HELP! CBD “Hot Process Green Dragon Oil” Issue

[CannaGreene]

So, I tried my hand at making some super potent CBD oil today. . long ass, exact process of a story to follow, but I think I messed up trying to put water in with the everclear. If anyone could help me save this, I’d appreciate it!


Decarbed 50g of flower, topped with everclear in a quart mason jar, then heated in a water bath (is this a no-no to heat the plant material in the alcohol?) in instant pot (uncovered of course), then strained through fine mesh sieve and coffee filter. I was worried all the “hot” alcohol evaporated quickly and left a lot of CBD on the plant material in the sieve, so, I put the material back into the jar, and shook with more, cool everclear, then squeezed that all out and through the sieve and coffee filter. . .
Then, I added a little water (this could have been my biggest mistake), thinking, I could reduce all of the alcohol out of the jar, and be left with “zero alcohol, potent as can be liquid”. . .
well, now, after it cooled. I have 4 oz of “liquid” with, a bunch of separated, black looking spots that “bleed” a little. (Obviously the CBD, separated from the water)

Woof. Long winded explanation. My apologies.

Should I add more everclear, shake the shit out it and call it a day? Or, what is the fix?

Many thanks in advance, cheers.

[Gingerbeard]

Hey CannaGreene . Sounds like you followed all the step to making oil until you added water. You mentioned bleeding black spots that were obviously CBD separating from water. No. That's water separating from your oil. You are not losing CBD. If that were the case, you just ran into a super easy way to extract CBD, and that would be the super potent shite. All else would be tar and terps.
Even if you used the high proof Everclear, you still had water in your oil after all the alcohol vaporized. It takes a little longer to boil off the water because the water boils at a higher temperature. Adding extra water isn't going to take anything away from your product when you cook it off.
You can use a piece of paper towel or something super absorbent to leech off anything you see on the surface when you see water pool up when it cools off. I blast. If I ever get ice in my collection, I use the paper towel thing and keep it on a heating pad. Don't rush things. Slow and low will work as well as high and fast.

[CannaGreene]

Gingerbeard, you think I can add some more everclear (it’s the 190 proof), put it back in the water bath and run it through a coffee filter again?
or maybe, boil it all down, to remove most of the water, put the jar in a low oven, then reconstitute with some alcohol?

[Gingerbeard]

Adding 95% alcohol to your oil will be adding 5% water at the same time. I'm not going to throw out a temperature because I don't make RSO.
However, to answer your question, yes. Longer heat will remove more water.
What are you trying to make and what are you going to use it for? Something for edibles or tinctures?

[CannaGreene]

Was shooting for a tincture

[grouchyoldman]

Hi CannaGreene,
What you've got there is a bit of a mess. Sorry but there it is.
Gingerbeard is steering you in the right direction already but here are some specific steps to get you to your goal of a potent oil-based tincture.

- Stop adding stuff until you have evaporated all the alcohol and water. Use a double boiler with an electric heating device. Cook it down to an unattractive sludge. That will remove the alcohol and water.

- Add in a few drops of Ethanol, just enough to make it liquidy again.

- Heat it up and slowly stir in your preferred oil to reach your desired potency. As you heat the last bit of alcohol will evaporate.

Before you start, let's talk for a second about potency. If I read your post correctly, you started with 50 grams of herb. Let's be conservative and assume a 15% THC in that weed, you can update the calcs below if needed. A widely used formula for estimating THC content from an extraction goes like this:

Milligrams of herb x Estimated %THC x % extraction efficiency = Milligrams of THC in your extraction.
(1 gram = 1000 mg. Ethanol extraction typically extracts about 75% of the available THC)

So, in your case: 50,000 (mg of herb) x 0.15 (15%THC) x 0.75(%extraction efficiency) = 5625mg of THC extracted.
That's how much THC you'll have to work with when you start adding your oil. The final potency will depends on how much oil you add.

For example if you add 100 milliliters of oil your potency will be 5625 mg / 100 ml = 56.25 mg per ml. That is *really* strong and unless you have a massive tolerance built up I'd be wary.

Normally the suggested potency for tinctures is between 10 & 20 mg/ml, so if you added 400 ml of oil, (5625 / 400 = 14 mg/ml) you'd land in the middle of that range. Your call.

Sorry to be so verbose here, but it sounded like you'd appreciate the info. More importantly, here's the best ethanol extraction tincture recipe I've found (with nods to the legendary @ReikoX):


Green Dragon Tincture (Actually should be called "Golden Dragon!" because if you do it right it shines like the sun and hits like fire!)
Ingredients
1/4 oz (7 grams) of dried cannabis flowers
6 oz. 190 proof grain alcohol
Directions

1. Decarboxylate the cannabis in an oven at 240F for 40 minutes uncovered.
2. Place the cannabis in a canning jar and place the jar in the freezer for at least 24 hours.
3. Place the alcohol bottle in the freezer for at least 24 hours.
4. After 24 hours, measure and pour 3 oz. of freezing cold alcohol into the jar of cannabis and shake gently for five minutes.
5. Place jar back in the freezer for 2 hours.
6. Remove the jar from the freezer and shake for another five minutes.
7. Strain the liquid through cheesecloth into a separate container. (I strain through a #160 bubble bag, works fast & good enough for GrouchWork!)
8. Pour the remaining 3 oz. of frozen alcohol in with the plant material, and then shake for five minutes.
9. Freeze for two hours, strain and filter as before.
10. Combine the alcohol from both runs. there will likely be only 4 oz. or so due to spillage and absorption.
11. Reduce from 4oz to 2oz for ~ 17.5mg/ml concentrate (double boiler or I just open the jar and let a fan blow over. Takes a couple of hours)

And here is a comprehensive Thread on all things Tincture, RSO, Edibles...
https://overgrow.com/t/not-just-anot...re-thread/7668

I hope that all makes sense and is helpful. I'll check back if you have questions.

Cheers,

-Grouchy

[Ckbrew]

CannaGreene Check out https://skunkpharmresearch.com/qwet-extraction/ For some back round information.

Adding the water was not the best thing to do. Also the heat could have been avoided. The problem now is that there is no good way of removing the water with out also removing the ethanol. Not what you want to hear, but at this point I would give up on tincture for this batch and salvage it with an oil for edibles. Mix what you have there with either clarified butter or coconut oil and some more water and simmer n stir it like making cannabutter. The CBD will migrate to the oil and the junk will migrate to the water. The ethanol will evaporate off. Then separate the oil from the water fraction, save the oil and toss the water. If you don't want to do an oil conversion, You can always hold your nose and take a slug. Sometimes all the chlorophyll may cause some stomach upset.

You started ok with the ethanol. You went astray with the heat. THC n CBD are very soluble in ethanol and do not need heat. In fact, cold is best because it will dissolve the trichome content with out extracting the chlorophyll (green) and plant waxes.

Check out: https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum...re-how-i-do-it

If you use 3 quick washes, there will be nothing left in the bud to squeeze out except a small amount of ethanol. You really do not want to squeeze it as doing so will express chlorophyll and junk you do not want. All you will be loosing is the ethanol stuck in the plant material. I have found that for a 30g bud charge, I only loose about 40-50 ml of ethanol. Hope this helps, learn from the mistakes and move forward.


Edit: Fire caution evaporating off ethanol. No open flames, good ventilation, Outdoors preferable.