Making cannabis sap from trim

[alltatup]

Hey homies, here's my latest foray into the wonderful world of cannabis concentrates. I made some sap using a buchner funnel, 2 micron filters and my Source machine.

I dried and then decarbed all the trim from 8 strains in thick brown paper bags and then put it in the freezer in a big plastic bag. The Everclear 190 was also in the freezer. I poured the EC over the trim and gently agitated and turned the bag around for 3 minutes. The colder it stays and the faster the soak--the less plant material seeps into the tincture. If you want a smokeable/vapeable concentrate, there can't be any plant material in it. Then I snipped the corner of the bag and drained out the tincture.



I filtered four times using the buchner filter and the vacuum pump in the Source.




The tincture was a lighter yellow, nice and clear.



After 4 filtrations, I put the tincture into the Source crucible and evaporated the EC.

This is the sap I ended up with. The buchner filter made all the difference. It's powerful stuff: definitely, a little dab in my Prism pen did the trick. The sap is now curing in a cool dry place.



This was the most fun I had all day.

[starramus]

Looks nice, but I believe I am going for bubble hash with this years trim.

[Anoney]

That stuff sounds interesting! Got any guides on it?

[starramus]

Anoney Sign up for Nebula's, and Sirius 4 side's emails. The Bubble Hash instruction came on November 11th. Here ya go. https://www.growweedeasy.com/bubble-hash

[Anoney]

starramus Will do, Thanks! Looks really fun!

[gbauto]

Very nice. I experimented using cold wash etoh a few years ago and it is definitely potent meds. Waiting for my etoh pro to ship, have the same buchner funnel setup. I decided to convert most of my plant material into oil and then use that make my edibles as well as having some dabbable butter. Is it December yet???

[DW2]

Howdy alltatup, Thanks for the information. I have been saving some stems and trims, and some 'leftovers' from dry ice hash extraction just to try to get the remaining 'goodies' out of it. I am planning to use the ethanol for a solvent instead of isopropyl alcohol. Why does the alcohol need to bee cold? I understand why the trim should be kept cold, but solvents work better as their temperature increases (as long as it's below the boiling point), i.e.. warm water removes oil and grease better than cold water does. I would think that the solvent should be at or around room temperature. Do You have any reason to chill the solvent as well as the trim?

[alltatup]

Hi DW2 You store both in the freezer in order to avoid the seepage of any plant material into the tincture. The warmer it is, the more plant matter will infuse into the alcohol. That's IF you're making something you want to vape, dab or smoke. I let everything sit for weeks when I make tincture for sublingual use, because I think the full extract contains lots of other stuff that it's good to consume.

But if you want shatter, sap, wax, etc. for vaping/smoking, it has to be as clean as possible, and the cold alcohol is necessary for that reason. I also discovered that the buchner funnel was necessary: I tried to make something vapeable without it and what I got was more like FECO (full extract cannabis oil): not smokeable. I can use that oil topically or put some under my tongue.

[DW2]

I must have misunderstood what was going on, You put the trim with the solvent in it in the freezer, I was thinking (or NOT!!) that You meant to freeze the solvent before pouring it over the trim! Does the filtration not remove the majority of the plant matter?
Thanks, sometimes neither of my neurons talk to each other! LOL!

[gbauto]

I think it's called winterization. What it's supposed to do is reduce the amount of chlorophyll and waxes stripped by the ethanol. And you do want to have both the flower and the solvent as cold as you can get them.

[alltatup]

DW2 This guy taught me how to make concentrates: Scroll down to THE WASH.

https://extractcrafter.com/2016/02/14/crafting-the-concentrate-you-want-with-the-source-by-extractcraft/

This was the first time I did such a quick wash, literally 2 or 3 minutes. But I was working with trim and not big beautiful buds. So it had to be fast. Hope that helps.

[DW2]

Thanks alltatup and gbauto for bringing a little clarity to my mind (some thing that eluded the Psycho analysts!! LOL).

[alltatup]

DW2

"Never allow a psychoanalyst to understand you."
--Sigmund Freud

[ZigZag]

OK, I'm trying this method so I can get a supper clean and versatile product.
A few questions...
If you're going to use sugar trim and popcorn buds should you let it soak for more than 3 mins in the cold EC?
In the bubble hash tutorial it was suggested that you could use dry ice in the water bath to super chill it so the temp is below what you could get in your freezer..I.wonder if this might help reduce contamination...anyone tried that before?
It was also pointed out that this would make you look like a mad scientist.... and maybe scare everyone else out of the house, though its not in the least dangerous, unless you're careless with the dry ice! Also I'm guessing that you don't need to decarb the bud or trim before you do the extraction if you intend to use for edibles...the process itself does the decarb for you?.
Thanks for any suggestions!

[alltatup]

ZigZag

The process doesn't decarb cannabinoids; you have to use heat for decarboxylation to occur, which is when THCA gets converted to THC (THCA won't get you high).

I also used all my sugar leaves and a little larfy bud to make that sap, which I wanted to be able to vape. I dried all my leaves in paper bags and let them sit for about a week; they always seem to smell so much better after sitting for a bit with bag lids folded over closed. That's after they're thoroughly dried.

Ichiban Crafter's a big fan of the dry ice method, but I haven't tried it yet. Did I send you his link? He taught me all my tricks. I just read one of his blogs I hadn't seen before: this is really interesting about the difference between a 3 and a 10 minute wash: longer is better, as long as you use the buchner funnel!!!
https://extractcrafter.com/2016/07/2...using-dry-ice/

So I guess I should have done a second wash to "rinse" off the leaves!!

If you're gonna cook with it, it seems like the more stuff that gets infused the better. It's only for vaping and smoking that you don't want the plant matter present, but I'm not convinced that the buchner funnel takes care of the smallest solids!! I leave bud in my tincture for a long, long time, cuz I don't mind tincture really dark green.

I decarbed the sap in my Nova in a silicone jar after I cured it for a week or so, and then I left it sitting in my cool dark closet with the lid partly off, to allow whatever small amount of alcohol was left to evaporate. Even though I was gonna vape it, I wanted to see what decarbing it would do to it; it smelled nicer afterwrds, but I don't think it was necessary...

[ZigZag]

That's all great! And yes you did provide the link to Ichiban Crafter. Going to check that out too.

So I guess I'll start with the sugar trim, popcorn buds, etc. to make the first batch of sap, and I'll probably prep that so I can get as much of the goodies I can in the sap (longer soak time) and then I can decarb that in my a silicon jar for edibles (just like I do the rosin or dry ice hash). Then when I do the second batch I'm going to make a "clean" version so I can use it to vape. I'm going to have a lot of popcorn buds and trim once the present grow is harvested (about two weeks or so) so I'll have plenty to experiment with_this is going to be fun!

I'll have plenty to make some dry ice or bubble hash too. Hmmmm...wonder if you could take some of the sap and mix it with some dry ice hash and roll it into little balls and then smoke it...probably be "one hitter" stash....but also probably a messy experiment trying to find the right consistency.

Long time ago I spent about six years in the Philippines and SE Asia and we used to get "Thai Sticks" soaked in hash oil for about $2 each. I'll never forget that stuff....I think some of the "hash oil" may have been substituted with black tar opium occasionally too_ you never knew exactly what you were getting_unlike when we grow and make our own these days.
In Malaysia we'd get these.."tootsie rolls" of flower that were mixed with rosin and pressed into cylinders about 3" long and the diameter of a quarter_ they called them "cartoons" because they were rolled in the Sunday funny papers. When you unrolled them you had to break off chunks and smoke them in a pipe cus they were so sticky. Never have seen either of those since. We even would 'hot knife" some if it was really dense and gooey.

Cheers and thanks so much for all your help!

[alltatup]

Wow, ZZ, fascinating stories from the Southern Seas! You look at all these amazing ways people have throughout the world of preparing Cannabis to smoke. Did you just get so high you couldn't move? Was it really really good? How does today's bud compare???

Yeah, I was convinced by the Ichiban blog I sent you that a 10-minute soak will extract more, and a second wash will seal the deal. I'd keep them separate, unless the color is nearly the same after you've buchner'd them. How exciting!!

Those little "cheese balls" rolled in dry hash rather than chopped walnuts sound fabulous!! I keep my sap in the fridge, cuz when it's room temperature, it's really sticky and oozy, hard not to make a mess mixing it with flower. Nothing as solid and shapeable as the stuff you describe above...

[Potted]

Had som a that back in nam in the sixtys but, I always wondered what it was treated with? Also had me som black tar opium, and that was a hole diff trip man, wow u brought me back to 1968 Saigon and the opium dens I sampled

[ZigZag]

You know... I'm not sure whether it was better or worse or about the same. It was all kick ass but all that had been "enhanced" with additional extracts. Since there has been so much more breeding these days what we have to start with is probably stronger and there for sure is a ton more hybrids. I think back then they pretty much worked with whatever the local strain of sativa or indica they had available and not hybrids. But we'll probably never really know how much breeding there may have been, even with these landrace strains. I do remember getting the "giggles: more back then though! But who knows why? was it the sativa or just cause I was just a kid back then...
I have been keeping my extracts in the freezer for the same reason, then its brittle and easy to work with but doesn't take long for it to thaw and get soft and sticky.
I took the big step last night and put in my orders, now waiting in anticipation....

[alltatup]

Im excited for ya!! You will have a ball!! Dis u order the buchner and like 2 or 5 micron filters???

[ZigZag]

I did order the buchner funnel and got both filters... I wasn't sure which way to go but first went with the 2 micron because I thought it might provide a cleaner product but then I thought that maybe the 5 micron might be better for edible extractions because I'd get more of the goodies...am I totally off base on that? Wasn't sure so I just went with both.. figuered it wouldn't hurt to have them and I could try them out to see what the difference is....thoughts?

[alltatup]

I also wasn't sure and went with both. As far as we're concerned, there's not going to be much difference between 2 & 5 microns. It must really matter in scientific applications.

The sticky icky infuses into the alcohol, so it can't be trapped by a filter. But little bits of other stuff will get caught, as you saw on my first filter. I went ahead and filtered 3 more times, but it looked like pretty much everything got caught on the first go-round.

[ZigZag]

That's interesting...not much difference between the filters and number of runs...but like you said when you get down to 2-5 microns thats a tiny difference when you consider the mesh you'd use for dry ice hash or bubble hash_ which usually run in 25 plus microns for each step up or down. Get this_ I should have kept this little project a secrete but was so excited I told my wife about it and she told a few of her friends who are really into the topicals and now they all want me to make stuff for them. I told em they'd have to wait until I got the process down to where it would be somewhat predictable_ for technical reasons of course!

[alltatup]

Get you some shea butter, some bees wax pellets and some cute little blue glass jars, and you'll be selling salve like crazy!!! That stuff is expensive!!!

[ZigZag]

I think I just might do that for sure! I promised a few of my wife friends I'd make some for them with the extractor so I could get something stronger that what is commercially available. The high CBD stuff is really expensive! And they want some THC in there too. I'm going to warn them that this isn't something I'm going to do regularly because its a lot of work... so your suggestion is very attractive.
I got my extractor yesterday! But getting the filters is a real PITA! I ordered them but they were back ordered for 2-3 weeks, so I tried another vendor and they wouldn't ship to our address so I had to have them shipped to our daughter who's going to ship them to me!
To avoid going crazy in the meantime do you think I can strain some tincture through a coffee filter and then process that in the extractor?
It seems like it would work but result in a product that wouldn't be as "clean" as one filtered with the Buchner setup?
Thanks as always!

[alltatup]

1. For making salve or canna-caps, that's fine. Just remember it won't be vapable or smokeable unless it's properly filtered.

2. Yaaaay!! You got your Source!!

3. Your wife's friends should be willing to pay you for your time and labor. That's my humble opinion. The donations they make to you help you to defray the costs of the equipment, not to mention your grows, electricity, etc.

[ZigZag]

Thanks for the fast reply! Yup, I'm gonna start off then with some canna caps and maybe an edible or two....then I'll make some smokeable once I get the filters. and man you got #3 right_ exactly how I'm looking at that too....Thanks so much... and may the "Source "be with you. always...ok that's too corny, not sure why it popped into my head.... apologies! Anyway I'm heading off to the liquor store this afternoon to get a supply of Everclear. Can't wait to get started. Cheers!

[alltatup]

"May the Source be with you": I like that Ziggy!!! However, THESE are not the drones you're looking for. ;-}

[ZigZag]

That's a good one! I have to clean the truck off so I can get to the store_a foot of heavy wet snow covering everything_ its gonna be fun. OH...even more lovely_ now its starting to rain...ugghh

[alltatup]

Soggy snow: yes, I remember it from my Buffalo days...