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

The company is now touting it’s use for infusion. They supposedly have lab tests showing 80-90% transfer efficiency in a variety of oils. I’ve tried it a couple of times and am a bit underwhelmed. The process is so stupid simple, though, it’s alluring and I’m going to continue to do some testing. I’ve contacted the company for some possible pointers to a better product but have only received a slow, snarky, noninformative response. Customer service still falls a little short of what I’d like to see.
 
lazyfish said:
I spent the morning reading about terpenes. Found a neat article that I thought I might share.


@SweetSue @TorturedSoul What is your take on Cannabigerol?

Have a Great Day Everyone!
Click to expand...

I found it humorous to find Russo using the word “strains.” :laughtwo: It’s because of him that I’m so passionate about not using the word. :battingeyelashes: I have a hard time using the word myself, after all this time. Lol!

So, here we are, three years after this interview, and we’re not much closer to having terpene profiles become the norm on canna meds, are we? Let’s keep hoping.

Those of us who dabble in finding medicinal use of cannabis know it’s the terps we need to pay attention to. You can always dilute the cannabinoids concentrations to control euphoria levels, but the terpenes determine the experience you’re gonna have.
 
What's up update.

I keep playing kitchen chemist. Kicknitup and I keep "Searching for the Grail".

This is an email I sent a few days ago, less the personal stuff.

I never know
canyon

===================================

We are doing well for our age [;>).

I don’t pay as much attention to State news as I should. I do know that they finalized a rule that increased the maximum plant count that can be grown by the suppliers from 450 to 2500 plants.

And, I think that there will be a recreational bill introduced again this year. It probably will pass. I may be overly optimistic on that.

The way you are doing keif is close to what I am doing. I breakup the buds to about the size of rolling material. Then I dump it onto a 300um screen followed by a 150um screen, then add a few chunks of dry ice to each screen and shake it.

The last batch was from everything I could find around the house that was less than good buds, maybe two ounces of old buds and another 6 ounces of assorted trim. I alcohol extracted what went through the 300 and not the 150. It yielded about 20% of the starting weight. So, baking with it or saving up a quantity worth extracting would probably be what it is good for.

I have about 35 grams of the keif that went through both screens left. The next time I do an alcohol extract I will run at least some of it to see what it will yield.

I have reclaimed alcohol by modifying a cheap stainless pressure cooker and heating it in an oil bath. I was reclaiming about 80% but it takes a lot of time and is scary enough that I was never comfortable doing it.

There are small distillers on the market. The problem is they are for water, not alcohol. SweetSue found one that was for alcohol if I remember correctly.

I am refining an alcohol and dry ice method that is yielding better than 20% of non decarbed extract. So, THCA & CBDA plus a concentration of the terpenes and anything else. Though, it could be decarbed before or after extracting.

The idea is to keep everything well below the freezing point of water.

I start with ground and frozen buds in a beaker. I add dry ice, then I add enough frozen 190 proof to cover plus a little. It will boil rapidly for a while, then slow down as the alcohol cools to about -40F.

Stir for about 30 minutes. Add more dry ice as needed. Strain into a vacuum funnel, return the material and add more alcohol and dry ice. The material volume will be reduced and take less alcohol to cover. Then another 30 minutes with stirring. Strain, then I pour a little alcohol over the strained material to wash out more of the oil-bearing alcohol.

The first time I tried this method, I kept the two rounds of solvent separate for drying. The second batch was about 10 to 20% of the first and had very little color difference. This tells me that the second run is worthwhile but combining them for drying is fine.

I filtered the extract twice, then poured it into a Pyrex baking dish with one end elevated. Then I set a small fan to blow across it. I let it mostly dry (A day or two) then rinse and wipe down the sides and bottom of the dish with alcohol and pour off the extract into a small beaker until the dish is clean..ish. The extract can be air dried or heated to speed things up. I leave it in a 40 or 50ml beaker to dry and use. The only problem I have had is some pockets of water can form under the oil when it is in the dish. Tilting the dish and a little picking at the water will speed up drying.

The product dries to a very heavy oil at room temperature. It will stay on a dab tool and it takes about an hour for the tracks from scraping up dabs to relevel.

The batch that I did was a little less than 500ml of ground buds and can barley be done with one bottle of Everclear.

I seldom do the cherry read titanium hits any more. I tend to melt a dab on top of ground bud in a pipe or bong.

The high is noticeably different than say shatter. It is not as intense or hard hitting at first. The high comes on rather slowly for an extract. It builds up to a very intense, clear headed, rather long lasting high.

That is as far as I have taken the experiment. If you try it, let me know how it turns out.
 
Canyon said:
What's up update.

I keep playing kitchen chemist. Kicknitup and I keep "Searching for the Grail".

This is an email I sent a few days ago, less the personal stuff.

I never know
canyon

===================================

We are doing well for our age [;>).

I don’t pay as much attention to State news as I should. I do know that they finalized a rule that increased the maximum plant count that can be grown by the suppliers from 450 to 2500 plants.

And, I think that there will be a recreational bill introduced again this year. It probably will pass. I may be overly optimistic on that.

The way you are doing keif is close to what I am doing. I breakup the buds to about the size of rolling material. Then I dump it onto a 300um screen followed by a 150um screen, then add a few chunks of dry ice to each screen and shake it.

The last batch was from everything I could find around the house that was less than good buds, maybe two ounces of old buds and another 6 ounces of assorted trim. I alcohol extracted what went through the 300 and not the 150. It yielded about 20% of the starting weight. So, baking with it or saving up a quantity worth extracting would probably be what it is good for.

I have about 35 grams of the keif that went through both screens left. The next time I do an alcohol extract I will run at least some of it to see what it will yield.

I have reclaimed alcohol by modifying a cheap stainless pressure cooker and heating it in an oil bath. I was reclaiming about 80% but it takes a lot of time and is scary enough that I was never comfortable doing it.

There are small distillers on the market. The problem is they are for water, not alcohol. SweetSue found one that was for alcohol if I remember correctly.

I am refining an alcohol and dry ice method that is yielding better than 20% of non decarbed extract. So, THCA & CBDA plus a concentration of the terpenes and anything else. Though, it could be decarbed before or after extracting.

The idea is to keep everything well below the freezing point of water.

I start with ground and frozen buds in a beaker. I add dry ice, then I add enough frozen 190 proof to cover plus a little. It will boil rapidly for a while, then slow down as the alcohol cools to about -40F.

Stir for about 30 minutes. Add more dry ice as needed. Strain into a vacuum funnel, return the material and add more alcohol and dry ice. The material volume will be reduced and take less alcohol to cover. Then another 30 minutes with stirring. Strain, then I pour a little alcohol over the strained material to wash out more of the oil-bearing alcohol.

The first time I tried this method, I kept the two rounds of solvent separate for drying. The second batch was about 10 to 20% of the first and had very little color difference. This tells me that the second run is worthwhile but combining them for drying is fine.

I filtered the extract twice, then poured it into a Pyrex baking dish with one end elevated. Then I set a small fan to blow across it. I let it mostly dry (A day or two) then rinse and wipe down the sides and bottom of the dish with alcohol and pour off the extract into a small beaker until the dish is clean..ish. The extract can be air dried or heated to speed things up. I leave it in a 40 or 50ml beaker to dry and use. The only problem I have had is some pockets of water can form under the oil when it is in the dish. Tilting the dish and a little picking at the water will speed up drying.

The product dries to a very heavy oil at room temperature. It will stay on a dab tool and it takes about an hour for the tracks from scraping up dabs to relevel.

The batch that I did was a little less than 500ml of ground buds and can barley be done with one bottle of Everclear.

I seldom do the cherry read titanium hits any more. I tend to melt a dab on top of ground bud in a pipe or bong.

The high is noticeably different than say shatter. It is not as intense or hard hitting at first. The high comes on rather slowly for an extract. It builds up to a very intense, clear headed, rather long lasting high.

That is as far as I have taken the experiment. If you try it, let me know how it turns out.
Click to expand...

Hey buddy,
Im getting close to working more on this. It's the reclaim thats slowing me down. Like Canyon, Im not crazy about the pressure cooker thing but a proper heat source will go a long way to ease anxiety. I will probably end up with a source turbo by extract craft. Raather not invest that much so Im looking to pick up one deeply discounted. There has to be smeone who bought one & thinks its too much trouble. lol. Anyway, I think that thing may do a good job. ! Never seen one in person & not yet recommending! Canyon, Ill be updating you shortly on some stuff.
 
Hi Kickn,

I was hoping you would log in.

I was looking into those maybe three years ago. If I am remembering correctly, they are rather low volume. The price stopped me from considering buying one.

I did another kief run and have some numbers.

This time I used two small plants that I harvested early because of a mite problem. I just let them dry as whole plants and crushed what was not branches. Then I added a Solo cup of old trim. Everything weighed 190 grams or about one third pound.

Skipping the details, what shook out of both the 300um and the 150um screens was 40.5g or 21.3% of the gross weight.

The 300um material weighed 24g and yielded 5.5g when the oils were extracted. That would make the course material 22.9% cannabinoids. 5.5g is 2.9% of the starting material weight.

The 150um material amounted to16.5g. I have not extracted it yet. I have had a lot going on and just not gotten to it. I did look through a 60x handheld microscope and it did not appear to have much fiber in it.

I will extract the 150um kief and post it hopefully sometime next week. I am in the process of refinishing some oak flooring and I need to wait until I get the dust cleaned up.

I never know
 
Canyon said:
Hi Kickn,

I was hoping you would log in.

I was looking into those maybe three years ago. If I am remembering correctly, they are rather low volume. The price stopped me from considering buying one.

I did another kief run and have some numbers.

This time I used two small plants that I harvested early because of a mite problem. I just let them dry as whole plants and crushed what was not branches. Then I added a Solo cup of old trim. Everything weighed 190 grams or about one third pound.

Skipping the details, what shook out of both the 300um and the 150um screens was 40.5g or 21.3% of the gross weight.

The 300um material weighed 24g and yielded 5.5g when the oils were extracted. That would make the course material 22.9% cannabinoids. 5.5g is 2.9% of the starting material weight.

The 150um material amounted to16.5g. I have not extracted it yet. I have had a lot going on and just not gotten to it. I did look through a 60x handheld microscope and it did not appear to have much fiber in it.

I will extract the 150um kief and post it hopefully sometime next week. I am in the process of refinishing some oak flooring and I need to wait until I get the dust cleaned up.

I never know
Click to expand...
Hi There,
Im not getting email notices anymore when there's an entry. hmmm. Anyhow, thanks Canyon. Interesting numbers. I want to think about this & your last post & talk it out. Im trying to figure an easy way to put a small amount of ethanol extracted CCO under vacuum to help remove the solvent...or any other CCO that may not be clean for that matter. Ideas? And Canyon, sounds like you have incorporated a buchner funnel along the way. Love it. Already broken 2. lol.

Also, tcheck is sending me another meter. Hopefully they have the thing figured out. I will definitely report back.
 
I posted the results of the lab analysis of my Candida oil over in my thread, with a nod to @Oldbear and his amazing spreadsheet! I'll save some space and just link it here.
 
InTheShed said:
I posted the results of the lab analysis of my Candida oil over in my thread, with a nod to @Oldbear and his amazing spreadsheet! I'll save some space and just link it here.
Click to expand...
And I should mention (since this is a decarb thread) that the test results show no THCa and no CBDa. Complete decarb in the oven at 240º for 90 minutes in my homemade foil pouch. At least I set the oven for 240º...I've never tested it.
 
:nomo:
 
It has been hectic here for a while. The alcohol extraction of the keif will have to be postponed. The day that I planned to do it, I found out that I needed to fast track the prep work of putting my house on the market. It is a good thing. If it works out, we will be sharing 6.7 acres with our oldest daughter and her wolf hounds. There are two homes, a single wide and some run-down horse corrals.

I never know
canyon
 
6.7 acres sounds like enough space if you have to live near one of your kids!
 
Canyon said:
It has been hectic here for a while. The alcohol extraction of the keif will have to be postponed. The day that I planned to do it, I found out that I needed to fast track the prep work of putting my house on the market. It is a good thing. If it works out, we will be sharing 6.7 acres with our oldest daughter and her wolf hounds. There are two homes, a single wide and some run-down horse corrals.

I never know
canyon
Click to expand...

I love the way you say that. :laughtwo: Be well my friend. :hug:

All this traveling, surely I'll get nearby at some point. If you get the chance, pm me when you get settled.
 
Canyon said:
It has been hectic here for a while. The alcohol extraction of the keif will have to be postponed. The day that I planned to do it, I found out that I needed to fast track the prep work of putting my house on the market. It is a good thing. If it works out, we will be sharing 6.7 acres with our oldest daughter and her wolf hounds. There are two homes, a single wide and some run-down horse corrals.

I never know
canyon
Click to expand...
Are ya movin? I love your place. She had better be setting you up good!
 

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