The Honey Oil Thread: From Raw Bud & Trim, To RSO, Through An SPD, To Golden Love!

For those folks in Massachusettes, here is a new comer to the 190 proof ethanol market. I'm giving it a try. Its $29.85 for a 1.75L handle, compared to 32.95 for a 1.75L handle of Everclear in my town. As usual, when I go in and buy ethanol, the store owner sinkers and then asks a million questions. He told me that he has small batch companies banging at his door to get in, to sell their extraction ethanol. He finds it funny, because he realized that he is selling liquor for extraction, vs. consuming which is what his store has done for 50+ years. He told me that I am one of 39 people in town that he has talked with about specifically using everclear and grain alcohol for THC Extraction. He agreed that there are probably many more that just don't talk about it.

I just found the conversation to be so much fun. I remember buying everclear and my cover story was, that I was making Lemon Chellos. I never had a Lemon Chello in my life, BTW. You just didn't divulge what you were doing due to the laws at the time. Now, the guy is telling me that he has people walking in asking him about what liquor they should buy to extract THC Oil.

I have been looking at different sources of Ethanol that are now available to me. @No Pain gave me a pointer to one that I think he uses. I have been watching pricing on other websites, the sites I buy my SPD gear from usually also sell solvents of different types.

But I love the liquor store guy! So encouraging, that the craft is starting to expand in so many different directions!

IMG_1420.jpg
 
Oh yeah. The reason the Graves bottle is empty, is because it is plastic, instead of glass. I didn't want to have the plastic in such low temperatures, so I transferred it into a glass Everclear I had laying around that was empty.

I have even had the plastic caps on the glass Everclear bottles crack open and spill the love all over the cooler. Not cool!
 
Oh yeah baby. Propelling into the weekend!

 
It's getting Chilly in the cooler!

IMG_1432.JPG
 
I typically go with a 4:1 ratio, solvent to biomass. I do it by weight. Did you come to a particular ratio?
I cants say that I have a particular ratio just yet but I am working on it . see I started with 390 grams of cannabis and turned that into 90 grams of hash which is my preferred method and it comes out pretty clean .now i do not get the yeild as if i was to wash the biomass but thats pretty much extra fats,waxes and chlorophyll . See in my reaserch when i was looking at using petroleum ether as it mostly only extracts the essential oils it was clearly stated that you will yield less but the finished product is actually twice as strong.
So now back on track im starting that find that when using hash its taking just as much to get everything out as if i where to use biomass and a 6:1 ratio . I have washed twice (two gallons , over 12lbs of 200 proof food grade alcohol ) through 90 grams of kief and she is still giving . its just now starting to have a light tint and this would be was #3!. do to its high evaporate rate and loosing some in filtering (i need to get a Buchner funnel, but this run was kind of an emergency so net time) I am now around 5/8th of a gallon . so i will wash run the distiller for a bit and when i get 50% back turn the distiller off wash again and so on until the liquid is completely clear .

For that reason I am going to give the refluxing method a go next round as in that process the vapors are condensing and fresh alcohol is falling back into the hash or biomass and continually washing it . The length of time im going to do is three hours ..which should be equivalent to washing it with 3x the amount of ethanol im using but only in one wash so to speak .

So now onto what I yielded out of that 90 grams to this point . I have come up with 36 grams which is a 40% return I feel there may still be maybe 2 mils in there but we will see once I get to the clear point . Now in the photo the syringe on the far right is a mix of 6ml of rso and 3mil of already infused coconut oil ( @28 Grams per cup) . The others well 2 of them have already been used . MY patient/friend is taking a gram a day split between half at night and the other half split during the daytime so I set him up with 10 grams to keep him rolling . Which by the way in case any one is curious he is around week 6 in this moving toward the gram a day and has just gotten there and his response to me was he is feeling like he is at 96% and that's awesome news to me ! Anyway here are the pics .
IMG_6625.JPG
IMG_6627.JPG
 
I made it through the first bunch of biomass. I'm totally running behind, but whatever. I left Sunday as a buffer day just in case. Looks like I'll be needing it.

I still have about 350 grams more to wash. I'll get on that in the morning.

Here is what I have so far. Again, this is Everclear poured over 30% bud and 70% trim. These bottles are back in the cooler over night to winterize. Next step will be filtering.

I have all the data. I'll post my numbers when my brain is working a little better than it is now.

IMG_1434.JPG
 
Here is how I went about making my wash.

As mentioned, I had my Everclear and Graves grain alcohol chilled down to -101F in a cooler with dry ice. The ethanol had been sitting in the cooler for 6 hours prior to use. The biomass (the raw plant material, 70% trim, 30%bud) was also in the cooler with the ethanol.

Note, this is only for some of the biomass I am processing. I didn't want to bore everyone with a ton of pictures, so I'll trim it down to just step by step pictures.

First, I get my ethanol ready, the biomass and mason jars. I set the center cap for the mason jar aside, and only use the jar and the ring. I also cut a piece of cheese cloth into squares that fit over the top of the mason jar, and allows the ring to screw on with the cheese cloth fitting snuggly between the ring and the jar.



IMG_1436.JPG IMG_1439.JPG

I like to weigh things as I go. Next, I place the mason jar without the ring or the cheese cloth, on a scale and tare it. Then I fill the jar with approximately 40-45 grams of biomass. I weigh it to make sure I know how much I am using. I record the value.

Next, back on the scale. I tare the mason jar with the biomass in it. I then pour the alcohol over the biomass in the mason jar. I don't pour into one spot. As the ethanol is flowing over the biomass, I move the bottle of ethanol in a circular motion to make sure its going in as evenly as possible over the biomass.

IMG_1441.JPG

Once the ethanol is covering the biomass, I place the mason jar with the ethanol and biomass back on the scale. Remember, we tared it, so the tare is the mason jar and the biomass. We now know how much ethanol we put in. I record this value.

Next, I place the cheese cloth square over the mouth of the jar. I then place the ring on and screw it down. It doesn't need to be super tight, and you don't want it to be.

IMG_1443.JPG

As soon as I have the ring tightened down, I spin the jar clockwise quickly one full turn. This should make the biomass inside spin slightly. I then do the same thing counter clockwise. I then begin pouring out the wash. From the time I have the ethanol poured in, to the time I begin pouring it out is about 45 seconds. Other than the spin, I do not agitate the wash at all.

I've experimented in depth on this. All you are doing by leaving the solvent and biomass dwelling together, as well as agitating it, is pulling more and more fats/waxes/proteins/chlorophyll out of the plant. Because of the rate of solvency of THC in ethanol, the ethanol pouring over the biomass and then dwelling just for a few seconds is enough to wash away the oil.

As the wash is pouring out, I rotate the mason jar constantly so that the ethanol is washing over as much of the biomass as possible on the way out. I then rest the mason jar at an angle on the beaker and let it continue to slowly stream out. When the streaming of fluid turns to a slow drip, I stop.

IMG_1445.JPG IMG_1447.JPG IMG_1451.JPG

Once that is done, I place a bowl on my scale and tare it. I remove the ring and the cheese cloth from the mason jar and set aside. I then empty the biomass into the bowl on my scale, and record the value.

I take second beaker and tare it on the scale. I pour the wash fluid into the empty beaker. I record the value.

I then funnel the liquid back into the everclear bottles. Once they are closed off, they go back into the dry ice to winterize, at -104F for 12 hours. This alleviates needking to do it in a kitchen freezer for multiple days.

That's it for now. I'm currently filtering the wash that was put in the cooler last night. I'm taking pictures of that and will post them later today.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

IMG_1454.JPG
 
As I mentioned this morning, I got behind with washing. So, I have started filtering in parallel with the washing and winterizing.

For filtering, I use a Buchner funnel and beaker, assisted by a hand held vacuum pump. I used to use coffee filters and gravity. As I started processing more, I found this step was taking far to long. I added this, and I need to filter less. I do use filter paper in addition to the built in filter.

IMG_1456.JPG IMG_1457.JPG IMG_1460.JPG

I put a flat bottom beaker on the scale and tare it. I then pour some of the winterized wash fluid into the beaker and weigh it. I record this value.

I then place the paper into the funnel. First I pour just enough fluid in to wet the paper, then I turn the pump on. Once the paper is firmly sealed onto the bottom of the funnel, start pouring it all in.

IMG_1461.JPG IMG_1463.JPG IMG_1464.JPG

Once I have a full beaker of filtered liquid, I replace the filter as well as dump the fluid back into a liquor bottle.

IMG_1465.JPG

I then put the bottles of filtered wash back into the cooler for a shorter 6 hour winterization. I then filter the fluid one last time. Here is a picture of three filter papers. The first is a brand new one. The second one is the first winterization/first filtration and the third is after winterization/second filtration. In reality, wind up with a bunch spent filter paper. This picture is after each filter ahd 1000ml of fluid poured through.

IMG_1466.JPG
 
I mentioned somewhere above that when you are using dry ice, you don't want to use plastic liquor bottles. The Graves 190 proof that I am giving a try comes in a plastic bottle.

Even with glass, when you get down below -25c, the pressure inside the bottle reduces. When you open one of the glass bottles, you can actually hear the pressure release. With a plastic bottle, it sucks the sides in to the point where it will eventuall crack and leak out.

That would just suck. So be careful using plastic containers at deep freeze temperatures....
 
You know I'm in for sure . Im in the middle of processing some rso (my way, from dry ice extracted hash) part of it is going to miss the cold filter process as a cancer patient is ready to up to a gram a day and I was caught of guard . Pray for him at this point he is feeling like it has slowed things down but has without a doubt improved his quality of life . I wish I was ready to run it spd for him . Next run .
Now lets get this party started !!!
IMG_6609.JPG
IMG_6610.JPG
So I have a question.....what do I need to do to raise the humidity in my grow tent...i have done everything...i even have a small cool mist humidifier in the grow tent
 
So I have a question.....what do I need to do to raise the humidity in my grow tent...i have done everything...i even have a small cool mist humidifier in the grow tent

I would do a search using the search function and type in "tent humidity" and then research each result that comes up.

Also, if you have too much heat, such that the exhaust runs most of the time, its going to suck the humidity out no matter how much you pump in. So, its a balance between how much heat is generated by the lights, how warm it is in the room the tent is in, the humidity level of the room the tent is is, and how air tight your tents are, as well as the space the tents are in.
 
The "All Biomass Isn't Created Equal" Post!

I feel that this is a very important foundational principle of extraction, so I wanted to at least post on the topic.

For what I am doing, I need allot of crude oil to feed the hungry SPD rig that I will eventually use to refine the darker oil down to golden honey, much higher potency oil. That being the case, I get my raw materials, or biomass from several different friends, as well as what I grow and produce myself. Because I'm getting my biomass from different sources, I see how differently people treat their buds, but also their trim.

Bud is a fairly straight forward concept, so I won't talk much about that, other than to say, the better the bud, the better the resulting oil. When I say that, I'm not just talking about the potency of the THC. I'm also tralking about the terpines and the flavonoids. It is assumed that when we are using buds, those buds are the same quality as the ones that we would smoke joints with.

The same really does go for trim. But first, lets talk about trim. Since I have 5 different sources of biomass for this particular run, it was interesting to see, not only what people consider trim, but how they treated it.

1 of the five, who shall remain nameless, provided "trim" that had massive sized fan leaves, large sticks, as well as the sugar leaves. To me, that's grade C, the lowest. I actually pulled all of the fan leaves and sticks, which took fucking forever!

Another guy gave me the same stuff as the above sample, but he did it "Frozen Fresh". That is, he cut all the fan leaves and sugar leaves, doing a complete wet trim of the buds, and then threw the "trim" into the freezer. This is the worst possible scenario.

The remaining additions were mine, and two other peeps.

I'll bet everyone is waiting for me to say mine was the best. Totally not.

In my opinion, my 50%/50% bud/trim mix came in third place. One guy, whose was the best in my opinion, he treated his trim exactly like he did his buds. He got rid of all the sticks and fan leaves. Then he dried and cured the trim exactly the way he did his buds, right along side them. After I washed the ethanol over his trim, it was a deep golden color, and instead of having an overpowering ethanol smell, it smelled like the Girl Scout Cookie stank that the biomass smelled like. It is truly the perfectly handled biomass to work with. Because I can smell the original plant matter odor, I know I pulled terpenes, and allot of them.

Mine was a bit dry, so the color wasn't as golden post extraction. My terpines came through, but not nearly as potent as number 1 guy.

The woman who I feel got second did a good job of cleaning out her trim and drying and curing it. She just didn't treat it with the same respect as buds, like the first place guy. When we talked, she said "Its trim, who cares".

Anyway, long story short, "Garbage in, Garbage out". If you know you are going to use your trim for something fun, make sure to treat it with the same love and respect that you do your Buds. It will be so much more rewarding! I promise!
 
So I have a question.....what do I need to do to raise the humidity in my grow tent...i have done everything...i even have a small cool mist humidifier in the grow tent
wrong thread to post this in ..search and follow vpd as close a you can .
 
I finally have all of the trim/bud washed. I still have a few bottles that are coming up on the end of their winterization and will need their first filter, there are 2x 750ml bottles, so not much relatively speaking. The majority of the bottles have completed the second winterization, and I am filtering them one last time as I type.

This means I should be getting ready for the evaporation phase (aka evap). I had intended to be done today, but left Sunday as a buffer day. The new plan is to spend Sunday evaping the ethanol from all of the wash liquid.

While I can't say exactly how man oil runs I have done through the years, I did take notes along the way. I'm not going to exaggerate, but looking at rough notes, I'm some where near 108 and 115. I started using a crock pot in The garage. It worked, but letting all of that precious ethanol evaporate into the world? Well that's costly, and pollution! I eventually moved on, and spent money on the original Source table top distiller (not the Source Turbo). Anyway, that worked well when I was doing very small batches. Now, I am needing to evaporate off much more solvent than I did back then. The Source crucible, the container you put the wash fluid in, so that you can evaporate off the ethanol is only 250ml. One cycle to evaporate off the ethanol takes 2 hours. This didn't scale well, at all.

Then, @No Pain and I started talking via DM. I think that's the way it started. As he described how he ran his process, I was very impressed by the fact that his water distiller could do a gallon at a time. Not only that, but the time should be reduced. I picked one of these up. It is a Megahome water distiller.

IMG_1496.JPG

I've had it for a few weeks now. I've already used it to make distilled water. It works great. Between myself and my wife, we have about 10 gallons of water through it.

Making water leaves behind the bad stuff, which can coat the bottom of the distiller. If you are like me and are going to use your distiller for water and making oil, make sure you thoroughly clean it out between every use. I have been washing it after every water use. I'm going to scrub the hell out of it in preperation for the oil run. This will ensure no metals that backed onto the inside of the distiller are present. That stuff mixing in with our oil would be contamination.
At any rate, its fairly straight forward. The unit comes with cleaner. You simply put 4 liters of water in the distiller with 2 table spoons of the acid, leave it open, and run it. When the water starts to boil, let it do so for 15 minutes, and then dump the water, and then wash the inside of the distiller with water, allot, to make sure you get every last bit of the acid out.

IMG_1479.JPG
 
A quick note on pumps and chemicals. We will talk about it allot more later on when we get to the short path distillation process, because there are allot more chemicals, so its more important. For now, lets just talk about the little desktop electric pump that I am using.

As we know, the point of the vacuum pump is to pull the atmosphere out of the a container. As the pump sucks the air out of the beaker to reduce the pressure, so that the fluid in the funnel above will come down much quicker, we are pulling whatever vapor that is in the atmosphere inside the beaker. This means the pump is pulling ethanol vapor, and if you aren't paying attention, it can pull in liquid ethanol that condenses from the vapors.

I wish I could post a video. I just saw it happening in the tubing that goes from the funnel to the pump. Vapor that was pulling from inside the beaker was condensing in the pastic tube that goes to the pump.

Point is, make sure you have a pump that is decent enough, but not expensive. The vapors being pulled will eventually eat up.

Later on, we'll be talking about using a Cold Trap to ensure any vapor that makes it past the oil phase in the SPD rig will condense before it gets to the vacuum pump. In that case, the vacuum pump is much bigger, and more expensive, hence the protection of a Cold Trap. More on that later.
 
Awesome! You and NoPain have really got this sorted out. Hats off to you both.
Bookmarked your Trim post. Thanks.
Good tip on the good-but-not-too-good pump.
wrong thread to post this in ..search and follow vpd as close a you can .
Wrong thread, but good on you for asking, @Wells76 ! Welcome to 420mag. Keep reading ...
 
Filtration...

AC14B4CB-8F75-44E7-A3AF-C5B3A5752D96.jpeg
 
All of the biomass has now been washed and the resulting wash fluid has been winterized and filtered twice. I'm just bringing all of it to room temperature, and then I'll begin evaporating off the ethanol. While its doing that, I'll be cleaning up from all of the mess I made yesterday washing and filtering. Should be ready to start evaping at noon or so, ET.
 
Back
Top Bottom