[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by Thomas@LRL

You would be quite surprised by what still comes out after QWET. Maybe. I don't know what your experience level is. Most people are surprised though, which is why cold is the name of the game with EToH extraction these days.

I am sure that nasties can get picked up easily. It is quite simply garbage in and garbage(ish but still potent) out. If you did not grow the flowers yourself, you are at the mercy of whatever the lab tells you, but no environment, even if you are the Jungle Boys, is ever perfect, so we have to try and minimize pickup.

I start my QWET extraction when the 200 proof ethanol has reached -55C by sitting in flasks surrounded by dry ice. Flower material is in flasks cooling on dry ice as well. I combine cold ethanol with flowers in flask and let sit for 5 minutes, stirring a few times.

I use a vacuum pump assisted 1L glass Buchner funnel with 110mm pore plate and whatman #1 filters. I made a jacket around buchner with radiant barrier material and foil tape with about 1 inch gap. I pour about 1 pound of dry ice pellets around buchner and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Funnel is about -40C and then I prime filter with -55C alcohol to pull vacuum and then dump contents of flasks into filter. You have to throttle vacuum to not over pump, but I go up to around 15 Hg of vacuum for 10-15 minutes to filter all material. I pour additional -55C alcohol towards the end to lower temperature and try to get max extraction. After 15 minutes the cake in the filter still reads between -35C and -40C at the top with an IR thermometer.

[MrBungle]

look up vegetable glycerin extraction method on youtube

[Mellowyellow25]

Originally Posted by Thomas@LRL

I dry to reduce the water content of the raw material prior to extraction in the same way you would for smoking out of a pipe...

So how dry is dry? If you were to put the material in a jar with a digital humidity gauge, about what would it read?

Originally Posted by Thomas@LRL

In my professional process I utilize any of the plant that has cannabinoid material on it...

So the buds, the sugar leaves on the buds, and do you also take the larger fan leaves all the way to the bottom?

Originally Posted by Thomas@LRL

I refer to winterization I'm referring to the same thing you do for other oil types to reduce solid content, sometimes in the presence of a solvent, sometimes not.

Still not sure about this part. So is the alcohol solvent doing the winterization by removing the fats or is that done using a vacuum filter atop the glass container?

Why is colder better?

[Mellowyellow25]

Originally Posted by WaterFarmFan

I start my QWET extraction when the 200 proof ethanol has reached -55C by sitting in flasks surrounded by dry ice. Flower material is in flasks cooling on dry ice as well. I combine cold ethanol with flowers in flask and let sit for 5 minutes, stirring a few times?..

So what is your end result? Is it a thick, golden oil or hard candy-like material?

Can it be used in a vaping device like the Saionara, mentioned here?

[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by Mellowyellow25

So how dry is dry? If you were to put the material in a jar with a digital humidity gauge, about what would it read?

So the buds, the sugar leaves on the buds, and do you also take the larger fan leaves all the way to the bottom?

Why is colder better?

You want it as dry as possible without damaging any of the compounds that you want to keep. There is no definitive water percentage, only drier is better.

I don't bother with larger fan leaves, as you have to use more solvent, which requires more time to purge. It also puts a higher chance of picking up chlorophyll and other crap. Just use the frosty stuff and toss the rest.

Colder is better is because your starting material will inevitably have some amount of water, and doing an extraction at -50C (which is 90 degrees Fahrenheit below the temp that water freezes at) will cause the water molecules to freeze and lock out water soluble compounds like chlorophyll and long chain molecules from bad things picked up during growing. The aforementioned compounds are frozen and alcohol can not dissolve. It is more complicated than that, but this is my basic understanding.

Originally Posted by Mellowyellow25

So what is your end result? Is it a thick, golden oil or hard candy-like material?

If you use quality flowers and trim (which I do), you will get rock hard shatter (which is what you want with this process) if you purge in a vacuum. If you purge in open air, it will pick up some water and be more runny (not as desirable).

Originally Posted by Mellowyellow25

Can it be used in a vaping device like the Saionara, mentioned here?

That is another step all together. You have to mix in either terpenes or PG/VG (like ecigs) to make an oil that will work in most vape pens.

Hope this helps.

WFF

[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by Mellowyellow25

Still not sure about this part. So is the alcohol solvent doing the winterization by removing the fats or is that done using a vacuum filter atop the glass container?

If you do a really cold QWET than you will only pick up very minimal waxes, so you do not really winterize. People that extract with butane (BHO) often pick up lots of waxes and crap that they than add alcohol to. Alcohol has a different polarity (hence the term winterization) that allows bad stuff to be separated. Butane is dangerous (unless you have an expensive closed loop setup), so I don't mess with it or have any practical experience.

You will find that there are lots of ways to skin a cat when it comes to extracts...

WFF

[Mellowyellow25]

Originally Posted by MrBungle

look up vegetable glycerin extraction method on youtube

Thanks for the replies and information. This is very helpful. I only have a single plant to try this with so I need to try and get it right first time out of the gate.

Watched a bunch of these videos last evening and my head is now spinning. From what I can deduce, adding anything to the pure extraction serves to thin it out and, in the case of vegetable glycerine, add some preservation capability.

Is this correct?

So, correct me if I'm wrong, based on what was stated here, by doing the extraction with frozen material and frozen alcohol the water molecules get frozen out of the process and with that, the chlorophyll. This keeps the end product more golden/amber in color as opposed to green (from the chlorophyll). The more "golden" the product the purer the product.

So, two ways to do it cold. Store material and alcohol in the kitchen freezer (not that cold) or get an ice chest and fill with dry ice. I assume the latter is better because it will get everything colder. Correct?

The step using a vacuum connected to a special filter-holding funnel... that step removes the fats from the extracted liquid, correct?

Is that advisable for the best product?

[MrBungle]

Vegetable glycerin extraction has nothing to do with alcohol...

The fast way is to put some broken up weed ina mason jar...

just cover the weed with VG mix it all up...

Prepare an vegetable oil bath at 180F, put the VG/pot mixture (in the mason jar) in the oil bath, and mix it as much as possible for 45 min..

Then strain the VG from the pot put a lil more VG in with the pot and repeat....

After 3 times you refine your extracted VG through folded up cheese cloth in your strainer to get the small particulate out.....

After this is complete you heat up your oil bath to 220F and leave your extracted VG in it for 25 min....

This will decarb your VG so you can do whatever you like with it.. whether it be adding it to food, beverages, straight up, capsule, gummies, Ejuice pen, etc

[MrBungle]

I should add I found this method on Youtube, and they credited Skunkpharm Research

[WaterFarmFan]

I know firsthand that this is very confusing when you first get started. There are many ways to achieve similar results. If you really want to keep it simple, and ensure that you will get an extract, using Everclear is your best bet. You will need to spend $$$ for the gear and it will take a few weeks to get everything, but there is very high chance of success (getting an extract at the end).

If you just use everclear, the filtering funnel will catch all of your flower material, which has just been soaked in very cold everclear, leaving only extract laden alcohol in the bottom flask. You then have to remove the ethanol, which is often done in a distillation device, like below, under vacuum and heat. You can also just let it sit out with a fan blowing on it, and most will evaporate off over a few days. To remove the final ethanol that is trapped in the sticky mass, you HAVE to purge under vacuum. Once purged of ethanol, you now have shatter (or taffy if water is allowed to be picked up in your process), and can process it for vape pens by adding terpenes (I recommend Holy Terp Pure) that buy on the internet.

Some items that you might need:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1000ml-Suct...-/231694553665 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/Whatman-100...-/322586570377

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Chemist...-/231265066649 or https://www.ebay.com/itm/1000ml-Glas...-/231064529890 or https://www.ebay.com/itm/1000ml-24-4...-/231091970061 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/High-qualit...-/262902512202

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Gallon-3-...-/231943240017 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dia-10-Roun...-/271765804955

WFF