. Then you can extract them with butane, so that the water saturated mold freezes solid and cannot absorb the butane. This should stop any mycotoxins from being extracted. The water cure and secondary rinse will also remove most of the loose mold fragments and spores. Providing that you break the buds up before the water cure and not after, you shouldn't generate any more loose fragments. So long as you also don't swirl the buds around in the butane, the mold should also hold together and not generate any new fragments. You could then pass the butane through a fine filter directly, or redissolve the BHO in alcohol before passing through a fine filter.

I suggested this method to a guy a couple of years ago and here's his thread showing the results. The smoke report is in post #32.

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=228235&st=0

You have a good point, ice water extraction won't take anything nonpolar besides the resin. I would dissolve the bubble hash in a solvent to do a water wash anyway.