Yes, pushu. The directions are on page 27. I'll post the results. I have about five ounces of saturated bud in the freezer to process. Much of the alcohol can be removed by mashing and pressing, but for tincture extractions I believe you don't want to do that so the machine can be used to reclaim the little bit of alcohol left in the herb after making a cold extraction tincture. I also have some oil in the silicone cups that I allowed to evaporate naturally, but when put in the freezer did not solidify. There must still be alcohol in the oil. The directions say to place the cups in the bottom of the processing vessel to evaporate the last of the ethanol, then to freeze and the oil should solidify and pop right out of the silicone cups. Some other ideas interest me. They state on page 6 that preparations of hops concentrate can be smoked for pain relief. I'm going to try that in the future. I still have more research to do on preparing this kind of material for smoking. I also am thinking of buying some hemp flowers and processing for CBD.
One of the issues with hemp flowers is the very low resin content. It takes an awful lot to produce anything, and you tend to end up with a high concentration of whatever impurities are in the hemp. That's why the Stanley brothers in Colorado decided to breed a high CBD low THC cultivar like Charlotte's Web. Here's a great article about that if you're inclined... Sourcing CBD: Marijuana, Industrial Hemp & the Vagaries of Federal Law Just FYI...
I thought I had seen hemp flowers on Amazon, but they only have seeds. I'm not going to waste time growing hemp plants. I'm in an illegal state (soon one of only three states in the US without a medical program! Shame Virginia!) There is some hemp available on ebay, but it's very expensive- 3 1/2 grams/$40. I expect the flowers will have a lot of seeds. Hops flowers are easier to come by. I see now that processing hemp is probably not going to happen.
I just checked the reclaim process and had reclaimed four ounces of alcohol from the herb. It's fairly dry right now, but I'm going to leave it another hour. This happened pretty quickly. To recap, I had processed an ounce of decarbed herb for a whole bud extract for tincture. I poured off the alcohol/oil mixture, added some fresh EC to see if there was anything left- the alcohol from the bottom of the chamber with the holes was still light green. I processed that overnight and poured off some highly colored alcohol/oil mixture this morning. The alcohol from the bottom of the reaction vessel (the one with the holes) was finally clear. Then I put the wet, spent herb in the processing vessel, directly over the heating bulb, with the eight ounce mason jar on top of the herb. I left the filter paper in between the herb and mason jar as it was saturated, too and I figured why not get every drop. So far I collected four ounces of EC from the wet herb. I would not have thought there was that much left in the herb. PSam, I am using more alcohol than you to saturate my herb. I used 1 1/2 cups of EC to saturate my herb and fill the processing container to one inch. I had a bit of run through left over. I've gotten most of that back so far in alcohol/oil mixture and reclaimed EC from the wet , spent bud.
I am having that first batch tested. It's a good learning process. I will definitely undertake the 12hr extract with samples at 6 and 12. If you want to run something else I have probably enough material. I might do that today in place of processing BLR. Then I can get the samples out to the lab with this next batch. It's a whole new world for me.
It's great to have you, mainah. If you've read his book then you probably have a bit of an advantage of the rest of us. We can use all the extra input we can get, I'm sure. It will be fun and educational
Stiggy did a good job of explaining that, probably better than me. I had to read a bit to figure it out myself but it's actually pretty simple. The hydrometer readings are based on the temperature of the liquid. The base is 68°F/20°C and there are calculators online that will convert to other temps. I'm about to learn a little more detail about that as I finish up this refinement. Stiggy seems to be an expert, though.
The good thing about reclaiming from the material is that you don't have to worry about gentler temperature since the material is spent and the alcohol is clear with no cannabinoids to degrade. It will take a long time, though, and it's important that the condensing unit is level and the jar is centered. When it's dry your material should be straw colored. Considering the much smaller amount of alcohol used you may already have it at tincture strength without needing to reduce it more.
Yes, it goes directly on top of the herb once you've placed it in the evaporation vessel. Just be sure that your jar is centered and both it and the condensation unit are level.
You're getting a quicker recovery than mine but I was being super cautious with the heat. I had placed the filter and all in the evaporation vessel and was having a heck of a time getting anything back. Every time I checked it seemed that the filter was holding or reabsorbing the alcohol. Once I took out the filter it started working a lot better. I only filled mine to the half inch line instead of an inch so that was 3-4 ounces difference right there. How much tincture did you get?
Probably a high-CBD cannabis strain would be better because they can have almost as much CBD as can be found for THC in a THC dominant strain. I've seen some with 16% and hemp doesn't come nearly that high.
That sounds good to me. It will be a while before I can get more to work with but getting those numbers up quickly can help us all get things in perspective. Thank you. It's a whole new world for most of us, I think.
Hey Sam Question, I have a good sie batch of leaves I saved in zip lock baggie and rushed them as I added to the bag. I now have a good size (3-4 oz ) of crushed leaf that I was planning to do in crockpot pain creme. I am thinking I may run 2 oz of it in La Machine and see if it produces any thing good. What do Ya think, I plan on decarb/1st , should I only do 220 degs due to it being half powder? or do the 240 for 40
I think that's a good idea. I believe that it will probably make your topicals easier to make. If it's so powdery and you're going to use it for topicals anyway then 225° will be okay if you want. It doesn't hurt the topical at all to have a bit of THCA in it. That is actually my plan of action next, too. I have about a half pound of old fan leaf and popcorn buds that hasn't been well cared for and may have most everything oxidized but I'm out of cream and need to make some. It's all powdery, too, so I don't plan to decarb until after it's extracted and ready to put in the topical oils. Since you won't have to do a solvent transfer it should make for easier production of the topicals by just melting the QM oil in the topical oils. The QM oil will be easier to store and you can make your topicals as you go instead of a big batch.
I ended up with 10 ounces of tincture due to the extra alcohol I added at the end to get every last drop of oil. I used one ounce of material. I'm trying to get my head around the math to figure out how much to reduce for a good tincture. Am I correct in assuming that if I want four grams/ounce of EC I would reduce to 210 ml, or seven ounces? It's a good thing tincture can go in the freezer for almost unlimited time. I have much more than I'll use in the foreseeable future. Time to make something for dabbing. Just had an off the wall thought. Would it be possible to determine the strength of a tincture by using the hydrometer? One problem immediately comes to mind- the difficulty of having enough tincture to fill the hydrometer test vessel. I guess I'll start an experiment with my unreduced tincture to just see what the SG is.
Yes, it's just like the GD. You still have the same ratios. Unless you want to winterize your tincture I would suggest storing it in the refrigerator instead of the freezer, especially if you want to keep the "full extract" aspect of it. I've kept some in the fridge for over a year without the waxes settling out.
OK I think I got ya, So............................... no need to decarb at this time? I think I remembered where the trim is I have a 1/2 gallon mason jar filled at my partners place (Grow site) I told ya about pretty sure its there. For now I will try the leaf I have now (not all fan or sugar) but some good leaves in there too I got tire of separating them apart LOL So we shall see. So what do ya think do decarb yet do it in a next step?
The decarb at this time is up to you, Stiggy. Mine is very old and beat up so I don't want to add any more handling before it gets extracted or otherwise I would decarb first. It takes about 2 hours to decarb if you do it after the extraction. It's a judgement call for you since you know the material and it's your time and effort.