QWET Reduction technique

Hey all, total newbie to tincture and infusion creating. I’ve followed PsychadelicSam’s qwet method pretty closely and so far it’s going great. One hang up I see with a lot of folks is reducing with an alcoholic tincture and staying SAFE. So after reading far too many options and seeing a lot of quick and dirty or expensive and complicated techniques I thought I’d share mine. Materials listed are what I had on hand and works with objects and a flexible material list that should be available to most people - explanation and science-y stuff to follow.

Super simple single serving qwet reduction (slow):

Materials:

1 glass baking pan
1 glass pan large enough to fit the first
1 microwave safe cup
1 breathable cloth
Water
Unreduced Tincture

Method:

Take your microwave safe cup (coffee mug, takeout container, whatev) and fill it with water. Add the water to larger container and nest the smaller container inside. (Note: your tincture not in the small container yet.) Your smaller container will displace the water. At this time adjust your water amount if necessary. Now that you have the water level measured, separate the two containers and dump the water into the microwave safe cup or bowl. Now it’s off to the snail races!

Heat your water and put that in the bigger container. Add your tincture to the small container and place carefully inside the larger. Use the breathable cloth to keep dust, pet hair etc out. For that I used a nut milk bag draped over the top.

I just keep warming the water when I remember, once every 30 min or so. Watch an episode of something and check your water temp in between. When the water has cooled, separate the two containers being careful not to spill your tincture, pour your water from the larger pan to the microwaveable cup and reheat, then repeat the assembly from before. The water, even if it boils loses temp quickly and, especially with glass pans, your tinctures temp should not get close to 190°F where some loss occurs. If you think your water is too hot add a splash of tap water or wait 1 - 5 minutes.

This is really a coffee warmer method or double boiler method without extra equipment. No direct heat either. No flames and no concentrated vapors to ignite. It’s like some other suggestions, just tweaked for the totally unprepared like me!

For my pans I used what a lot of people might have, a 5” x 8” bread pan and a 9” x 11” baking pan. Attached photo of the whole setup.

Let me know if this helps, could be better or needs to go away and never come back! ✌️

 

Alright well this is gonna be a journal of sorts too I guess. Starting liquid was 6ish oz of 190 proof, mixed over 3.5g decarbed 22.9% bud (legal state woo). Total reduction time to this point is appx 8 hrs and I changed the water 4x.
An important note, I’ve seen others using a running fan. I don’t own anything that size and it’s raining here so this’ll have to do. Picture of red line at the meniscus to track.

 

Alright carrying on. We’re approaching 24 hrs of water bath/open air evaporation. Efficiency is not the name of the game. My red line is gone but since the last post 12 hrs or so I’ve reduced by appx half. So in 24 hrs I’ve gone from 5ish oz of tincture to 2ish, which is useable. I’ll be taking it down to rso, stay tuned.

 

Ah shit what can I say, it took like 4 days left to open air. I’ll be honest, heating water had negligible effects on the evap process. Seems like the key in other peoples guide is airflow over the container.

as your alcohol evaporates it creates a cloud of saturated air that doesn’t want more alcohol vapor. By using a fan that opens up the surface of your tincture to break more bonds.

in conclusion- use a fan or leave it alone for a few days without one. Evaporating alcohol is dangerous, don’t be a dummy.