Alcohol Tincture

[Gracey]

I don't know if GWE forum is the right place for this discussion. It's not about growing but GWE does have a recent tutorial on cannabutter, so.

After decarbing in the oven for years I just purchased a Nova decarber and wow. The hardest part about making edibles and such is getting the decarb consistent, now that's not a prob.

A surprise lesson I learned...I was under the impression that when you infuse everclear with cannabis that the trichomes broke down/dissolved in the alcohol. Under my new USB microsope I studied a bud before decarb, after decarb, and again after frozen infusion in everclear. To my surprise, the trichomes were still there. I tested the alcohol and it's got excellent potency, I tested the plant material and wasn't surprised that there were no effects. So I guess the cannabinoids were released into the alcohol but the structure of the trichomes is left behind. Who knew?

I am looking for information about sublingual infusions. Everclear is much too strong for under the tongue and burns. Oil doesn't work for me. Is anyone else looking for a better way? I recently became unable to smoke or vape so I'm on a mission to figure this thing out.

Anyone interested in sharing recipes, experiences, a nanoemulsion machine ?

[quirk]

I add 2ml Indica tincture to yogurt with a bit of decarbed bud a couple of hours before bedtime. Under the tongue is too much heat for me as well. But emulsified in the yogurt, delightful.

[Cali]

I drop 10 to 12 ML in lemonade like just a shot worth or a bit more of it and just swallow it. I hate alcoholic drinks so I just do that to not taste the alcohol. Or I doit in kool aid or whatever orange juice you know what I mean?

[ChadWestport]

Depending upon what state you are in, you may be able to get edible distillate, which you can find in flavors or you can go for RSO, which doesn't taste great and is the strongest form to consume Cannabis.

[Wolfe0420]

Thanks for that. I’ll have to research if there are any products like this avail in Canada.

[Puglover1]

ChadWestport I have this syringe with LA Cheese, the pkg says Cannabis Oil CO2. It's clear, golden color, the syringe says for ingestion only. It's 76.25% THC, 0% THC-A - can it be put in a cartridge & vaped? (I put some RSO in a store-bought gummy last night and slept well)

[ChadWestport]

Yes Puglover1 that sounds like the product I am thinking of. I know in WA, the Spoil'd brand makes a few popular options. I do prefer the Co2 extractions when it comes to cartridges. Here is the dosage math if they didn't fill you in at the store. If you bought a 1 gram syringe, that is 1000mg. THC is 76%, so you have 760mg of THC in the syringe. Thats a lot. In my state, edibles are limited to only 10mg per dose. To get that dose, you'll take a little more than a 10th of the syringe or said another way, a tenth of the syringe is equal to a 7.6mg dose of THC.

[Wolfe0420]

I have made tincture once before it turned out ok, I am unable to get ever clear the best I could get was Bacardi 151.
so I took 1 oz of bud and grinded it all up. Then you need to Decarb the bud (toast it until it’s a light brown kinda golden) then place bud into a mason jar and pour the alcohol in about one inch above the bud. I then give that a hot water bath, take the mason jar mix and place into a pot of warm water like 170F and cook the alcohol off. You should be left with soaking wet bud still take that and strain it with good quality coffee filter. Ever clear would be best. I used my tincture to make gummies and they worked however I’m not sure I got all the alcohol out I’m pretty sure there was a faint taste of booze nothing too over powering tho.

[SommerVirelli]

My wife’s preferred way of medicating is capsules. We use left over rosin chips and throw them into a crockpot with a jar or two or coconut oil to make the canna-oil. When she’s ready to make medicine she heats the canna-oil back up so it’s liquid and uses a pill maker press to make the capsules.

[Gracey]

The pill maker press?

[SommerVirelli]

Yeah it’s got a few names. If you get on Amazon and search for capsule maker you’ll find this plastic press that makes 100 capsules at a time. They are cheap and well worth it. We also make salt supplements with it too.

[Gracey]

Cool, I just looked at them I think. Can she pour excess off like it was powder?

[Gracey]

OK! I see lots of people have experimented. I bake and cook a lot and have added weed in various forms from baking half a lid in a box brownie mix in 76 to sprinkling nova decarbed over a salad yesterday (a new favorite). They all have their strengths but they also don't have the initial onset of high that you get from smoking or even vaping and I love that part. I want to use sublingually because it goes straight to the blood system bypassing the stomach but can't find a method that works. I am dubious about using oils even MCT as a carrier for sublingual, it doesn't work for me. I have no safety qualms or bad experiences cooking down the alcohol for rso my problem is it completely destroys any aesthetics in looks, smells, or tastes, plus I think you cook most of the thc out leaving cbn, which has its place for sure but not what I'm looking for.

At the moment I decarb, infuse with everclear, strain, then leave open to evaporate the alcohol or use it with the alcohol or somewhere in between. It depends on what I'm going to make with it. Or sometimes what it becomes dictates what I make out of it.

I want to make something that melts under your tongue and is absorbed by the pores there. Those pores I think absorb water base best but getting oil mixed in water is...well mixing oil and water. What I think was most successful this summer was when I used partially evaporated alcohol tincture as an extract in fudge. You can infuse sugar but you can't cook with it so hot that you destroy cannabinoids. Another success was making chocolate bark by adding lots of decarbed to melted chocolate then mixing, mixing till the pot is well saturated and the chocolate is tempered.

I don't mean to go on but like I said I can't smoke or vape anymore. It's a frigging tragedy, kinda

[Xena]

Gracey I know what you’re talking about, I pretty much had to cut it out too about 12-15 years ago. Everything we’d get off the street was so damn harsh I just couldn’t do it. That’s why I decided to try and grow my own, TG that between quitting cigarettes a while ago and my weed tasting more.........mellow........ (not sure what the right word should be) that I was able to start again. Now that I’ve started again I’d say tragedy isn’t a strong enough word for if I had to stop again.

[Gracey]

It's gotten to the point where I've tested myself and found I cough for a month if I take two little hits from joints, pipes, bong, plant vaporizer, plant vaporizer with ice water pipe, vape pens, ONE at a time, please, and the cannabis is good. For now I don't and I look for a replacement.

[Ckbrew]

Have you tried a sublingual glycerin tincture? The glycerine will act as a transport vehicle for faster adsorption sublingualy. Start with an ethanol tincture. Evaporate off most but not all of the ethanol. Add glycerine. Make sure it is food grade, there is glycerine out there that is not food grade and is not safe to use. Heat in a reaction vessel with a stir bar. Stir as fast as you can for the glycerine viscosity. It will be thick when you start but will thin out when it heats up. Caution burn hazard don't splash it. Heat up to 122 *C and hold there for 28 minutes. This takes care of your decarb step- no need to do it to dry flowers. If you have an emulsifier use that after the stir in. What you are doing is trying to emulsify the oils extracted with the ethanol into the glycerine. The oil is not very soluble in glycerine, and therefore the concentration you can achieve with glycerine is somewhat self limiting. Using an emulsifier will help to mix the oil and glycerine but will only form an emulsion, not dissolution of the oil in the glycerine. They generally are expensive, and will not prevent the oil from eventually separating from the glycerine. That being said, the glycerine does increase adsorption rate. Eventually the oil may start to separate from the glycerine, just shake it up. You will have to experiment with the amount or flower you use. in general I find that 2% to 4% flower weight in grams to 100ml of glycerine (weight/volume percent) is a good starting point. BEWARE- that this in not an accurate representation of percent or the proper way to calculate percent. as the only active constituent from the flower that is remaining in the glycerine after filtration is the weight of the oils and terps extracted from the flower, you are throwing away the weight of the expended flower plant material. Your actual percent of the final product will be much lower. I just use this method as a reference point. Everything is relative, and so long as you keep records of how much flower you used to make how much volume, and what the effects were, you can reproduce your results with the only variable being the potency of your flower. Hope this helps. I tried to make this as detailed as possible with out over whelming. Let me know if there are further questions.

[Ckbrew]

"I'm pushing to find the best absorption capacity now because..."

You stated that you can no longer smoke or vape. From your questions I infer that you are trying to reproduce the type of high that you get from smoking or vaping with some other method like sublingual. Is this correct? If I am correct in my interpretation of your situation we need to discuss pharmakokenetics. That is the study of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination, of drugs in the body, and the rate at which these events occur. Don't let the big name scare you, just trying to get a better handle on what your goal is for the best advice without looking for rabbits. As far as what gets through the mucus membrane under the tongue, just about anything. Please clarify, what are you trying to "make happen"?

[Gracey]

Hi Ckbrew, Sorry for the delay. I'm not ignoring just been busy. Yes, you're right, I'd like the effects to be like the quick onset like smoking or vaping without using a needle. I've looked at research in pharmacokinetics. Like I said I don't know how to vet what I'm reading much less know what to do with the info.
So I infuse with everclear. I ran into a problem I've not had before. I added some good infusion to a hard candy mixture but got no effects. I'm wondering if the THC clumped into pockets when the alcohol evaporated on contact. If so there's way too much of it...somewhere. Here's what I did, I melted a bunch of ricola cough drops they didn't liquify but got soft enough to pull several times to get it mixed in.
Thoughts?

[Ckbrew]

Ok, down and dirty explanation of Pharmakokenetics. The study of how drugs enter, are distributed, metabolized, and eliminated from the body and the rate at which these processes occur. A full discussion of this is beyond the scope of this forum. Mind exercise- Given an identical dose, call it 20mg of THC to keep it easy. First fixed parameter, you and your body. Second fixed is the total dose of THC. Now the two variables and how your body reacts. First, vape the dose, take a while to smile a little before you let it go. Second Make butter and bake it in a brownie, take a while to smile a little before you swallow it down. Now ask yourself and answer the questions comparing the two methods. How did it make you feel? How fast was the onset, what was the intensity, what was the duration, when did it subside. You have already done this experiment! Now for the why. Vaping or smoking, the THC is turned into a gas, you inhale into lungs. Lungs are specialized to exchange gases between the atmosphere and the blood. Result is a very fast spike in blood level traveling via blood right to the brain. The brain is mostly lipids, that is why THC enters so fast. But then that blood with the high level is quickly circulated into the rest of the body, so the blood that the brain experiences is suddenly absent of THC, so it starts to filter out of the brain. Swallowing, the THC is adsorbed by the gut, and slowly builds up in the blood, and eventually gets to the brain. But now it is a slow gradual build up, entering the brain until peak level is reached. Then the blood levels slowly decrease due to metabolism. The vape dose is also metabolized, but that dose was quickly diluted by all the blood, causing the blood levels to rapidly decrease. So in conclusion, it is not so much the dose you are getting, but the rate at which the dose gets to your brain. The objective is then to try and replicate the spike in blood level of the dose. Truth bomb my friend, other than injection which I would never condone or attempt because it could be fatal, it is very hard to replicate this spike by other methods of dosing. Your GI tract is your main other option, so try and increase the onset. You will have to do some experimenting to see what works best for you. The glycerin tincture is one option and in theory maybe the closest to inhaling. The problem is solubility and keeping it tolerable. Between the cheek and gum is similar to under the tongue. You can try butter, coconut oil, MCT oil under the tongue as tolerated, Increasing the concentration is easier here due to the lipid (fat) content. These oils can be swallowed also. As far as swallowing goes, I have found that mixing with a meat based fat increases absorption rate. Think bacon or hamburger grease, you can leave the meat in, who doesn’t like bacon? Another method that I have discussed with a patient, but not yet tried, is a rectal suppository. This would be made with infused coco butter (not coconut oil), formed in a mold, then inserted in the rectum. The body should adsorb this dose rapidly. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it may be worth a try. Ever hear of someone doing an alcohol (wine, beer, cocktail) enema and getting really shitfaced drunk from it? Not making up (google it), this is a valid and rapid way of administering drugs. It can be used to administer drugs to someone who is having a seizure when they cannot swallow. Also, you can make a topical formula using coconut oil and apply it to the skin. Hope this helps.

As far as your cough drops go, I imagine they were very hot to get soft. When you evaporate all the ethanol, you are left with the almost pure THC oil. This is very thick, sticky and gooey. Think dabs. If the ethanol evaporated off, the oil was deposited somewhere so yes, probably in small clumps of sticky oil somewhere, stuck to the side of the container or the stir tool Haven’t made gummies, but I believe they use less heat to make. You want to mix the THC extract in before it gets very hot. Think mixing the extract with sugar and water then heating. Hope this helps you out an is not overwhelming. Let me know if I lost you somewhere.

[Mr.furley]

You can substitute Apple cider vinegar for the ever clear to make a sublingual tincture.

[Gracey]

Apple cider vinegar! I've never heard that. It's a great tonic all by itself. I did just read that acidic substances can help with absorption. I wonder if that's why I've enjoyed the salads so much. I've been wanting to make gummies and small hard candies I could make tiny lemon drops. Maybe the acid will help the medicine absorb. Instead of the less efficient infusion with vinegar I can make an alcohol infusion dehydrate it and add vinegar. I really am liking the alcohol infusions then doing anything with it. I put everclear and cannabis in the freezer separately for 3 hours or more. Combine them shake 2 or 3 times during the next few hours or more. The color is golden not at all green.

[OlderNOTwiser]

I posted this a year ago...a bit windy but I think it may be of interest here. https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum...and-canna-caps

I've since gone to ground flower in my caps without the carrier oil. I make sure to decarb and then grind fairly fine to fill the capsules easier. Using Oh's law in the link got me to a place I could kind of figure this stuff out. The firecrackers are a fun treat. Keep them away from kids and light users!

https://beyondchronic.com/2015/11/ohs-law-of-cannabis-edible-potency/

https://d3atagt0rnqk7k.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/19155014/Edibles-Dosing-Chart-v2.png

I had a longer/better post queued up but it disappeared so we're stuck with this one.

[Gracey]

Hey Twiser thanks, those are good. I use wake and bake's calculator. https://wakeandbake.co/thc-dosage-calculator/
Basically the percentage of THC is 10 times the gram weight. So 1 gram of 20% THC weed has 200 mg of THC in one gram. Then Ardent decarb site has lab tests results on cannabinoid percentage before and after using their nova decarber.
I love the idea of using ground decarb in a capsule. I will try it!

It's a new frigging world to be able to consistently calculate dosing like this.