I never want to keep anyone from being a canna geek...weigh away! I was just talking about the end product, and that BD bud is spectacular
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steffgrowsweed
Well-Known Member
Good Morning 
I am finally able to try this oil with my fresh harvest
and I am soooooo excited.
Currently 40 minutes in and waiting for slow decarboxylation. Will report back how it goes, need someone to share my excitement with, you know what I mean
I am finally able to try this oil with my fresh harvest
and I am soooooo excited.Currently 40 minutes in and waiting for slow decarboxylation. Will report back how it goes, need someone to share my excitement with, you know what I mean
I think I'll be trying low and slow next.Awww... thanks steff.I love what we do.
Low and slo buds create infused oils very close to fresh harvest. I stopped making it on the day of harvest when we refined the cold drying technique, unless it’s for a cancer patient. Cancer treatments using cannabis go best with FHO, in the opinion of a respected member who used it in his own cancer regimen.
Other than serious conditions that I think would benefit from FHO I make my oils with low and slo dried buds in my Instant Pot. Most of what I infuse is at a ratio of 1 gram of bud to 1 oz of carrier oil. If I want stronger I strain and run a second cycle with fresh bud. Three cycles is all any of us is comfortable with before we feel saturation may come into play.
Which post has the best description of the best current procedure?
By the time I read read through some of the long threads, I've forgotten what I read at the start.
Thanks.
steffgrowsweed
Well-Known Member
I have some low and slow drying buds atm as well. I take 3 5 gallon buckets and put cold water in 2 and in the 3rd I put baking soda & lemon & water mix. I use 1/4 cup of lemon and 1/4 cup of baking soda. I let the buds then hang dry for 4-8 hours with a slight breeze. After that I trim the buds (big fan leaves only for me) - if possible - to the same size and weigh 28 gr buds in one paper bag or same material. I give them a little wiggle daily but take them out of the paper bag after 7 days, let them get to room temperature and put them in a glas jar with a hygrometer. After 12 hours I check, if it reads above 74% humidity, they go back in the fridge. Next day I check again, same procedure.
I hope this helps a little, it's the way I do it or what I understood for myself from the long thread. It's best though to ask all questions over there I guess. Happy day
Edit: I forgot to add the link to the thread I am following: DrZiggy's Low And Slow Drying: Maximizing Your Harvest
OldMedUser
Formerly Known as LabRat
A question for you fresh harvest infused oil fans out there.
I'm just cooking up a batch of CBD cocobudder tonight, fresh infused of course, with buds only 2 hours old when they went into the pot. I put the buds in the oil then heat it up and let them stew for a while to soften them up like steamed broccoli then grind them up with the hand blender. They are in a little crock pot plugged into a variac so I can get it hotter than it's designed for and hot enough to decarb in the oil as it's almost finished doing now at 245F. Works good in a pot on a hot plate too with some wire screen between the element and pot bottom. I put the hot plate on max tehn use the variac to control it for more precise temps.
Anyway my question is when is the best time to add the sunflower lecithin? I've been cooling down to below 212F then adding and allowing to cook for an hour or more before straining then freezing twice. Seems to work great on batches I've done before. Can it go in hotter?
I'm just cooking up a batch of CBD cocobudder tonight, fresh infused of course, with buds only 2 hours old when they went into the pot. I put the buds in the oil then heat it up and let them stew for a while to soften them up like steamed broccoli then grind them up with the hand blender. They are in a little crock pot plugged into a variac so I can get it hotter than it's designed for and hot enough to decarb in the oil as it's almost finished doing now at 245F. Works good in a pot on a hot plate too with some wire screen between the element and pot bottom. I put the hot plate on max tehn use the variac to control it for more precise temps.
Anyway my question is when is the best time to add the sunflower lecithin? I've been cooling down to below 212F then adding and allowing to cook for an hour or more before straining then freezing twice. Seems to work great on batches I've done before. Can it go in hotter?
Liquid sunflower lecithin should be added at the end (but while it's still warm enough to mix well) and left overnight to do its thing. Per this research by @Cannasavvy.
OldMedUser
Formerly Known as LabRat
Great. That's pretty much what I've been doing so should be good. decarb is done so letting it cool below 212F then will add the lecithin.
Hi everyone,
New to 420 but have been smoking/vaping cannabis for nearly 40 years so not new to the weed.
I'm methodically going through this whole thread, posts by post, in order to better utilize my weed in a medicinal way. Started off by looking at cannabutter and making some edibles but this FHO seems much better as the terpenes are retained and not lost during the drying process.
I've more to read in this thread, currently on page 17, and have seen many mentions by SweetSue regarding Shiggity's pressure cooker decarb, for example post #329:
Post #329 Link
but each time there's a link to Shiggity's method and I click it I'm taken back to the first post in this thread.
Can someone please give me a link to Shiggity's pressure cooker method that works.
I've got a whole stack of other questions but I'll leave them till I get much further in this thread as a lot of them may be answered during my read.
Thanks all, and keep up the good work.
Chuff
New to 420 but have been smoking/vaping cannabis for nearly 40 years so not new to the weed.
I'm methodically going through this whole thread, posts by post, in order to better utilize my weed in a medicinal way. Started off by looking at cannabutter and making some edibles but this FHO seems much better as the terpenes are retained and not lost during the drying process.
I've more to read in this thread, currently on page 17, and have seen many mentions by SweetSue regarding Shiggity's pressure cooker decarb, for example post #329:
Post #329 Link
but each time there's a link to Shiggity's method and I click it I'm taken back to the first post in this thread.
Can someone please give me a link to Shiggity's pressure cooker method that works.
I've got a whole stack of other questions but I'll leave them till I get much further in this thread as a lot of them may be answered during my read.
Thanks all, and keep up the good work.
Chuff
I did a Google search for it but the couldn't find it either, but i know that Sue ended up using an instant pot once they came out. You can read her thread on that here:Hi everyone,
New to 420 but have been smoking/vaping cannabis for nearly 40 years so not new to the weed.
I'm methodically going through this whole thread, posts by post, in order to better utilize my weed in a medicinal way. Started off by looking at cannabutter and making some edibles but this FHO seems much better as the terpenes are retained and not lost during the drying process.
I've more to read in this thread, currently on page 17, and have seen many mentions by SweetSue regarding Shiggity's pressure cooker decarb, for example post #329:
Post #329 Link
but each time there's a link to Shiggity's method and I click it I'm taken back to the first post in this thread.
Can someone please give me a link to Shiggity's pressure cooker method that works.
I've got a whole stack of other questions but I'll leave them till I get much further in this thread as a lot of them may be answered during my read.
Thanks all, and keep up the good work.
Chuff
Instant Pot Cannabis Oil: A SweetSue Picture Tutorial
Making a basic infused cannabis oil using an Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Equipment: * grinder * Instant Pot pressure cooker * small stainless bowl for pot-in-pot cooking * foil cover for the bowl * stirring tool * Pyrex measuring cups * stainless canning funnel * piece of silk for straining *...
www.420magazine.com
Thank you very, very much InTheShed.
I'm now up to page 21 of this thread, pretty much half way through. Is it worth my while continuing this thread or would I be better off reading the thread you gave me? I'm not sure how much more new information is available if I continue here.
Again, thanks for the link. Much appreciate.
Chuff
I'm now up to page 21 of this thread, pretty much half way through. Is it worth my while continuing this thread or would I be better off reading the thread you gave me? I'm not sure how much more new information is available if I continue here.
Again, thanks for the link. Much appreciate.
Chuff
To be honest, I can't remember what else is in this thread, so I would read the other thread first since most of the info is in the first post. If it doesn't answer your question you can alway come back here!
OK. So I've read enough of the thread in the link so kindly provided by InTheShed to switch to it from here. I'm signing off from this thread and moving to the other one.
Seems much simpler so far. Only issue I have is in the other thread SweetSue uses dry bud as opposed to wet. Not sure how this will impact terpenes but I've only started the other thread so we'll see how it goes.
Thanks again InTheShed for your link and everyone here for the great posts.
Very much appreciated.
Chuff
EDIT: So it's only 4 hours dried after washing. Ignore above statement regarding dried bud and losing terpines.
Seems much simpler so far. Only issue I have is in the other thread SweetSue uses dry bud as opposed to wet. Not sure how this will impact terpenes but I've only started the other thread so we'll see how it goes.
Thanks again InTheShed for your link and everyone here for the great posts.
Very much appreciated.
Chuff
EDIT: So it's only 4 hours dried after washing. Ignore above statement regarding dried bud and losing terpines.
What about coconut oil is that better to use the. Olive oil? And whether it is or isn't what type of olive or coconut oil is best to useFresh Harvest Oil
There's a lot of excitement starting on the site about creating a fresh-harvest infused olive oil, a method so carefully developed by PsyCro and written up in his thread Olive oil extract update. I've adapted it a bit for my own purposes, but I recommend you read through his instructions. I've cleaned them up a bit in a blog PsyCro's Olive Oil Extraction Method. He's since updated to include using a pressure cooker. I'll share that in the next post, but let's start with the stovetop version. On to the fun.
The plant was cut, washed, and hung to drip dry for about four hours. I stop about an hour after they've been hanging and give the branches a shake to get the water from the wash released. I'll be weighing it for bud-to-oil ratios, and I don't want that additional water mucking up my potency calculations.
Buds were all clipped into the stock pot. This is a 3-quart stainless and for this run I used 350 grams of buds and 437 ml of olive oil. PsyCro's recipe is for 400 grams of bud for every 500 ml of olive oil.
Correction: PsyCro's original measurements were for 400 grams of wet buds to 1 liter of olive oil. I didn't realize I'd inadvertently cut the olive oil volume in half when I began making my own potent oil.
This potency has been extremely therapeutic, so I won't be changing my personal recipe of 400 grams of wet buds to 500 ml of olive oil. You control the potency of the oil by the volume of materials, and this ratio has proven to be a winner in my home and with my patients. I leave it up to you to determine your own strength. PsyCro has suggested it could be made as potent as triple-strength, 400 grams of wet buds to 0.3 ltr of olive oil. That would need to be carefully dosed, and probably wouldn't be something you'd want to use with a novice.
What was left was placed into small jars with open tops and dropped into the refrigerator for a two-week dry under low temp and humidity. Another experiment I'm playing with. It's a technique I learned from Dr Ziggy. It may be a way to retain more of the terpene profile during the drying stage.
Add the olive oil.
Get out the immersion blender and blend away. This take a good while so be kind to the blender. I found short bursts of power a better fit. That's a lot of plant material you're breaking down. Take your time and turn it to mush.
I've since learned that this part of the process can be made easier by adding a cup of water. It gives you more liquid to incorporate the bud into, and you'll be boiling the water off anyway.
I keep going until I can't identify any piece of what I'm looking at, other than "green" and "plant material."
The stainless pot sits in a Dutch oven that gets filled with oil to create a double boiler. A water bath won't get temperatures in the pot high enough to decarb. I use Canola oil. Avoid cheap vegetable oils.
The rings in the bottom keep the stainless pot away from direct heat. Four of them lend stability to the arrangement. We're playing with hot oil here, it pays to be extra cautious.
Turn the fire on low and let the oil get up to temperature. This isn't a process you're going to rush. Block out the next three hours, or more. I've dedicated entire days to harvest through finished oil. The potency is worth the effort, I assure you. I've learned that if you keep the fire low the oil will heat without spiking and you don't have to be so anal about temperatures. As you'll see, when the temperature gets to 212 F decarb kicks in and there's no denying it's working.
This thermometer was a gift from a member. It's become invaluable to me. I recommend you search one out if you intend to be making cannabis oils
You'll be stirring every five minutes or so for the next three hours. After about 10-20 minutes you'll begin to see movement.
When you hit a consistent temperature of 212 degrees F (100 degrees C) set the timer for two hours. According to PsyCro's directions you're looking for a baseline of 221 degrees F (105 degrees C) for two hours. I personally try to keep mine at between 220 -230 degrees for at least 45 minutes of that two hours.
I no no longer time the process. I'm watching the decarb bubbles, as documented below. Once the bubbles stop your decarb is finished.
Initially what you're doing is boiling off the water. Keeping the temps in this range protects the cannabinoids. When enough of the water boils off and the temperature kicks in active decarboxylation it can get dramatic. The depth of this pot was by design. You don't want hot oil and this watery mix to meet. Trust me, I speak from experience.
When it got to this stage, just before that dramatic moment I spoke of earlier, I added a tablespoon of liquid sunflower lecithin. This was at 4:40 PM.
4:41 PM
4:42 PM
4:43 PM
5:19 PM Still actively decarbing, but you can see the activity has dropped off.
5:21 PM, and you're beginning to see oil through the bubbles.
5:38 PM
5:41 PM Close to done now.
5:45 PM You could stop at this point and still have some acid cannabinoids present.
5:47 PM was my stopping point. Just two minutes later and decarb was almost entirely complete.
Strain it out, pressing and squeezing all you can manually.
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.
Strain the water into a bowl or another pot and start the process again.
At some point I begin skimming the oil off the top of the water. I found it most efficient to skim into a measuring cup, and then skim once again into a custard cup.
Working like this I reclaimed 1/3 cup of oil from my last batch. There's still water in with it that can be boiled off if you choose. I'm using mine for medicated bath salts, so it wasn't necessary to do so. I have done this and got almost all of the oil I started with back, much like PsyCro's claims. That would've been a tragic loss to have simply tossed the leftover plant material after manually squeezing out what I could. I have made that mistake in the past.
Once the oil is strained, add another tablespoon of liquid sunflower lecithin, stir until it's incorporated and refrigerate for 24 hours to allow the lecithin to disperse and encapsulate the components. Gently bring it back to room temp, stir well and fill capsules or use in edibles. Stir periodically while you fill capsules to assure everything's mixed well. Like the biobombs, the lecithin can separate overnight the first time, though not to the extent it will with CCO.
So why do this labor-intensive method? Well, if you have mites like I did it allows you to save the harvest from the compost pile. Beyond that motivation, there's a strong argument to be made that more of the terpenes and flavonoids are locked into the olive oil, thus potentiating the cannabinoids with a stronger entourage effect. I've made many types of oils, including CCO, and in my personal opinion, this oil rivals anything I've tested.
Don't discount the value of processing on the day you harvest. There's nothing left except the roots, the stalk, the branches and the cooked down plant material. No plant hangs in my small apartment today, as is the norm when I dry before making oil. That was more of a relief than I anticipated.
Another tool in the oil-maker's belt. This is potent oil, loaded with medicinal value from the cannabis, the olive oil and the lecithin emulsifying it all together. You control the decarb, opening interesting possibilities. It's going to be more potent than you're thinking it is, I'll tell you that. What I made was so potent it forced me to change my dosing strategy.
I hope this helps someone gain the confidence to try this method. PsyCro is working out using a pressure cooker, and he's wonderfully pleased with how it's turning out. It's covered in his thread. Have fun with it.
The basic explanation is that olive oil is for medical cannabis use as it's first processed by the lymphatic system, where coconut oil is for recreational use as the THC is converted by the liver and sent to the brain.
The olive oil used is traditionally what we call EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and most folks use unrefined coconut oil for recreational edibles.
I know this thread has gone quiet, but is anyone still using this process? I've just read through it and the concept of retaining more terpines and flavonoids makes so much sense to me.
I'm wondering if the oil bath is even needed in the first part where the water is being steamed off.
I think I'm going to try this next harvest. I'll probably add the herb to the oil after my bud wash and rinse, heat the mix on the stove until the temperature spikes suggesting the water is mostly gone, and then put it in the Instant Pot to do the decarb/infusion.
I know SweetSue seemed to move on to the low and slow dry and then the IP for the decarb/infusion steps, but skipping the whole dry and cure stage has its appeal.
I'm wondering if the oil bath is even needed in the first part where the water is being steamed off.
I think I'm going to try this next harvest. I'll probably add the herb to the oil after my bud wash and rinse, heat the mix on the stove until the temperature spikes suggesting the water is mostly gone, and then put it in the Instant Pot to do the decarb/infusion.
I know SweetSue seemed to move on to the low and slow dry and then the IP for the decarb/infusion steps, but skipping the whole dry and cure stage has its appeal.
Alright, giving this a go.
For this first round I'm taking some of my CBG harvest straight to the Instant Pot for 150 minutes on the high setting. It is supposed to be just under 13% CBG.
My other strains are 15% thc or cbd and for consistent dosing I like a standard ratio of 1g of cured bud to 1 Tablespoon of oil which gives me 150mg per tablespoon, 50mg per teaspoon, or 12.5mg per quarter teaspoon. Easy enough to remember.
My CBG plant, at 13% CBG, puts me a bit under those figures, but close enough for my brain to not have to train for the Olympics.
I'm using my freshly harvested plant although I have special circumstances here. I droughted the plant near the end of its life, but I grow in SIP buckets and the drought took longer than typical to get the correct leaf droop angle and by that time the rest of the leaves had dried to a crisp (literally) and my rescue waterings were to no avail. It was a pretty dried out and dead looking plant.
I bud washed it and left it to dry overnight and then put it in a jar to test for moisture content. I was pretty surprised when the meter settled just under 90% so maybe the buds weren't as dry as the rest of the plant.
So, that's the state I'm using them in. I put 2oz of olive oil in a small canning jar along with the fresh bud. Normally for 2oz or 4 Tablespoons I would use 4 grams of dried, cured bud. Dried and cured bud is often estimated at about 25% of harvest weigh so that would suggest I needed 4 times as much or 16 grams of the fresh stuff.
So that's what I did. I weighed out 16 grams of flower and chopped it up pretty finely with a kitchen knife as I'd rather not grind it up too finely to make filtering it on the back end a bit easier.
I added the chopped up herb to an 8oz jar and it fill it completely. I thought I wouldn't be able to coat the plant matter well enough in oil, but after pressing it down with the back side of a fork for a few minutes it seemed to be well mixed with the oil, though that ratio does seem to pretty much max out the oil as there really wasn't any free oil left.
Then I loosely screwed the two part lid cover on top and set in the Instant Pot and started the cycle. I'll let it cool overnight before opening and then test it for taste and also decarboxylation. It's a non-thc hemp plant so no psychoactive effect to help judge success.
For this first round I'm taking some of my CBG harvest straight to the Instant Pot for 150 minutes on the high setting. It is supposed to be just under 13% CBG.
My other strains are 15% thc or cbd and for consistent dosing I like a standard ratio of 1g of cured bud to 1 Tablespoon of oil which gives me 150mg per tablespoon, 50mg per teaspoon, or 12.5mg per quarter teaspoon. Easy enough to remember.
My CBG plant, at 13% CBG, puts me a bit under those figures, but close enough for my brain to not have to train for the Olympics.
I'm using my freshly harvested plant although I have special circumstances here. I droughted the plant near the end of its life, but I grow in SIP buckets and the drought took longer than typical to get the correct leaf droop angle and by that time the rest of the leaves had dried to a crisp (literally) and my rescue waterings were to no avail. It was a pretty dried out and dead looking plant.
I bud washed it and left it to dry overnight and then put it in a jar to test for moisture content. I was pretty surprised when the meter settled just under 90% so maybe the buds weren't as dry as the rest of the plant.
So, that's the state I'm using them in. I put 2oz of olive oil in a small canning jar along with the fresh bud. Normally for 2oz or 4 Tablespoons I would use 4 grams of dried, cured bud. Dried and cured bud is often estimated at about 25% of harvest weigh so that would suggest I needed 4 times as much or 16 grams of the fresh stuff.
So that's what I did. I weighed out 16 grams of flower and chopped it up pretty finely with a kitchen knife as I'd rather not grind it up too finely to make filtering it on the back end a bit easier.
I added the chopped up herb to an 8oz jar and it fill it completely. I thought I wouldn't be able to coat the plant matter well enough in oil, but after pressing it down with the back side of a fork for a few minutes it seemed to be well mixed with the oil, though that ratio does seem to pretty much max out the oil as there really wasn't any free oil left.
Then I loosely screwed the two part lid cover on top and set in the Instant Pot and started the cycle. I'll let it cool overnight before opening and then test it for taste and also decarboxylation. It's a non-thc hemp plant so no psychoactive effect to help judge success.
Gonna be really hard to judge decarb on a CBG plant I would think!
Different than testing a thc or cbd plant you think? Decarb is decarb seems to me. Probably going to test it in an oil bath and see.
Gonna be really hard to judge decarb on a CBG plant I would think!
Tried the oil on my salad this noon. Taste wasn't that great and I'm thinking it maybe the water soluables came out of the plant but stayed in the jar in the Instant Pot. I had added water as per the first few posts in this thread but now I'm wondering if I can get away without adding any. I did siphon the water out of the mix after straining but maybe some of that taste stays with the oil.
I've got the rest of the bud drying and curing so I'll repeat the process with that material in a couple of weeks and see if there's much difference. But the taste could also be why this olive oil is typically put into capsules.
I was really talking about smoke testing! All I got was "it doesn't get me high"!