Decoding The Holy Grail: Terpene & Cannabinoid Retention: Decarb to Extraction

[Rider509]

Greetings Sweet Sue et al! I've seen your name bouncing around on some of the threads but never followed it back to your own threads, and when I did the clouds parted and the angels sang! You are a godsend for those of us that have to convert to edibles. I don't use cannabis but I love to grow. My brother has lupus and polycythemia and some other malady for which his VA neurologist and oncologist both recommended cannabis products to improve his quality of life. I'll be reading and reading and reading some more to play catch up with you guys. I want to produce the best quality meds I can for my brother.
Thank you so much for the herculean effort you, Canyon, and Kicknitup1 have put into this research. I'm blown away.
Warmest regards,
Rider

 

[Kicknitup1]

Yeah this!
I've been thinking, maybe this thread is a candidate for a good summary post every now and then - perhaps even a couple; one technical and one less technical for those of us that are interested but don't have the technical capacity to decipher the reports... just a thought.

"This forum is getting so far over my head, I'm going to have to unsub, so my old brain don't break. I'm subbed toa whole ot of other journals, so I'm not going anywhere."



So guys, Communicating openly is how we got this far. If we were all working independently, it would take forever to make an advancement. That's what I was doing before I approached Sue. I had gone about as far as I could on my own. I suggest, rather than unsubscribing, skip over the parts that are over your head for the time being.
There is plenty said here that helps people on all levels. I do not get helped everyday. But when I do....oh baby it's like gold. But if you want the best possible info, somebody's gotta be sifting thru details. We have to share them OPENLY. Someone already thought we were not being forthcoming with answers but rather using back channels. Not true. Yep, several of us communicate now & then in PM, email. But all discoveries are posted...ASAP I might add.

Everyone that started at page one should be able to make top shelf home extraction quality by now. You should be able to anticipate your losses before you even weigh the first bud. And consequently, you will know your dosage. You don't need to know all the whys if you are not interested. I hate to do it but every now & then I ask a question thats been covered already because it's quicker than finding it in my notes.

I do agree that a summary post from time to time would be extremely helpful. I know I could use it! What's soluble in what, pros & cons of solvents,proper mixing in of additives, yada, yada,

 

[Kicknitup1]

Greetings Sweet Sue et al! I've seen your name bouncing around on some of the threads but never followed it back to your own threads, and when I did the clouds parted and the angels sang! You are a godsend for those of us that have to convert to edibles. I don't use cannabis but I love to grow. My brother has lupus and polycythemia and some other malady for which his VA neurologist and oncologist both recommended cannabis products to improve his quality of life. I'll be reading and reading and reading some more to play catch up with you guys. I want to produce the best quality meds I can for my brother.
Thank you so much for the herculean effort you, Canyon, and Kicknitup1 have put into this research. I'm blown away.
Warmest regards,
Rider

And it only takes an entry like this from time to time to make me feel rewarded.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Decoding The Holy Grail: Terpene & Cannabinoid Retention - Decarb to Extraction

I do agree that a summary post from time to time would be extremely helpful. I know I could use it! What's soluble in what, pros & cons of solvents,proper mixing in of additives, yada, yada,

Exactly - and this is more what I was taking AK's post as a springboard to say.

I was in no way criticising the thread or the work that's going on or the way you're sharing the open discussion, or any of that. I think it's f^%£in' awesome - and I've said so before.

Everyone that started at page one should be able to make top shelf home extraction quality by now. You should be able to anticipate your losses before you even weigh the first bud. And consequently, you will know your dosage. You don't need to know all the whys if you are not interested. I hate to do it but every now & then I ask a question thats been covered already because it's quicker than finding it in my notes.

Those first 2 things you say there - well that's not going to be easily true for everybody. The condition I'm trying to treat involves periods of severe cognitive disfunction ('neuro-immune exhaustion', to be precise) and it might not even be a matter of having something in my notes I cannot find, because i may not have been capable of taking notes the day the info came by (or of looking at a screen at all for that matter). I can be sharp and smart as a whip one day and barely able to read or even speak on others. I know plenty of others would be in similar boats - not singling myself out here. So I always ask questions folks might think I should already know the answer to or about stuff that's been covered a number of times over. But yeah - what you say there about what one 'should' be able to do having read the whole thread (and I've been following along fairly diligently for sometime - and yes I've read since the beginning) totally made my heart sink ... because I can't do that. I mean I'm making oil ok but I can't do what you're describing. Not even close. And trying to go back and pull it all together is not something I'm capable of at the moment. So, Sue has mentioned elsewhere that some 'companion' threads with tech details and/or summaries, including in accessible formats, might be a way forward. I was just suggesting that could certainly be really useful here.

 

[SweetSue]

Exactly - and this is more what I was taking AK's post as a springboard to say.

I was in no way criticising the thread or the work that's going on or the way you're sharing the open discussion, or any of that. I think it's f^%£in' awesome - and I've said so before.



Those first 2 things you say there - well that's not going to be easily true for everybody. The condition I'm trying to treat involves periods of severe cognitive disfunction ('neuro-immune exhaustion', to be precise) and it might not even be a matter of having something in my notes I cannot find, because i may not have been capable of taking notes the day the info came by (or of looking at a screen at all for that matter). I can be sharp and smart as a whip one day and barely able to read or even speak on others. I know plenty of others would be in similar boats - not singling myself out here. So I always ask questions folks might think I should already know the answer to or about stuff that's been covered a number of times over. But yeah - what you say there about what one 'should' be able to do having read the whole thread (and I've been following along fairly diligently for sometime - and yes I've read since the beginning) totally made my heart sink ... because I can't do that. I mean I'm making oil ok but I can't do what you're describing. Not even close. And trying to go back and pull it all together is not something I'm capable of at the moment. So, Sue has mentioned elsewhere that some 'companion' threads with tech details and/or summaries, including in accessible formats, might be a way forward. I was just suggesting that could certainly be really useful here.

I have always encouraged members to ask, rather than go digging. In all likelihood, someone in the room the day you ask has the information you need at their fingertips. Please don't hesitate to ask the question for the umpteenth time. Every time we answer we get closer and closer to getting the data down to something that's easy to distribute.

We do a lot of exploring. Without a librarian devoted to keeping it all in order it's a good idea to periodically put together relevant bunches, as I've done with FHO and a few other threads that grew out of the study hall. We're not professionals, and it's a lot to keep up with. I used to let it frustrate me, but I've since decided what needs done gets done, so now I go with the flow and keep learning.

 

[greatwolf]

I have always encouraged members to ask, rather than go digging. In all likelihood, someone in the room the day you ask has the information you need at their fingertips. Please don't hesitate to ask the question for the umpteenth time. Every time we answer we get closer and closer to getting the data down to something that's easy to distribute.

We do a lot of exploring. Without a librarian devoted to keeping it all in order it's a good idea to periodically put together relevant bunches, as I've done with FHO and a few other threads that grew out of the study hall. We're not professionals, and it's a lot to keep up with. I used to let it frustrate me, but I've since decided what needs done gets done, so now I go with the flow and keep learning.

"The only stupid question is the one you don't ask."

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Thanx for the report GW. Your question of terpene absorption by the rice is something that's bothered me a bit. Before leaving home last week I harvested a 10" top from a "supposedly" blue dream cbd. Trimmed, it netted me about an ounce and a half wet weight. I allowed it to air dry under a fan for about 18 hours and divided into three fairly equal amounts. One part was placed in a brown paper bag. The other two were sealed in jars and placed into the freezer. In one jar I placed a 10mg silica pack. I have the same question about terpene absorption as you. I'm going to let all three samples cook for three weeks and make tincture using my "orange dragon" process. Unfortunately, I don't have access to lab analysis so I'm going to have to depend on a "seat of the pants" comparison check to get a sense of any difference between the three finished products. Be glad to share any info I may reap.

Prep completed and I have a few observations I'd like to share.

When I took the two frozen samples out, the one without silica had a large amount of ice crystals lining the inside of the jar, absent from the silica sample. Opening the jars, there was a definite difference in smell, almost absent in the sample with the silica pack. I split the silica pack open and it did have a distinct odor to it. Leads me to believe it probably sucked up my precious terpenes along with the moisture. Really disappointing.

When I started rough cutting the samples for decarbing, it was evident, as expected, it had a crazy high moisture content, even feeling mushy to the touch. Working with the sample with the silica pack, it was obviously less moist but I can't remember ever handling any material that was this sticky, much more so than the other two.

After decarbing and placing the three samples in the freezer for several hours, the air dried sample left a fine, brown dusty residue over the inside of the jar when I shook it for a while, which is normal. With the other two samples, much of the material was actually frozen to the walls of the jars and offered absolutely no residue separation. Obviously the abundant moisture content negated the usual advantages freezing usually offers in breaking loose the terpenes for a more effective extraction process. This was further evidenced during the straining process when I found very few trichome husks in my filter with the two samples that had been initially frozen. The air dried sample showed good husk quantities trapped by the filter.

This experiment was conducted in hopes of retaining the terpenes present in freshly harvested material but from what I've seen thus far, I'm bracing myself for an epic fail. Sometimes failures are as informative as successes, however, so I'm not going to be totally disappointed. Over the next three days, I'll test each of the products for a comparison and share the results, good or bad.

BCDD

 

[Canyon]

Exactly - and this is more what I was taking AK's post as a springboard to say.

I was in no way criticising the thread or the work that's going on or the way you're sharing the open discussion, or any of that. I think it's f^%£in' awesome - and I've said so before.



Those first 2 things you say there - well that's not going to be easily true for everybody. The condition I'm trying to treat involves periods of severe cognitive disfunction ('neuro-immune exhaustion', to be precise) and it might not even be a matter of having something in my notes I cannot find, because i may not have been capable of taking notes the day the info came by (or of looking at a screen at all for that matter). I can be sharp and smart as a whip one day and barely able to read or even speak on others. I know plenty of others would be in similar boats - not singling myself out here. So I always ask questions folks might think I should already know the answer to or about stuff that's been covered a number of times over. But yeah - what you say there about what one 'should' be able to do having read the whole thread (and I've been following along fairly diligently for sometime - and yes I've read since the beginning) totally made my heart sink ... because I can't do that. I mean I'm making oil ok but I can't do what you're describing. Not even close. And trying to go back and pull it all together is not something I'm capable of at the moment. So, Sue has mentioned elsewhere that some 'companion' threads with tech details and/or summaries, including in accessible formats, might be a way forward. I was just suggesting that could certainly be really useful here.

Amy G,
Thanks for explaining where you are coming from. I don't know any more than the description of neuro-immune exhaustion that I just looked up.

My wife has had more than her share of physical problems combined with 10 years of every kind of pain medication on the market. She also has severe Restless Leg Syndrome. Climbing out of the fog of the opiates has increased the RLS. Damned if you do..... She is down to 7.5mg of morpheme and it does not want to turn loose of her.

The capsules I have been talking about are helping her with anxiety and have improved the amount and quality of her sleep. The dose she is on is ridiculously low. It is mostly non decarbed high CBD material with some decarbed high CBD material. It should have good anti inflammatory properties as well. It is about 70% CBDA (The non decarbed part) and 18% CBD (The decarbed part.) There is about 4% THCA, 3%THC, 3% CBGA and 1% CBC. Then I diluted it 100 to 1 with coco.

Now the short version of that, adding non decarbed material into your oil making may be worth trying for you.

Do you have someone to help with the physical work?

It may help others if you would let us know what is working for you and what has been disappointing.

Ask all the F*ing questions you want.

Best

 

[Canyon]

My bad. It was actually an Emerald Cup seminar presented by Jahan Marcu (I think). The green represents ethanol extraction while the red is the results of co2 extraction. The numbers to the right represent % of extraction. Neither appear to be impressive, do they?

After rewatching a portion of the video, it appears the percentage on the right represents the abundance of the individual terpene but the percentage ratio is unspecified. A little confusing. Am I going to get my hand spanked if I post a link?

Emerald Conference: Comparing Extraction Techniques for Cannabinoids and Terpenes | Application Notes | Analytical Cannabis

I watched the clip twice.

I can't get my head around that way of charting either. It is not that clear to me what they are referencing the percentages on. What is surprising is how long some of the two water sample bars are.

 

[Kicknitup1]

Amy Gardner!

This is a No Sinking Hearts zone. If I understood your point, part of your problem is that your illness will not let you concentrate enough some days to pull it together. If that's so,, our hearts go out to you. I'm not sure how we can best help you but if we can, we will. It sounds like someone should be helping you make your meds. But if it's just a problem with remembering the basics -and our basics are pretty good- ask away, every day. Sue was on it. Someone will be on that knows the answer. And, we will ponder how to handle that summary.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

I watched the clip twice.

I can't get my head around that way of charting either. It is not that clear to me what they are referencing the percentages on. What is surprising is how long some of the two water sample bars are.

Im with you canyon, I've given up on trying to decipher the point they're trying to make concerning the %.

I think the important fact that we can take away from this is the fact that a single method is not going to effectively extract the entire spectrum of terpenes. Just another hurdle in our quest for the holy grail!

 

[Canyon]

Greetings Sweet Sue et al! I've seen your name bouncing around on some of the threads but never followed it back to your own threads, and when I did the clouds parted and the angels sang! You are a godsend for those of us that have to convert to edibles. I don't use cannabis but I love to grow. My brother has lupus and polycythemia and some other malady for which his VA neurologist and oncologist both recommended cannabis products to improve his quality of life. I'll be reading and reading and reading some more to play catch up with you guys. I want to produce the best quality meds I can for my brother.
Thank you so much for the herculean effort you, Canyon, and Kicknitup1 have put into this research. I'm blown away.
Warmest regards,
Rider

Welcome, thanks for the kind words. Sue is special isn't she. Kicknitup made the best brownies while he was a guest here. It is worth asking how he made them.

I never know

 

[Kicknitup1]

Glad to help Rider509. If you need something, let me know.

 

[Kicknitup1]

Canyon & BCDD

About the chart in the clip. The only thing that makes sense to me is this: Take the first one as the example... what it's saying is that CO2 extraction retained 2.4% and Ethanol retained 14.3% of the amount available in the material. I am deducing this because the %s are too high to be the % by weight or volume of the extract. If he means anything else, well, I question whether he should have been up there. Very interesting but certainly could have been made more clear.

But he did confirm that ethanol caught some terps. Things just keep confirming that we will end the journey with adding the terps back in.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Canyon & BCDD

About the chart in the clip. The only thing that makes sense to me is this: Take the first one as the example... what it's saying is that CO2 extraction retained 2.4% and Ethanol retained 14.3% of the amount available in the material. I am deducing this because the %s are too high to be the % by weight or volume of the extract. If he means anything else, well, I question whether he should have been up there. Very interesting but certainly could have been made more clear.

But he did confirm that ethanol caught some terps. Things just keep confirming that we will end the journey with adding the terps back in.

I think you're probably right, kickn. This thesis crossed my mind but I was reluctant to face the fact that the extraction rate even with what he touts as being the best method salvaged such a minor amount of terpenes available.

I'm going to complete my present experiment but I think this will be my final attempt at terpene retention. There just seems to be insurmountable challenges along any path we choose.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding terpene additives but from what I've experienced thus far, I think your supposition is probably going to be a more viable route to obtain our goal.

More to follow

BCDD

 

[Canyon]

There is a clone of the Nightmare Cookies plant that started this thread that has been in flower for 44 days here. I have full tests from the mother. The tests on the mother show no CBD and only 0.46% terpenes. I could do a non decarbed dry ice and 190 extraction, then dry it like the last time. We have one full terpene test coming. We could use it and compare it to the mothers' test. It would not be the perfect test but the price would be excellent.

I still need to weigh the rest of the last extract to get a better idea of the percent extracted. It is not going to be great. I want to try some rather long soak times to see if more is extracted or I start picking up chlorophyll.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Decoding The Holy Grail: Terpene & Cannabinoid Retention - Decarb to Extraction

Amy Gardner!

This is a No Sinking Hearts zone. If I understood your point, part of your problem is that your illness will not let you concentrate enough some days to pull it together. If that's so,, our hearts go out to you. I'm not sure how we can best help you but if we can, we will. It sounds like someone should be helping you make your meds. But if it's just a problem with remembering the basics -and our basics are pretty good- ask away, every day. Sue was on it. Someone will be on that knows the answer. And, we will ponder how to handle that summary.

Amy G,
Thanks for explaining where you are coming from. I don't know any more than the description of neuro-immune exhaustion that I just looked up.

My wife has had more than her share of physical problems combined with 10 years of every kind of pain medication on the market. She also has severe Restless Leg Syndrome. Climbing out of the fog of the opiates has increased the RLS. Damned if you do..... She is down to 7.5mg of morpheme and it does not want to turn loose of her.

The capsules I have been talking about are helping her with anxiety and have improved the amount and quality of her sleep. The dose she is on is ridiculously low. It is mostly non decarbed high CBD material with some decarbed high CBD material. It should have good anti inflammatory properties as well. It is about 70% CBDA (The non decarbed part) and 18% CBD (The decarbed part.) There is about 4% THCA, 3%THC, 3% CBGA and 1% CBC. Then I diluted it 100 to 1 with coco.

Now the short version of that, adding non decarbed material into your oil making may be worth trying for you.

Do you have someone to help with the physical work?

It may help others if you would let us know what is working for you and what has been disappointing.

Ask all the F*ing questions you want.

Best

Thanks both...

(If you want to just skip to my actual question- I bolded part of it below...)

Yes, sometimes I do need physical help - and sometimes I do have it. My helper needs my clear instructions tho, so I still need to be able to give them. Recently I've struggled to articulate it as there's as many methods as there are people making oil!

Mostly folks around here have said I just have to experiment and try out different ways and see how that goes, track the results etc. I realise that is what I have to do to an extent, but it's not always that easy if you're not fit & hale most of the time which, let's face it, is going to be the case for most medicinal oil users (especially at the times I need assistance to do it all, as you say). I've just ended up really confused, because - and bear with me here - there are number of advocated ways including;

- the decarb in oven first then infuse approach which most say to do for an hour @ 115ºC (sorry I'm Celsius ), then in the oil 2-8 hours (some use the MB machine which needs 8hours, others use a jar in the oven for various periods).
- Oldbear has a very simple method: crumbled bud in enough oil to cover it, in a jar with tinfoil over the top (and pin prick in the tinfoil) and 2hrs in the oven @104ºC.
- Then there was the covered in oil in a jar and 36hrs (shaking intermittently) at as low as the oven will go (this method made some strong night time meds from some high THC bud, but is in no way a practical option for me! And I think S'Sue doesn't advocate it anymore either).

Then I found this info a couple of months ago that talks about CBD requiring higher temps to decarb than THC (this is actually on a 420 thread from a few years ago but i found it while googling the question of decarb when I was overwhelmed by the forum options for pursuing the question, funny how that led me back to 420!). So this is based on a report by GW Pharma - and the only caveat that occurs to me is that it was connected to their work on CO2 extraction - so I'm not sure if the decarb info is relevant to oil making. Maybe it is.

... search finally led me to a British patent for a process of liquid CO2 extraction of resin from cannabis, in which they mentioned how they decarbed their samples and, most importantly, they documented the resulting lab analysis of 4 different amount of time and 3 different temperatures, and the differing results on THCa, THC, CBDa, CBD, and CBN. To me, this is a wealth of information. Here is a link to the patent:

Extraction of pharmaceutically active components from plant materials - GW Pharma Limited

The 3 temps are in Celsius and translate to Fahrenheit as follows: 105° C = 221° F, 120° C = 248° F, and 140° C = 284° F.

My takeaway from this long, very technical paper is the following 2 sentences:

Chemovar producing primarily CBD is 1 hour at 120° C. or 0.5 hour at 140° C.
Chemovar producing primarily THC to minimise CBN formation, is 1 to 2 hours at 105° C. or 1 hour at 120° C.

Translation: heat your cannabis in a 120° C (248° F) oven for an hour and you are good to go. Regardless of if your cannabis is high in THC or CBD this will work very well.

(For anyone interested, he goes on to describe what he did and then the results of the test he had done on the resulting product.)

So, with all of that info at my disposal, I came to make some oil about 6weeks ago and found myself very stumped as to what to actually do!

I have assumed that this was already background knowledge for everyone on here and on the other oilers threads so never brought it up, but I've just become more and more confused about the different recommendations and advice.

So this is where I am at.

I have 2:1 dry material (Critical+ CBD). The last batch I made using that was maybe stronger in the THC department than I want. (I'll grow a higher CBD chemovar in the future but for now I need to get the most CBD out of these 2:1 buds I will have for a while.)

So my question, then, is the following: What would your recommendation for temp and time be, based on all the research you have done to date, for optimum CBD decarb where the THC component is not a high priority (meaning I'm happy to have the THC in 'a' form, or even as CBN actually)?

Likely the info has come by in this thread - but I've never been able to decipher the reports. I'm starting to realise that I've never piped up about it at all because it's a shock to my system that this is true, and I'm still in & out of denial about the impact on my cognitive abilities/capacity (it's an overload thing - I'm good to a point in time and then everything can fall apart, fast). I also haven't asked this here in this thread before because I had it in my head that it was all about terpenes... (looking at the title of the thread, i can see i was mistaken there)...

Thanks Canyon for prompting me to try my questions again

FWIW - Oldbear made a spreadsheet, which looks brilliant, for folks tp use to help work out their dosing and get approximate ideas of the likely strength of your oil. I haven't been able to use it yet tho - I'm just getting spreadsheet software set up again on my Mac so hopefully soon, and hopefully I'll be able to use it (I used to build spreadsheets, the other day I looked at one i had made for someone else and it was almost a mystery to me ).

 

[Skullman420]

Can we put together a list of important things to remember while making our own medicine? Like a recipe with pictures and everything?

I don't know what is easiest for you Amy. What would make things better for you?

 

[Skullman420]

I'm planning on getting a tiny pollen tumbler and then make some lovely first grade hash from my cuttings. Then I plan to get one of those crock pots to make oils with the leaf remains.

There is one thing that confuses me. Why the decarb before boiling? Won't the boiling process in fact decarb the material. Is that bake in the oven step really necessary?

 

[InTheShed]

I'm planning on getting a tiny pollen tumbler and then make some lovely first grade hash from my cuttings. Then I plan to get one of those crock pots to make oils with the leaf remains. There is one thing that confuses me. Why the decarb before boiling? Won't the boiling process in fact decarb the material. Is that bake in the oven step really necessary?

Boiling water or boiling oil? I infuse in a crock pot with oil but if I let it get over 200ºF for too long it starts to smell very burned, so I oven-decarb first. 212º will take a longer time to decarb than the 240-250º range people seem to be using for decarb. There's no reason you need to decarb first as long as you know your time/temp ratio will do the job for you. Some of it will depend on how hot your crock pot can get.