[coldcanna]

I see what your sayin now.... I myself have been mulling the same problem, reading through dozens of scholarly articles on essential oils. I have a separate thread on the science of curing in the advanced growing forum on here.

Some cats are doing steam distillation of terps prior to your typical solvent distillation for cannabinoids. I personally haven't tried this but seems interesting enough. Not sure how 230 degree steam is gentler on the terps than other options but who knows.

Problem here is all of our methods involve heat. Whether is vac purging butane or distilling off ethanol. Terps volatilize at room temperature from heat and oxygen so its really a tough problem. I would venture to say that freeze drying fresh nuggets then using those in a vaporizer would be your closest bet to near original oil content. But the point of this thread is vape oil so I'll get back on track.

[Prime_Extracts]

Originally Posted by WaterFarmFan

I am certainly not advocating anyone to pay the current insane prices for cannabis derived terpenes. I am saying that if you have high quality flowers, then the terpenes are already there just waiting to be extracted, in a natural ratio that could be used for safe vape oil. If there is a way to safely extract terpenes in a repeatable fashion, just like the 100s of commercial and DIY products for extracting cannabiniods, I wonder why more people don't discuss these ideas.

Terpenes are terpenes, regardless of where they were derived from. The only "fake" terpene would be one that was synthesized in a lab, and I don't know if that is even being done or not. There is no difference in the chemical structure of these individual compounds across different species of plants.

Just because you extracted your terps from high quality cannabis flower does not automatically make them safe for consumption. We know they are safe to consume at levels found naturally in the flower, but once extracted they are further concentrated and no longer in a natural ratio. The same goes for the terpenes (and every other compound) found in your typical shatter or wax.. once extracted they are no longer anywhere close to natures intended concentration.

[Hashmasta-Kut]

Originally Posted by Prime_Extracts

Terpenes are terpenes, regardless of where they were derived from. The only "fake" terpene would be one that was synthesized in a lab, and I don't know if that is even being done or not. There is no difference in the chemical structure of these individual compounds across different species of plants.

Just because you extracted your terps from high quality cannabis flower does not automatically make them safe for consumption. We know they are safe to consume at levels found naturally in the flower, but once extracted they are further concentrated and no longer in a natural ratio. The same goes for the terpenes (and every other compound) found in your typical shatter or wax.. once extracted they are no longer anywhere close to natures intended concentration.

Nature has no "intention" as to concentration and consumption. People have smoked hash for thousands? of years, nature doesn't care.

also it has been shown that non cannabis derived terpenes added to cannabis products do not have the same synergistic effects.

[Prime_Extracts]

Originally Posted by Hashmasta-Kut

Nature has no "intention" as to concentration and consumption. People have smoked hash for thousands? of years, nature doesn't care.

also it has been shown that non cannabis derived terpenes added to cannabis products do not have the same synergistic effects.

I would say nature definitely has its intentions. Plants evolved to produce their specific terpenes profiles for a reason. For example..
"Several terpenoids have their roles in plant defense against biotic and abiotic stresses or they are treated as signal molecules to attract the insects of pollination."
-https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4362742/

Could those reasons include the consumption by animals/humans for their physiological/biochemical effects? Sure, its definitely possible and personally what I like to believe.

I never said that they were dangerous or that they shouldn't be consumed. My point was only that once the plant has been processed, the contents of your resulting material are no longer "natural". The only actual risks here, in my opinion, could be inhaling pure concentrated terpenes, or maybe even the "sauce" that people are smoking that is measuring 20%+ in terpene content. Would I still smoke it? You're damn right!

"it has been shown..." .. yeah that's a neat theory and all, but please get back to me when you find some sort of scientific backing for that one because I'm definitely interested.

[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by Prime_Extracts

Terpenes are terpenes, regardless of where they were derived from. The only "fake" terpene would be one that was synthesized in a lab, and I don't know if that is even being done or not. There is no difference in the chemical structure of these individual compounds across different species of plants.

I never said terpenes extracted from other plants are "fake". They are the exact same chemical compounds if distilled and handled properly. There are indeed terpenes that are synthesized in a lab, as certain vendors list options for both Natural and Synthetic for the same isolate. I read that many base terpenes are precursors for others, and thus open to manipulation.

Originally Posted by Prime_Extracts

Just because you extracted your terps from high quality cannabis flower does not automatically make them safe for consumption. We know they are safe to consume at levels found naturally in the flower, but once extracted they are further concentrated and no longer in a natural ratio. The same goes for the terpenes (and every other compound) found in your typical shatter or wax.. once extracted they are no longer anywhere close to natures intended concentration.

If flowers are safe to smoke, then the compounds inside are as well. Proper extraction does not chemically alter terpenes. My comment about natural ratio pertained to making shatter with same flowers after terpene extraction and adding back same terpenes to make vape oil. The terpenes are in the exact same ratio to the amount of thc, but of course in a concentrated format. That terp:thc ratio could vary from 1:10 to 1:20 (roughly), which is not enough for sauce, but perfect for vape oil. There is also a natural ratio of the terpenes themselves as well as other lesser organics. Labs only test for the main ones, which vendors sell, but as Gray Wolf noted in his sweet mary posts, very tiny amounts of esters can have very powerful effects.

Welcome to Icmag! Happy to have you!

WFF

[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by coldcanna

I see what your sayin now.... I myself have been mulling the same problem, reading through dozens of scholarly articles on essential oils. I have a separate thread on the science of curing in the advanced growing forum on here.

Some cats are doing steam distillation of terps prior to your typical solvent distillation for cannabinoids. I personally haven't tried this but seems interesting enough. Not sure how 230 degree steam is gentler on the terps than other options but who knows.

Problem here is all of our methods involve heat. Whether is vac purging butane or distilling off ethanol. Terps volatilize at room temperature from heat and oxygen so its really a tough problem. I would venture to say that freeze drying fresh nuggets then using those in a vaporizer would be your closest bet to near original oil content. But the point of this thread is vape oil so I'll get back on track.

This is a diagram that is about 4 generations old. I have radically changed my condensers and cold traps, but can get the jist of my process.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.ph...1&postcount=12

The problem with steam is that gets material wet which is bad if you make shatter like me. I have all the glassware, including wide-mouth chromatography reservoir, and will be testing steam distillation soon. I noticed that my post-etoh filter cakes still had a strong terp smell after extraction. So, my new working theory for extraction is below:

Vacuum terpene extraction with Nitrogen backfill
-50C Ethanol cannabinoid extraction
Steam terpene distillation of filtered material (after etoh evaporation and drying)
Add back terpenes to shatter to make vape oil

Would love to have someone try and replicate what I am doing!

WFF

[coldcanna]

Very clever work @Waterfarmfan, this is the type of original content that really keeps the community moving forward, so thank you.

Couple questions:

1) when using the pestle and sieves to separate raw material, what type of efficiency are you seeing? does it take multiple attempts to fully break off all resin glands?

2) are you capturing any terps during sublimation

3) do you think you would lose quality by taking your frozen trich mixture and using a short path distillation apparatus under vacuum instead of vacuum oven manipulation?

[Prime_Extracts]

Originally Posted by WaterFarmFan

I never said terpenes extracted from other plants are "fake". They are the exact same chemical compounds if distilled and handled properly. There are indeed terpenes that are synthesized in a lab, as certain vendors list options for both Natural and Synthetic for the same isolate. I read that many base terpenes are precursors for others, and thus open to manipulation.



If flowers are safe to smoke, then the compounds inside are as well. Proper extraction does not chemically alter terpenes. My comment about natural ratio pertained to making shatter with same flowers after terpene extraction and adding back same terpenes to make vape oil.

Welcome to Icmag! Happy to have you!

WFF

Yeah it doesn't chemically alter them (IF you keep your temperatures under control) but concentrates them. And that's exactly how I make vape cartridges also, about a 10% ratio give or take depending on the extract. I personally use TrueTerpenes though which are not cannabis derived.

My main point though was that if anything might be unsafe I would think it to be smoking the concentrated terpenes that you extract as they are, cannabis derived or not. Anyone who has worked with concentrated terpenes knows that some of those chemicals are crazy strong solvents! I would agree though that if you are diluting them by adding only a small amount to your product, mimicking the ratios found in nature, then the consumer should have nothing to worry about. Its the extracts we see today with crazy high terpene content that I worry about.. a lot of the time it burns the hell out of my sinuses or throat.

And thanks! I'm going to try and stop lurking and jump into discussions more. I very much appreciate this communities' passion for sharing knowledge

[Hashmasta-Kut]

Originally Posted by Prime_Extracts

Could those reasons include the consumption by animals/humans for their physiological/biochemical effects? Sure, its definitely possible and personally what I like to believe.

"it has been shown..." .. yeah that's a neat theory and all, but please get back to me when you find some sort of scientific backing for that one because I'm definitely interested.

You like to believe. With no evidence, and yet you make decisions based upon beliefs that you just like to have, that aren't proven? That will take you down a dubious path.


The terpene info I saw on here. You can look around if you like. I'm good.

[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by coldcanna

Very clever work @Waterfarmfan, this is the type of original content that really keeps the community moving forward, so thank you.

Couple questions:

1) when using the pestle and sieves to separate raw material, what type of efficiency are you seeing? does it take multiple attempts to fully break off all resin glands?

2) are you capturing any terps during sublimation

3) do you think you would lose quality by taking your frozen trich mixture and using a short path distillation apparatus under vacuum instead of vacuum oven manipulation?

Thanks! I simply love to experiment.

1) - With Ln2 and fresh flowers (cut from stem less than 30 minutes), it takes little effort to break up the flowers into smaller pieces. About 90% will go through the top sieve with relative ease. You just tap the buds and they will break up, but you do need to work pretty quickly (or not put too bud on sieze at one time). After about 2-3 minutes the fresh material will thaw enough that it will no longer break up. I just move this material to one side of the sieve and dump in a fresh load of ln2 frozen flowers. When I remove the canister from ln2, I let the ln2 drip on the ~10% material to refreeze, and immediately do another grinding on both old and new material in sieve. I repeat this process 3 times (and only stems and leaves remain) and then remove the top sieve. After dumping contents of top sieve into a 2nd stainless bowl, I simply tap the walls of the lower sieve to separate the trichomes. Because the bottom sieve is ~500 microns, some plant material will get the bottom, but at this point you have fresh ln2 hash (with a high water content in trichomes). I dump the contents of the second sieve in the 2nd bowl and start the process over from beginning, but the ln2 hash in the bottom bowl remains until all flowers are processed. I can process about 500 grams of fresh flowers a hour with this method.

2) A good question that I can not answer with 100% certainty, but I have seen enough empirical data to say the terps do not come until I raise heat, which causes evaporation. This process only does sublimation initially, and terps could be condensing in parts of the oven that will only be volatilized for collection once temps are raised enough. Trichomes contain a waxy shell that must penetrated or degraded in a way that allows the terpenes to escape. A freeze drier does repeated freeze thaw cycles, but it very difficult to collect terpenes from these system. Another thing that I have encountered repeated sublimation from different parts of the traps. If you collect terpenes in cold traps, what is to prevent them from sublimating again, after they have sublimated from plant material? I have re-engineered my traps and receivers to alternate different cold temperatures (-70C, -20C & 0C). Still experimenting...

3) There are lots of ways to skin a cat, and I certainly think that you could do this with only glassware. It really just comes down to how you volatilize the terpenes. I have well over 100 pieces of 24/40 glassware and you can do just about anything (except high pressure applications) that can be done with stainless, just typically on a smaller scale.