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Dry sifting

DeadlyFruit Thanks for the welcome back. I have health problems that keep me laid up with a lot of pain, and I don't go online much. The ethanol is completely distilled out. The cannabis oil has a very small amount of ethanol when I stop the distillation. It is poured into a food grade silicon container. The container is placed on a heat source that slowly evaporates the tiny bit of ethanol. I add MCT oil to the cannabis oil while it is warm to dampen its viscosity.
 
Great discussion here; good questions and some well-honed techniques explained.

I find it interesting that cannabis extractions, particularly QWET create a product that is so uniquely versatile. Tincture is a precursor for everything from cookies to vape juice depending on where you want to take it. It's as if you could grow a nice cannabis plant and then, at harvest time, decide if it was Indica or Sativa!

I must admit that my own preferences are pretty pedestrian:
  • Create a batch of QWET using a half oz of my least favorite herb and a handful of my current choicest buds.
  • Flash off the alcohol a bit at a time until I reach a potency that 1ml delivers a relaxing outcome, 4-6ml is a smiling couchlock.
  • I add the desired number of dropper-fulls of tincture to a shot glass, add an equal amount of water and savor it under my tongue for a few minutes. I like the taste & the diluted alcohol doesn't bite too hard. The full spectrum tinctures can be quite tasty.
  • 10 - 15 minute onset, much faster and more controllable than the edibles I've tried.
  • Here's a tip, follow the tincture down with a little glass of whole milk, or half-n-half. I think the milk fat binds with the THC for a faster and harder delivery.
A "Have a laugh on me" moment:
Yesterday, as I was preparing to test sample a new batch of "Golden Dragon," I was flailing around with a dropper bottle and my elbow tipped the ball jar and slopped three ounces of beautiful tincture onto the concrete floor!!! A cruel twist of fate, lucky I didn't lose the whole batch. Prolly just punishment for posing as a tincture pro in this thread.
 
Could one of you guys help me out? I am storing sift from my harvest bin. I'm trying to turn the sift/keef into some gummies or hardcandy, for a friend with lung Cancer.
I know how to make the candy, but not with the sift.
I need to decarbolate it right?
Will you PM me or send a link of how to do this will sift/keef.

Plz and thanks.
sometimes I'm slightly stoopid
 
PeterMatanzas, Thanks for emphasizing "gently agitated" in your QWET description. That's a better term than "Shaken" because we want to extract the trichomes rather than the chlorophyll. I think the mistake most folks make with bubble hash is to beat the holy hell out of the herb with a mixer, or paint stirer so they end up with green mud rather than beige hashish. It's the cold that does most of the work, so swirling rather than violently shaking your QWET is the path to the Golden Dragon.

At least that's been my experience, do you agree?
 
Hi HobbitGDF, I'm no expert on edibles, but here are a couple of thoughts.

I'm sure you'll want to decarb your sift before proceeding.

You may want to use a carrier fluid (oil or alcohol) to liquify the decarbed kief for easier measurement and handling as you cook.

When you're calculating the potency of your candies using kief, estimate 600-700milligrams of THC per gram of dried, decarbed sift dust. The recommended dose per serving is 10-15 mg.
 
thanks for them nuggets of info.
i figured i would have to decarb, so what would the oil consist of? vegetable oil, coconut oil, butter?
alcohol - like moonshine or everclear? vodka?
 
I'd just use everclear, but there are lots of choices for use as a carrier “agave nectar, honey, corn syrup, olive oil, coconut oil, and butter..."
 
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I don't understand your question. Cannabis oil without additives is viscous, very difficult to work with unless you want shatter or wax. (There's an additional procedure for that.) When you extract the oil you're using 190 proof ethanol. If you use less than 190, there's too much water in it and there will be a milky substance on top of the oil. You can "dab" that off the oil but that's a PITA. When you've distilled off what you think is all the ethanol, there's still some left, but it is no big deal. To remove that last bit of ethanol you can either use a vacuum chamber (fast process), or you can spread your oil over a silicon mat (like a mat a baker uses for flour to knead dough) and have a fan blow over it for a few days. Or you can pour the oil into a silicon cup and place it on your stove's warming pad (if you have one). Don't go to sleep on this method, wait until the cannabis oil looks like it's done, like all the ethanol is evaporated (sorry, this is real vague but you'll be able to tell by watching it). Because the silicon cup is sitting on that warming pad the oil it will not get real viscous. Once it's cold it will. While the cannabis oil is warm, stir some MCT oil into it (or sesame oil, whatever you like). Don't put too much in. Some people like a 1:1 cannabis oil to MCT oil. I don't use that much. Also put a drop of lecithin into the oil (lecithin improves the uptake of oil into your body). I think I'm covering it. I sure wrote a helluva lot and hope it's understandable.

EDIT: always use a food grade silicon mat or cupcake cup.
 
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Hi everyone, my name is deadlyfruit and I suck at making oil.

Not sure if there is a twelve step program for people with an oil making problem but if there was I’d be at the front of the line. I took my two washes, both looking like they would be a good start to this attempt at making oil and/or tincture. I loaded the golden first wash into my distiller and ran it at as low a temp as it would take and watched the condensed ethanol come out the spout. I thought I was stopping it when it was getting down near the bottom but still some ethanol left but it had already started to curdle up and go slightly milky. I says to myself: self, let’s not do that again, let’s go old school for the green second wash. I put both the remaining golden liquid from the distiller and the green second wash in two different Pyrex dishes and ran a fan over them. The golden was already part curdled (for lack of a better word) with a bit of what must be milky looking water in it and it evaporated down until there was just a golden residue on the Pyrex bottom with a few drops of water on top. The green second wash more or less did the same thing but without the milky looking water, some light curdling happening as it evaporated down. Now they are both just a hardened residue in the Pyrex dishes.

I believe I have two problems - the first is I can’t see inside the distiller without opening it up so it is hard to judge the timing and it also gets a bit too hot. The second is my ethanol isn’t strong enough. I took 76% ethanol (the strongest I can get here) and distilled it a few times until it measured somewhere between 88 and 91%. As strong as that is I think I now realize it has to be at least 95%(190 proof) but higher is better.

Can anyone suggest anything else I am doing wrong?

To rescue the situation I am going to take a razor and scrape the residue (not sure if heating it will make it harder or easier to work with) and then mix it in a small lidded jar with either more alcohol (for a tincture) or a bit of oil (for oil I can dispense in a dropper or syringe orally or into edibles). I am going to probably have to shake the heck out of it to get the residue back into solution. Will this do what I want? Should I do anything differently? Man it is frustrating - so far I’ve been able to do pretty much everything else I have tried to accomplish with cannabis, but making oil for some reason has never turned out how I’ve wanted. The tutorials seem easy but when I do it the wash doesn’t act the way I expect. Please help! 🙏
 
No distiller here which is why I want to press my best, Everclear gets expensive. Yes, you take a razor blade and scrape all that hardened concentrate then heat it to melt, hot water run over your container will usually do it. Or put your container in a mug of very hot tap water. Then you can add it to an oil, unless you want tongue-burning etoh tincture. Personally, I'd rather drink cooking oil or coconut oil tincture. Heck, I've just put some on top of gummies and ate it - oil, not alcohol. If it was mine I'd keep the two separate until you see how it goes. Can you buy that food grade alcohol that some folks order? Can't recall the name or source ATM, sorry. Not sure if it's your low % alcohol, I've only used EverClear. I'm finishing with the fan next time I wash, I have what I need to thin it and tiny Pyrex jars to reheat it. I need to pick up a few silicone jars. Did you use a heating mat under your Pyrex, or a metal pan of hot water underneath?
 
True but by the point that the liquid starts to thicken the first wash was already in a curdled state rather than a homogeneous liquid and the second wash had begun to go curdled as well (there is probably a better descriptor than curdled but that is kind of what it looks like). I let it evaporate down to shatter/residue because it seemed like it would be that or trying to fish the globs out and having wax (like my last failed run). I am wondering if I let it get to the point that it starts to go curdled then lid it and shake periodically to try to keep it homogenous or if I just settle for wax and then reintroduce a little alcohol or oil, heat it slightly and shake it until it is homogeneous?

What %alcohol do you use, and do you stir/shake it at any point? Does yours ever seem like it is starting to curdle when you process it? Could it just be that I am trying to over-concentrate it and you folks stop while it is more liquid-y?
 
My pancreas can't handle alcohol, even one ml of tincture got to me. I use EverClear, 190 proof? The strongest EverClear is sold here in IL. I have only done the double boiler reduction, it ends up darker-looking like RSO but I did vape it. I stopped reducing while I could still pull it up into a syringe, never had curdles happen. I've done several washes, practiced on lesser quality bud. During my very cold extremely fast wash in February, halfway through reduction it was a beautiful yellow oil but I didn't have the pan, hot water, Pyrex and silpat ready to pour it into. Sad. That's why I still have a jar in the freezer with that same material waiting for a 2nd wash bc it was such a fast first wash, using some of my best buds. Melted wax Might stay liquid enough if your carrier oil is warm. Wax thinner uses such a small amount that it hardly adds to the volume or reduces the potency. When reintroducing concentrate into oil you need to whisk it a lot, add a little at a time until you get it all well incorporated. I've never shaken it, just stirred. :)
 
Thanks puglover, really appreciate your input. I feel like I have a mental block on the subject but ultimately I think the largest problem is my ethanol is still not strong enough and that is making my purge act unpredictability. You are at 95% while I might get to barely 90% if I distill it a couple times first. It may not sound like a big difference but it is enough extra water that it causes a problem.
 
Not to obsess on it too much, and for all those who haven’t gotten bored with my woes and moved on….

I took a close look at the little Pyrex dishes today and realized that it is not actually a hard residue (that happened a previous time) it is more of a super thick gel. This gives me some hope in that it is still an oil rather than shatter and it also looks more homogeneous than it did when it was actively being evaporated. I ordered a razor scraper and when it comes tomorrow I think I will add a few drops of alcohol and/or oil to loosen it and then scrape it into a dropper jar where I can top it to the desired level with oil or alcohol (still haven’t decided which). I can shake/swirl it until it is all in solution. I don’t want to count my chickens but getting something that looks remotely like it is supposed to Would be a great step forward.
 
I was going to say that concentrates change overnight, or in a week. I've had my nephew get me (cheaper) street wax and I put it right in the cupboard for a week, at least. It gets darker usually, changes sheen, loses some moisture. I'd heat it if necessary to scrape it, or rather chill it so it comes off easily, and if you're using oil after collecting it really needs stirring. But then you can do most anything with it. GL!
 
Some last thoughts for Puglover1 grouchyoldman and PeterMatanzas and then I will try to let it go 🙂

Once I realized I had a super thick oil rather than a hardened shatter-like residue (like last time) I decided I might be able to salvage the situation.

The Good: I added about a capful of alcohol to one Pyrex dish and about the same of canola oil to the other. I mixed them well and sucked them into 1ml syringes. Holy smokes I think I have about 10ml of oil and 10ml of tincture (the oil mix looks nicer than the alcohol mix)

The Bad: The dish with the oil mix (the greener second wash) had a couple larger size clumps of sticky dark stuff that didn’t want to mix into the oil. Since they were larger I could work around them and suck clump free oil into the syringes. The other dish (the golden first wash) had much smaller gritty looking clumps that didn’t want to completely mix into the alcohol so I had to suck them into the syringes in the tincture. They are fine enough that if you don’t look close it just looks cloudy. I am hoping it will go into solution over time. I ran out of syringes and still had some of the oil mixture with black clumpy stuff left so I decided to experiment by putting a half capful of ethanol in it as well as the canola and gave it a stir - the clumps went completely into solution, which didn’t happen with either just canola or just ethanol added. Maybe some possibilities there.

The Ugly: To be honest there is nothing ugly to report. I am ecstatic I was able to finally produce something close to an oil. I wish it were more of a clear high quality oil but this will do for now. I am looking forward to trying out the tincture sublingually, and I will probably use the oil in edibles. I think I could improve on it next time with stronger ethanol in the wash and not trying to purge so much ethanol with the distiller - it won’t heat up quite as much and I can finish it manually. Since I can’t get stronger ethanol I will recover about two thirds in the distiller and then under a fan with regular stirring to try for less clumping. I think the clumping may be plant lipids and other by-products rather than cannabinoids so it may not be a concern beyond how it looks but I would love it if it looked nice. Perhaps next time I will add a little of each.


Thanks so much for all your help as I tried to figure this out. If you have any final thoughts feel free to add.
 
Thanks for sharing your extraction journey with us DeadlyFruit. I've never concentrated all the way down to oil so your efforts have been very instructive. Despite the wrinkles it sounds like you've produced a potent tincture.

Your "Good, Bad & Ugly" summary made me smile, but I think you left out "The Sublime," that full body relaxation you'll feel when your homemade medicine goes to work!
 
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