Homer's Legal 4-Plant Max Perpetual Minimalist Garden In Ontario

[Homer Simpson]

Both plant are awesome Homer. I am starting to get the impression that you're a little bit of a perfectionist and I say that in a good way.

Thanks, oldsmokey. I tend to be a perfectionist for the things I am interested in but have a real talent to tolerate mayhem with things I don't care about.

Really looking good bud! Just read through all your disappointment with seed companies in Canada. I use a small breeder I found online “just a handful of seeds” great service for a one man team and really good selection and amazing prices.

I just checked them out. I may try them after some more research. My seed choice has become a big concern these days.

Here is a closeup of one of my Gorilla Glue buds. I have nothing to complain about but it is no stickier than my Northern Lights in the past which max out at 18% but this is supposed to max at 28%.

 

[oldsmokey]

I think there is a little fudging going on when they rate the potency for marketing purposes.

 

[Homer Simpson]

I think there is a little fudging going on when they rate the potency for marketing purposes.

I agree and I don't want to be a whiner because I am happy with it I just expected a little more in both bud size and quality from the description of this strain. As I have said before it just shows why Northern Lights has been used to make so many other great strains.

 

[Homer Simpson]

I found a good vid about the different extraction methods by some rep and it says the complete opposite of what I recently found on another site but this one says ethanol gives you lots of bad stuff unlike the last that said the opposite. I guess in industry they use butane and propane because it gives the clearest extraction but they need pressurized vessels which eliminates them for home use. CO2 needs even higher pressures.

He starts talking about ethanol at about 8:50

So what I have learned is ethel alcohol isn't the best but for home use it's about the only practical method but the methods they used to purify ethanol extractions in industry are pretty extreme for the home user. I've read they use 5µm screens and also chill to -60 to 80°F to settle and then finally filter through activated charcoal and diatomaceous earth.

So today I decarbed 2 ounces of NL and I am going to wash it for five minutes in the freezer and then strain it and let the alcohol sit in the freezer for as long as it takes to see if some of the junk will settle out. But I am also going to do a second wash of the same bud with new alcohol for 24 hours to get everything else. I am going to use this same alcohol to do a second wash on several batches.

My decarbed 2 ounces of NL.

 

[Pennywise]

Good luck, hope you find an easy way to clarify your product.

 

[Homer Simpson]

Good luck, hope you find an easy way to clarify your product.

Thanks Penny. From what I have read I think the only practical home method is to do what was suggested by members here when using ethanol; don't soak for too long, filter filter filter, then do a second longer separate lower quality wash, do it cold and let it sit in the freezer and settle and pour off the clearer stuff. Unless you want to get into crazy equipment and real money I think that's the way to go.

 

[Pennywise]

The easy way makes pretty good oil just get all the alcohol evaporated from it.

 

[Dabbing Grandma]

@Old Salt is ill, and has asked me to mention it here. Things are starting to look up, and we're hopeful for a full recovery soon.

 

[oldsmokey]

Hope he makes a speedy recovery we miss him!

 

[Pennywise]

Praying for a quick recovery

 

[Homer Simpson]

The easy way makes pretty good oil just get all the alcohol evaporated from it.

Yes, sir, I am looking forward to trying out my alcohol recovery still. Now that I can recover most of it I am switching back to ethanol.

 

[Homer Simpson]

@Old Salt is ill, and has asked me to mention it here. Things are starting to look up, and we're hopeful for a full recovery soon.

Hope he makes a speedy recovery we miss him!

Praying for a quick recovery

So sorry to hear he is ill. I was worried about him so I sent him a pm a while back but no response so glad to hear things are starting to look up. Please, Dabbing Grandma, let him know we miss him and wish him a speedy full recovery.

 

[Homer Simpson]

I washed my 2 ounces of Northern Lights that I decarbed yesterday today to try to get the cleanest golden honey clear colour I could with what I have around the house. First thing I put it in a big bowl and broke it up pretty finely and took out a lot of twigs.

Then I put the bud in a 32-ounce jar and filled two smaller jars with 16 ounces of 95% ethyl alcohol all afternoon.

I poured one of the 16-ounce jars of ethyl alcohol into the jar with the NL and let it soak for five minutes in the freezer agitating every 30 seconds pretty vigourously. I then gave it a quick strain using a regular food strainer.

I only let it drain for about two minutes and cut it off despite there was still a small stream because I want this to be just the purest stuff. I did not squeeze or strain the bud anymore after this but just added the other 16-ounce jar of alcohol to the bud I just strained in the big jar. I'm going to let that sit now for a full day before I strain it and squeeze everything out of the bud. So I'm going to have an extremely pure extract and a secondary pretty dirty one to compare.

At this point the extract is looking pretty cloudy and brownish. Not encouraging.

My first filtration step was through a 25 µm filter bag that I put inside a copper pipe for stability.

That seems to have made a fair improvement in both the colour and cloudiness.

Then I gave it two coffee filter filtrations. The first pass took about five minutes because the second half went down a lot slower as the filter picked up impurities. But the second filtration with a clean filter only took about 30 seconds so it seems the first got almost all of it.

That seems to have made a major difference in clarity. This is how clear it is in the bottom of a pan after two coffee filter filtrations. I couldn't be happier with that.

Out of 16 ounces I recovered 11 ounces which is only about 68.75% but I'm not worried about that because I didn't squeeze all the alcohol out of the bud on purpose because I want this sample to be clean so that loss will be collected in the second wash because I will squeeze out the bud after that one.

Maybe this will go all black once it gets concentrated I don't know but at this point, I'm optimistic that this may turn out to be a decent honey oil.

Even though the 25 µm filter bag helped a lot the real secret to a clear product it looks like is the coffee filter. I have read online that coffee filters are rated at about 20 µm but they seem to make a lot more difference than 5 µm would suggest.

 

[Pennywise]

Coffee filters do a really good job

 

[Homer Simpson]

Coffee filters do a really good job

You were right as usual. If I take just 1/4 the sample and let it evaporate I can test for recovery rate so I have to do it for the first short pure wash and the longer one. I am curious what I am getting but I estimate I am getting 85% to 90% in the first wash. I think I will end up doing it this way but in the future using the 2nd wash for several washes before I evaporate it since each second washes yields so little.

 

[oldsmokey]

All I ever used when making oil was coffee filters. Looks really good Homer. I am interested on how your homemade still is going to work now.

 

[Homer Simpson]

All I ever used when making oil was coffee filters. Looks really good Homer. I am interested on how your homemade still is going to work now.

Yup, I also think now all you need is coffee filters. Tomorrow is probably, depending on weather, distilling day. Thanks oldsmokey.

 

[Pennywise]

For home use coffee filters are the ticket.

 

[Homer Simpson]

For home use coffee filters are the ticket.

It certainly seems that way. Looking forward to seeing how close the oil looks to honey.

 

[Homer Simpson]

Today I recovered the alcohol from my ethanol extractions with my mini-still. I had two batches to do; the first batch had been soaked for five minutes close to zero Fahrenheit and the second batch was used to soak the same cannabis at the same temperature for 24 hours to get any residue missed by the first batch.

Here is the first batch from the five-minute soak.

And here is what I ended up with. A little over 2 ounces of tincture and almost a cup of reusable ethyl alcohol.

I put half the tincture in an eyedropper bottle for consumption and the other half I am going to evaporate to check my recovery. It is still looking pretty honey-like even at this high concentration because that 1-ounce container contains most of the resin from a full ounce of cannabis. I would say this is a success but I am curious what color the resin will be once the alcohol sample evaporates.

Here is the second 24 hour wash.

And here is what I ended up with after distilling.

Here is a comparison between the five-minute and 24 hour tincture I am going to evaporate to calculate yield. Should be obvious which is which.

All and all my still worked pretty well. I ended up constructing a little hood for it out of an old coffee can to improve the heat efficiency.

I also added a little overflow tube so I can add up to 16 ounces of cold water to my condenser so the cold water sinks to the bottom and the hot upper water is siphoned off. That way I can change water while still running.