39% extraction yield RSO

[Lab Rat]

Please bear with the "exciting" commentary; English is my 2nd language and besides my terrible motor skills my tumor has given me a slight speech impediment and I tend to slur some words.

This is a hot extraction so you will get plant waxes and chlorophyll.

Since posting links is frowned upon in this forum, Google "polishing extracts" if you wish to find out more information about winterizing.

Note: For an update on this extraction process - Improved yield RSO

 

[Lab Rat]

The room I was in had a ceiling fan which was going full blast, also there is nothing around me that produces any sparks so evaporate with care cause after all these are alcohol fumes.

Cuttings provide less oil and some strains have worse yields even if using bud. Winterizing will also reduce your yield. My absolute worst has been 21% from cuttings only, a strain with low yield and having winterized but still a lot better than the 12-14% most people get with cold washes.

 

[Gfcollective]

ive never heard of winterizing RSO.. were you talking about winterizing rso or bho?

ive done the bho process, even went as far as what i like to call

"cleaning up the streets"

if you are talking about winterizing rso i will need to watch these videos tomorrow afternoon.

Great to see another extractor!

I&i

 

[Lab Rat]

No no, I meant RSO although there is no winterizing in the videos. Its a step I didn't do this time which explains the extremely high yields.

Winterizing is quite common for most oils to remove impurities. For example olive oil from the first press is green and milky yet the one you buy in the store is yellow and clear. The oil is winterized to a certain temperature then filtered, then the oil is exposed to UV light to further remove the chlorophyll.

This steps a bit more into organic chemistry but just google "Polishing extracts" and you will see one of the mentioned steps is winterizing.

 

[Gfcollective]

i googled polishing extracts and only seen them talking about bho. the second link is actually the one that i first heard about winterizing bho. im a true believer in winterization, if i smoke bho its the only type i will smoke is the winterized version (i seem to be the only one in washington that makes winterized)

ive moved onto Solventless oil though, it still holds the terpes from the flowers unlike when hit with a solvent like butane or everclear.

thats what im currently trying to figure out how to make.

Its the best tasting smoothest dab ive ever taken, and everyone ive showed it too agrees. its just the most expensive oil ive ever seen @ 70/gram which is why i will be making my own ha

ok i see on the first link they do mention hexane alcohol. will read this page tomorrow, as this is the end of my day about to go to the garden

I&i

 

[CajunCelt]

It's not a true winterization as honey oil guys know.
He's just freezing the flowers & stuff in the freezer. I do this as well.

 

[Lab Rat]

No I don't freeze the flowers and stuff in the freezer, why would you and then a 30 minute hot extraction? That's for the cold wash method.

Yes, they talk about diluting your BHO in ethanol and then winterizing. I use ethanol as my solvent to make RSO so I just go ahead and do that step to further filter out the stuff and just keep the medicine. I didn't do it this time because the customer specified not to do it. Bang for the buck, the guy has cancer and could care less if it tastes funny or its dark green.

 

[Gfcollective]

im not well educated into alcohol or solvents other then the popular ones, is ethanol everclear?

i know rso recommends naptha and that is crazy insane. i use everclear/shine if accessible

organic grape alcohol if i ever win the lottery

i do want to make a batch with it to see how much cleaner and pure it is though

I&i

 

[Gfcollective]

No I don't freeze the flowers and stuff in the freezer, why would you and then a 30 minute hot extraction? That's for the cold wash method.

Yes, they talk about diluting your BHO in ethanol and then winterizing. I use ethanol as my solvent to make RSO so I just go ahead and do that step to further filter out the stuff and just keep the medicine. I didn't do it this time because the customer specified not to do it. Bang for the buck, the guy has cancer and could care less if it tastes funny or its dark green.

I&i

 

[fghtsmallcell]

Hi Labrat,
The first video says private and will not let me watch it. The other worked just fine.

 

[CajunCelt]

I should've been more clear. I believe you freeze the unfiltered wash in the freezer for 2 to 4 days prior to filtering?
There's no sub zero vacuum equipment involved was my point. You're not using lab grade alchemy equipment. Some BHO guys do. My apologies.

Have you had your oil tested for cannabinoid content? Just curious.

 

[Lab Rat]

I've corrected the problem and all videos should be watchable now.

The oil is a reflection of the starting material so crappy weed will give you crappy oil but I can't have it analyzed as it quite illegal here. I suppose with this method you would get more than with a cold wash. You could analyze your product before your cold wash and then after to see how much is left. I could be extracting more medicine or extracting more plant waxes and chlorophyll and have the same amount of medicine. Prove me wrong.

I actually filter it twice, once at room temperature through coffee filters like most of you do and and then after being in the freezer for 48 hours. Alcohol/oil that is relatively clean (since it was already filtered) develops solids after winterizing which get stuck in the filters.

You can further get rid of the green by leaving it in the sun for a few hours. The UV will react with the chlorophyll and get rid of the color a bit.

Ethanol is basically Everclear, organic grape alcohol is ethanol. The main thing is purity; I use 95% or 99.9% if I can find it.

 

[SmokesDaKush]

Hi Lab Rat, I have been doing some experiments on extractions here and there as I make my oil. While I have yet to do a hot extraction such as yours, some recent tests and one that's actually decarbing now seems to be potentially helpful in your process.

Before making the oil, several days ahead of time I would put the bud in a mason jar and fill it with warm water. I would let this sit and gently flip the jar upside down from time to time. About twice a day I exchanged the water with fresh being gentle enough to not break and discard the trichomes of course. On the second day my water remained clear so one final rinse and off to the oven on the lowest setting which was warm. I recall reading that you tailor your CBD's by decarb, so I assume you could do this now as well. Once dry, proceed as you normally would.

Now I still do a cold extract and the purpose of this experiment for me was to see if I could boost yield by leaving this in the freezer for several days suspended in ethanol without pulling excessive chlorophyll, waxes and etcetera. Not to mention the obvious of getting those water solubles out. It's then cheesecloth filtered, squeezed and then finally filtered through a coffee filter. I reclaim my everclear so once done, it's off to decarb.

This specific one today was soaked and dried but was made doing a quick wash of about 20 minutes with me vigorously shaking the jar with the lid on every few minutes with a total of two washes, about 550ml. Also today was just an ounce as I am trying a new blend with this one.



Results in a nutshell! Yield is minimally greater .2 to .6! I typically run 30 grams per run and average 4.6 grams final product. So for you I could only assume you would lose that much with a hot extraction.

Hopefully something in there is helpful and thank you for your continued contribution Lab Rat!

 

[Lab Rat]

I'm not sure how soaking in water or ethanol would help. If your water is milky and then clear then you are definitely cleaning it in some way but cleaning it of what? Its not clear unless you have your product analyzed before and after and compare. My product is provided by a friend so its cared for and properly taken care of, its also as clean as it gets. Washing might be a good idea if you are concerned with pesticides but I don't see how this would affect yield; more like potency.

I'm not a big fan of "low" or "a little while" or anything that doesn't have a thermostat or is not precise. Most people add 8 drops of water to their alcohol but can't explain scientifically why its done. It is said it promotes evaporation and when evaporating using low heat it makes sense because it makes the oil more runny but in a rice cooker that easily outputs more than 212*F its going to evaporate anyways. There's too much "Rick Simpson says" or "I've always done it that way". I'm not saying its wrong, even a low yield will work but you could do better if you just challenged the status quo.

I processed an ounce today for a friend, I didn't film it but I basically followed the same steps as in the video. I told my friend that the minimum expected yield was 30% or around 8.4 grams but that sometimes depending on the strain you could get more. We got 12.5 grams of oil from that ounce; so around 45%.

When we were done evaporating I added more alcohol, swished around for like 30 minutes, ran it through a coffee filter and re-evaporated. That gave me about 3 grams more. Even without this last step I got 9 grams. However we did not winterize which I recommended but my friend didn't want to wait 48 hours.

A cold wash is outputting 4-5 grams and I'm getting 9 grams without trying too hard and 12.5 grams re-evaporating. Losing 0.6 grams but gaining 7.9 grams; I'll take the loss.

I'd rather get as much as I can and then figure out how to get rid of the chlorophyll and plant waxes through winterizing, modifying the PH of the extraction solvent to reduce chlorophyll pickup an exposing my alcohol/oil to UV but then again this is the stuff I read in my spare time:

 

[CajunCelt]

9 grams from 1oz is outstanding. As you know, I produce oil to treat cancer. I'm following what you're doing & your method. As you also might know, I've tested my oil several times.
I believe I may give this hot extraction a try. I'm definitely interested, I just don't know the pros/con's between the hot vs cold methods...yet.

Thank you for the information & effort you've put into this.

 

[Lab Rat]

Thanks, I cannot say its the best way but from a chemical standpoint its the most thorough. It was actually more like 12.5 grams or around 45% yield from 1 ounce but I didn't winterize.

It would be great if you do a before and after analysis on a cold wash sample to see how much is left behind. I could be getting the same amount of medicine and just more waxes and chlorophyll to make up the extra weight. But since I have limited access to cannabis and no way to have the oil or product analyzed; better be safe than sorry.

I know several clients that I have with terminal cancer would rather have lots of dirty oil than a bit of purified extra clean honey colored oil. To my knowledge chlorophyll and plant waxes do not diminish the effectiveness of the medicine.

 

[CajunCelt]

We'll have to disagree on that. I acquired my cancer from that very sentiment & then almost died from it.

The cleaner, the better if you're fighting cancer. Are your customers educated in reference to the oil? Especially, making statements that dirty but more is better. Wow. Would you put 5 quarts of black tar oil in your car as opposed to 3 quarts of brand new?

I'm not as concerned with yield as you seem to be. I'm more concerned with the cannabinoid content of your final product.
It may be outstanding!

I will see for myself within 6 weeks, have a lab test it, compare it to a cold wash & post pics of the lab results.

 

[Lab Rat]

I could be getting the same amount of medicine and just more waxes and chlorophyll to make up the extra weight. But since I have limited access to cannabis and no way to have the oil or product analyzed; better be safe than sorry.

I know several clients that I have with terminal cancer would rather have lots of dirty oil than a bit of purified extra clean honey colored oil. To my knowledge chlorophyll and plant waxes do not diminish the effectiveness of the medicine.

Oh I cannot say accurately that I'm right and everyone else is wrong; in fact I want to see your results but one thing is what I think and another what people ask of me.

Black tar is oil that has lots of carbon deposits and carbon is bad for engines however I haven't seen any papers saying chlorophyll and plant waxes are bad for the human body. The correct way might be what I'm doing mixed with what you are doing.

The son of the guy with cancer is a doctor and he's very hard to convince so he prefers dirty oil, even though I've suggested cleaning it up. Have you ever tried to convince someone who already thinks they know it all?

A good friend of mine is a dentist, just enough knowledge to be supportive but not a smart-ass.

 

[Lab Rat]

The videos do show a step that I didn't use to do which is filtering a 3rd time after the 1st evaporation is complete. I add more alcohol, swish it around for 30 minutes and refilter so all those solids get stuck in the coffee filter and then I re-evaporate the clean results.

It's still less than winterizing but the needle I use for pickup is a horse needle with the tip cut off (my cousin is a vet) which still clogs pretty easily and therefore there are no big solids in the oil inside the syringe.

 

[SmokesDaKush]

Hey Lab Rat!

I originally thought of it because of the bud washing techniques that I read here. I also had this recurring thought in my head from something I read a long time ago. Something to the extent of chlorophyll a and b being partially soluble in water and more so when messed with, salt seems to jump out at me. I grow organically, don't use pesticides and very rarely foliar and even if, thats in veg. I simply tried it because I was all about purity but just didn't want to do the bud washing. Not to mention that I seem to be repeating this every 5 days give or take and I have never been one for repetition, I find it boring. We got to keep the sanity wherever we can right.

I'm not a scientist and I don't take it as serious as some of you I guess. Warm works just fine for me to dry them but obviously I monitor it precisely when finishing. As far as the water drops go, I assumed it was a safety net for users to not over cook there product as well to insure maximum solvent dispersion. IE: Once the water is gone you can be certain the solvent is as well! Again not a scientist, just an assumption.

Those are definitely great yields no doubt. Do you still just work up to the gram daily or does it require more?

I'm definitely not trying hard with my cold wash. In fact part of the reason I was doing this was because it is rather cold in my place so you can imagine working in the freezer isn't any fun. This simply allowed me to wear some gloves and vigorously shake the jar every so often placing it back in the freezer. Super easy!

I also forgot, a very long time ago I did make some similiar to this. In a mason jar over a candle warmer for some time before finally filtering and cooking down. Very Dark and I couldn't get past the taste.

Anyhow I don't plan on soaking the buds anymore but I do plan on throwing the bud in the oven once warmed then off still before freezing. There is a gain doing this alone so as you stated and as I now suspect it comes from this. I was also trying to force myself into some conversation too.

Either way, look forward to the contributions.

This was the final pic from last night just for reference. I tried to pull some up to see the color.