Curing-Luxury or Necessity for RSO?

[Rodney1]

All of this batch is going to make RSO. No smoking, no vaping, just RSO.
That being said, is the typical curing process as outlined in GWE necessary if it will all be processed at once into RSO?
Thanks.

[Gingerbeard]

Hey Rodney1 . I'm going to come at this as a fan of live resin. I use live resin because it's about the cleanest thing I can use and because it has the most 'stuff' in it. Were I to make... uh... use cured resin, I would have a different product with different levels of 'stuff'.
As a dabber, I know different temperatures produce different effects. Your answer might come in research on what you're looking for in your extract and how you plan to use it.

[Gingerbeard]

That's a suuuuuper short answer.

The shortest answer is yes. To make RSO as RS made it, it must be cured.

[DeadlyFruit]

I cure my stuff before making RSO - I use the term ‘making’ loosely as I am still working to perfect the process but I think my problem is the strength of ethanol I have available to me. Curing takes out some of the chlorophyll and generally makes for a smoother/better tasting end product. A really cold qwet will also help with that.

With that said, I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t make RSO with uncured stuff, although I’ve never tried it. You would need a good deal more ethanol to cover it if it is also undried I think. There are people out there who intentionally go from plant to processing without drying/curing because they feel it is more medicinal to use the freshest plant material possible. I personally think it would taste bad and I question whether the dry and cure degrades many of the cannabinoids if done correctly (that is speculation on my part) but I respect why other people might do it this way. The other question is whether you are going to decarb your weed first. If you decarb with heat I think you have a greater chance of degrading the cannabinoids than during a proper dry and cure. If you don’t decarb you will have very little THC, so it kind of depends on what you are using it for. I personally dry, cure and decarb but if you don’t care about the look or taste and want RSO as quickly as possible you might be able to dry and decarb in the same step and skip the jar curing. I wouldn’t do it but I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t be possible.


edit : to clarify, as GB said above, it may not exactly be RSO based on the way RS does it but it would essentially be the same end product - cannabis oil.

second edit as I think more about it : based on ‘exactly’ how RS makes his stuff I think a large portion of the world does it a little different already. I am pretty sure RS uses ISO as his solvent whereas most people I know use ethanol.

[Catfish22]

It would still have to be smoked or otherwise combusted to get the THCA to THC conversion if you don't decarb would it not?

This is the GWE answer:

https://www.growweedeasy.com/hash-oil-aka-rso-cannabis-extract-oil#should-I-decarb

[Rodney1]

I cure my stuff before making RSO - I use the term ‘making’ loosely as I am still working to perfect the process but I think my problem is the strength of ethanol I have available to me. Curing takes out some of the chlorophyll and generally makes for a smoother/better tasting end product. A really cold qwet will also help with that.

With that said, I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t make RSO with uncured stuff, although I’ve never tried it. You would need a good deal more ethanol to cover it if it is also undried I think. There are people out there who intentionally go from plant to processing without drying/curing because they feel it is more medicinal to use the freshest plant material possible. I personally think it would taste bad and I question whether the dry and cure degrades many of the cannabinoids if done correctly (that is speculation on my part) but I respect why other people might do it this way. The other question is whether you are going to decarb your weed first. If you decarb with heat I think you have a greater chance of degrading the cannabinoids than during a proper dry and cure. If you don’t decarb you will have very little THC, so it kind of depends on what you are using it for. I personally dry, cure and decarb but if you don’t care about the look or taste and want RSO as quickly as possible you might be able to dry and decarb in the same step and skip the jar curing. I wouldn’t do it but I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t be possible.


edit : to clarify, as GB said above, it may not exactly be RSO based on the way RS does it but it would essentially be the same end product - cannabis oil.

second edit as I think more about it : based on ‘exactly’ how RS makes his stuff I think a large portion of the world does it a little different already. I am pretty sure RS uses ISO as his solvent whereas most people I know use ethanol.

I grow it then hand it off to my wife who has the RSO process down really well using a Magic Butter machine and alcohol to extract the bacony cheesy goodness then reduces on the stove at low temp. We definitely decarb first which would probably defeat the whole fresh thing anyway. Re taste, we cut it with coconut oil and put it in gel caps so no issues with taste.
For alcohol we use this:

https://organicalcohol.com/organic-cane-alcohol/

It’s 190 proof and the price is pretty reasonable, they also have 200 proof corn alcohol if you want to get that last bit of water out of the solvent. Plus it’s organic!
I’ll prolly end up air drying it pretty thoroughly, skip the Mason jar curing process, and go straight to decarb/extraction.

[Catfish22]

After decarb I just slow cook mine in coconut oil for caps.

[DeadlyFruit]

Let us know how it turns out!