Oil, my first try

[Brian420pm]

You could reuse the everclear

Yah I have the Megahome distiller, it's awesome

 

[HashGirl]

In your recipe @HashGirl you used 8% beeswax and 4% shea butter, are you still happy with those measurements? Calculating dosage for topicals I find a bit hard, it's hard to imagine one portion of creme, a teaspoon, less...? I checked the internet for popular cremes, some of them have only 45mg THC on a 2oz container? This is my plan for this lovely rainy Friday. I'm excited and very thankful

Good evening, steff.

I am happy with the amount of beeswax and shea butter I use. Somewhere in Magnus' thread, he explains that cream ingredients are to be measured by weight not by volume and he notes what percentage beeswax, shea butter and/or cocoa butter to use.

The first time I made cream, I just couldn't get it to thicken and kept having to add more and more beeswax and shea butter but I was trying to be careful with what I was adding as well since too much beeswax can be a barrier for the cream penetrating the skin.

Some people who have used my original cream thought it was too greasy so I've been experimenting with other oils that aren't as greasy as sweet almond oil is. I find that the apricot kernel oil is the least greasy of the 3 oils I've tried (sweet almond, apricot kernel and pumpkin seed oil).

I don't know how many doses my cream has but I sell them in 1 ounce and 2 ounce jars and a 1 ounce jar lasts me about 2 weeks if I use it everyday, which I only tend to do when the weather has been wet since that's when I'm achiest usually.

I used OldBear's Concentration and Dosage Calculator spreadsheet and it says that my cream using Hash Plant has a cannabinoid volume in mg equal to:

THC: 1028.50
CBD: 297.50

And, the solution strength of mg/ml equals:

THC: 8.23
CBD: 2.38

As InTheShed will tell you, I suck at numbers so I don't really understand what these numbers mean but I'm hoping by posting them that you'll understand.

 

[InTheShed]

I would say nothing of the sort HG!

 

[HashGirl]

So, you would just think it then?

It's okay. I know that I suck at numbers. I keep telling my boss that I hope his new Admin is better at numbers than I am but we completed two travel expense forms this morning and she had almost as many difficulties with them as I do but I'm still hopeful she'll do better than me.

 

[Brian420pm]

my cream using Hash Plant has a cannabinoid volume in mg equal to:
THC: 1028.50
And, the solution strength of mg/ml equals:
THC: 8.23

OK I'll say it! lol If your 1oz creme jar has 1000mg of THC, that would be 34mg/ml. A 2oz jar would be 17mg/ml. Maybe something in your recipe I'm not clear on.

Nom Nom Nom for Numbers I am

 

[steffgrowsweed]

Another good morning
I have finished infusing the oil yesterday and it is waiting & resting in the fridge for a couple more hours.
Here is a couple of photos from yesterday and as you can see, I have incorporated a couple of tips from around here

The whole process worked well and easy enough for my clumsy self (besides adding too much sunflower lec. in the coconut oil). I have lost a couple of ml/mg on the way and am now wondering, how to get the last drops of oil out of the small pouches. SweetSue explains her reclaiming here, in the fresh cut oil method

PsyCro left instructions for reclaiming the oil bound up in the plant material. Securely tie up the bundle of plant material and drop it into a pot of boiling water. I find bouncing it in the water helps release the oil.

I will give this a try now and see how much I get back. Anyone have any other reclaiming ideas?
Thank you lovely people, it is great fun with you. I will share another update with the real end product finished.
Have a happy day, Best

 

[steffgrowsweed]

1tsp = 5ml. From talking to people that have used my products so far (I interview them extensively! lol), they use 1 to 2ml for localized pain

I will test the oil before it's in the creme and see, if and how strong it works. Still waiting for the guinea pig to wake up

Anxious to find out how it all turned out! I'll no longer be using the ethanol extraction and will sell all my equipment I just bought. From now on I'll be making rosin and using that to dissolve into my recipes. I haven't tried the infusion method for multiple reasons, I want the option to get higher dosing down the road (you can only pour in so much oil to cover your flower), and for storage I can store a ton of rosin in a tiny space.

Oh, I am soooo excited too, can't wait to further process. The ethanol extraction, I am too scared. I have a gas oven and just the thought of processing, no no, maybe in a bottle for a tincture... Rosin seems to be a safer production alternative, I have a small press too, but that's another subject for another day hehe.

 

[steffgrowsweed]

I like to decarb once I get to the final product. Sure, if I am going to use straight up bud for something, I decarb it in a vacuum oven. However, if my end goal is oil, I like to decarb it at the end, once I have it in the crude form (RSO/CCO). Otherwise, if you decarb it as bud, your filtering process gets more complicated due to the change in compounds that occur during the bud decarbing.

I don't have any great science behind it. But my best guess is that the decarb process for oil is much more efficient when doing it at the last stage before consumption, because you have already filtered out a great deal of garbage through the washing process (you strip the oils, and get rid of the bio material), and then you filter/winterize (which gets rid of fats an lipids). This way, you are spending less time and energy to decarb because there are less compounds in the oil that you need to spend energy absorbing heat. Sounds wacky, but it follows the basic principles of chemistry and distillation: Reduce the whole to its smallest subset of compounds before expending energy.

Note, I decarb just before I stick the RSO/CCO into my short path still. This isn't a choice, its a must. Otherwise, I'd get quite the violent reaction in the SPD when the carbon molecules snap off of the THCA chain, and will wind up with more THCA/CBDA in the final product than I would like. Its under vacuum, so things happen faster, and more intense.

Thank you zeroday, that is great info shared and for my next oil I will def. decarb while infusing and use my low and slow dried buds from the fridge. But for my first time, I had to start somewhere and with all the info around, I chose the decarb before infusing. Looking forward to the next batch and the pot. differences. Happy day

 

[zeroday]

Thank you zeroday, that is great info shared and for my next oil I will def. decarb while infusing and use my low and slow dried buds from the fridge. But for my first time, I had to start somewhere and with all the info around, I chose the decarb before infusing. Looking forward to the next batch and the pot. differences. Happy day ☀

Yup, ya gotta start somewhere! That's the fun part of all this. Trying different things and see what happens, and what you like!

 

[HashGirl]

OK I'll say it! lol If your 1oz creme jar has 1000mg of THC, that would be 34mg/ml. A 2oz jar would be 17mg/ml. Maybe something in your recipe I'm not clear on.

Nom Nom Nom for Numbers I am

Okay, let me clarify it. I don't get just one ounce of cream when I'm finished. I got 14 grams (10.5 ounces). And, my numbers were off above. It's actually:

Cannabinoid volume in mg equal to:

THC: 1542.75
CBD: 446.25

And, the solution strength of mg/ml equals:

THC: 4.75
CBD: 1.37

 

[Brian420pm]

THC: 4.75
CBD: 1.37

A good start! If you want it stronger for the next time you do it, are you able to use less carrier oils and get those numbers higher? Some people use the same oil for a second infusion to get more THC. I'm not sure how much is left behind on multi infusions until we see testing to see how saturated the oil can get.

 

[steffgrowsweed]

I have lost a couple of ml/mg on the way and am now wondering, how to get the last drops of oil out of the small pouches. SweetSue explains her reclaiming here, in the fresh cut oil method I will give this a try now and see how much I get back.

I was able to collect back 30ml, that worked ok, tried different tools to collect and had to force myself to stop at some point. Had a lot of water in there and thought, I give my first little oil bath a try. Def. an interesting process to witness. After all the water had steamed away, I noticed foam and lots of bubbles in the oil. Is it possible, that it was more decarbing? Is there a way you can actually see decarbing? Was that it? Would that mean, that there is still something undecarbed in my oil and would another oil bath for the rest of my oil in the fridge be advisable?
Thank you

 

[HashGirl]

This is an area I really struggle with. I can lose between 2 and 95 ml per batch of oil sometimes using the same method with vastly different results. It's very frustrating. That's why my husband (Felonious Punk) and I bought a rosin press but we haven't used it yet because we haven't had time. We also have a distiller (?) that you have to use Everclear with and it all seems really complicated and if I want to do it that way, I don't know how and I hate asking Felonious to do it for me all the time. I'm hoping to learn how to use both of them when I retire in 28 more working days.

 

[zeroday]

This is an area I really struggle with. I can lose between 2 and 95 ml per batch of oil sometimes using the same method with vastly different results. It's very frustrating. That's why my husband (Felonious Punk) and I bought a rosin press but we haven't used it yet because we haven't had time. We also have a distiller (?) that you have to use Everclear with and it all seems really complicated and if I want to do it that way, I don't know how and I hate asking Felonious to do it for me all the time. I'm hoping to learn how to use both of them when I retire in 28 more working days.

All of the info you need on what you just said is either here, or in someone's head who hangs out here. Figure out which method you want to try first and ask questions. Stick with it, and then try another method! As complicated as they all may seem, you have friends here who will help you every step of the way!

 

[Brian420pm]

I bought a rosin press...
We also have a distiller (?) that you have to use Everclear...

I'm switching to all rosin. I've done the everclear process a couple times now so feel free to ask if you get stuck!

 

[steffgrowsweed]

I will share another update with the real end product finished.

Good morning another last hijack of your oil post @Brian420pm and then I shall bother other posts with more specific questions The oil I made, I used in a topical cream/salve, supposed to be used on arthritic joints & neuropathic pain.
I understand that adding butter and/or bees wax, will make the oils more firm and I assume, the more I add, the firmer it gets. In another post (Magnus' Canna Cream ... Study Hall), it was not recommended to add too many butters/waxes, since they can act as a barrier on the skin. This makes sense to me, so I was following the percentages recommended for my first round.
Here is what I mixed:
30ml/27g infused cannabis oil (Mix of ⅓ Fract. Coconut & ⅔ Grapeseed-Oil - 10mg/ml THC)
5g Sunflower Lecithin
9g Fract. Coconut Oil
3g total Lavender, Tea tree and Peppermint oil
-----
1st Round added -> result: too fluid and oily
4,32g - 8% (of 54g) Bees Wax
2,16g - 4% Shea Butter
2,16g - 4% Cocoa Butter
2nd Round added
4,32g - 8% (of 54g) Bees Wax (no change)
5,4g - 10% Shea Butter (upped from 1st round, plus 6% more = +3,24g)
5,4g - 10% Cocoa Butter (upped from 1st round, plus 6% more = +3,24g)
------
The result is little firmer, but still too fluid for my taste. I also whisked the cream after for a little, that didn't change the consistency. What do you think about the barrier that can be created by wax/butters and will the consistency change more with time or do I have to add more, whisk more...? Thank you guys

 

[InTheShed]

I'm a straight oil person, because it rubs in and leaves very little residue behind like salves and creams do. That and I don't want any barriers.

I found fractionated coconut oil too greasy for my tastes and now I go with 50/50 grapeseed and pumpkin seed.

Not sure that's going to be helpful now, but something to consider for next time?

Also, I aim for a minimum of 15mg/ml THC in my topical pain oil.

 

[gr865]

Just purchased this, the lid on my old unit warped.
Mophorn Water Distillers Countertop 4L BPA-Free Container 750W Digital Control Distilling Water Machine for Home with Handle Upgrade Style

I have only used it once, seemed to work well, did not get to try it. When I had it in a container purging the last of the alcohol from it I tripped over the cord and spilt 66 gram of FECO/CCO on the patio. Could not recapture it as the patio had lots of dirt and leaves on it.
Will be making another batch of FECO/CCO next week, probably 12 to 16 zips of mixed buds.

 

[InTheShed]

It makes me sad every time I read that Gr8.

 

[gr865]

It makes me sad every time I read that Gr8.

I just wish I had at least tried to rescue at least some of that spilt oil.