Water cured RSO

[DabberDog]

5 minutes.
10 grams of Auntie's Best Friend, by our Franklin in distilled water. The flowers hung for two weeks and a day. Dry enough for the stems to snap.
What you can't see are the precipitating trichomes. See, dope floats. And when you push it down to try to wet it enough to sink, you're knocking off the money. That's discouraging. I don't have anything to set on the buds to push them down. We'll see what happens.
10 grams from the same plant will be set aside for comparison.
If you didn't read the other thread, I'm going to see if water cured bud is better for RSO than hang dried and short cured bud.

[DabberDog]

Update...
I put the Mason jar in my vacuum chamber to -25. No idea if that does this thing or the other, but who else does it? I'm a crazy man!!!

[Gator]

I'm not sure what it is that you are trying to do, but I like all the mad scientist shit so I'm going to follow along and maybe learn something

[DabberDog]

Mia culpa.
I am water curing bud to see if RSO made from it is any better than regular dried and cured bud.
RSO uses ethanol to extract all the goodies from my dope. Ethanol also extracts things I don't want like chlorophyl.
The experiment is to see if the distilled water extracts some of those things I don't want, making a better tasting and smelling RSO for dabbing.
From a smoking perspective, what I have read is water cured dope is better in some regards and not so good in others. I'll let you read up on that if you're interested. I want to see if the same is true for RSO.

[Ckbrew]

Very interesting. How long are you going to soak it in the water? I would think it would eventually sink after it becomes saturated. Are you going to dry it again before extraction?

[DabberDog]

The instructions I'm going to follow is soak 2-5 days, changing every 12-24 hours. Done is when the water runs clean after a soak time. I'll probably do a change in a couple hours for something to do. Don't know how long it takes to saturate on its own. Pulling and purging a few vacuums did the trick in a few minutes.
It'll be dried before the ethanol wash. The vac chamber will help speed that along.
Time stamp on the first picture says 8:59 this morning.
Time stamp on this second picture says 1:20 this afternoon. Probably definitely going to change that water in a bit.
If I release the vacuum the buds sink.
Dope tea?

[Allotrope1000]

Hi. Dabber,
Are you going to decarb the buds first? Even though Rick Simpson says the alcohol boil off fully decarbs the THCa, I tried decarbing my bud first. I actually like brown "golden dragon" appearance of the wash and final product. Seems less "chorophylly" to me.

[DabberDog]

No decarbing. My RSO gets dabbed. That's why I'm trying to clean it.

[DabberDog]

2:30 am. The sun wasn't out so it' s a tent shot.

[DabberDog]

Murky at 10:30 am. Smells like green tea.
Last change of water. I don't know what I've lost in trichomes, but I've lost trichomes.
If I ever do this again, the water needs to drain into the same 25 micron wash bag.
If I ever do this again, the buds need to be better trimmed.
Might add some couple drops H2O2.

[Ckbrew]

Every time you process something there will be a loss. No process has a 100% yield.

[DabberDog]

I know, I know. There is a difference between the loss you see and the loss you do not see. When I do bubble hash, I do not see the trichomes I miss. This is like a little inverted snow globe where I get to watch the snow drift away.

[DabberDog]

Drying is the next consideration.
It took two weeks to get my current dried bud dry enough to do something with. These little green sponges will take heaps longer and mold is in the back of my mind about that much time.
I don't need them to turn back into buds since they're going to get chopped up and soaked in ethanol. Seems to me pressing the mass would be the best way to get the drying going. Then into the vac chamber on absorbent layers.
Other ideas?

[Smallgrow]

I would think pressing could rupture the resin heads which will result in more loss. Something we try to avoid in IWH production, you want them intact until final pressing

[DabberDog]

These are not for smoke. My thought is whatever is getting pressed is staying where it is supposed to stay until the ethanol.
I'm with you on the crushing trichomes, but I'm not so sure in this case. That's why we call it an experiment.

[Ckbrew]

I would think putting them in a vacuum chamber would be the quickest way to dry them. How much vacuum does it pull? The water will boil off at room temperature. Pressing them would lead to more loss.

[DabberDog]

I can get the VC down to -25+. Are you talking about heating the VC?
I've already squeezed some of the buds. My fingers come off unsticky. Where do you think there would be more loss?

[Ckbrew]

No don't heat the vac chamber, well maybe gently if you want. When the pressure is reduced the boiling temp is reduced. So boiling can be achieved at room temperature by pulling a full atmosphere. Even if you can't pull a full atmosphere, evaporation will happen at a much faster rate than would happen at normal pressure. I would think if you press them between paper towels for example, the chance of loosing more trichs would increase.

https://www.engineersedge.com/h2o_boil_pressure.htm

[DabberDog]

Ah! I'd still have to expel the moisture from the boiloff. I am not interested in all that work and I don't know how much longer my pump will keep working. It's making more than the standard strange mechanical noises.
I was thinking putting the buds between 25 micron screens with paper towels on top and bottom. Not enough pressure to make tortillas out of them, just enough to get things started. Then putting them in the vacuum on another screen and towel setup just a time or two. Probably do a little chopping with a razor blade to break things up.
We'll see how it goes. Plenty of time before the ethanol gets here.
In the end, no plan survives contact with the dope.

[Allotrope1000]

Hey, Ckbrew!
Great link on water boiling temp and vacuum! IMO, better science = better weed.
Can you tell me a little about the problem you had mentioned with alcohol degrading the seals in your vacuum pump? I like decarbing my RSO flowers/trim before doing the alcohol wash and was thinking of hooking up my vacuum pump to the alcohol extraction flask and running the exhaust port to the condensation container. Would be running liters of alcohol through the pump. Goal is to boil off the alcohol at a lower temp to prevent the heat of boiling alcohol at 1 atm from further degrading the already decarbed THC into CBN. Any thoughts?