I made a tincture from immature weed

FreakNature

FreakNature

New Member
Some guy who's in it only for the money sold me 1/2 an oz. of some buds which were to me, sight-unseen. It turns out they were picked way too immature, dried too quickly, and not cured. I don't think the plants were flushed before harvest. The buds smelled and tasted like hay. 5 hits gave me a short buzz and a headache. I probably ingested burnt mites and neem oil, for all I know. The weed made my lungs burn and made me sick to my stomach. Fun times.

I did a little research and found Master Wu's Green Dragon recipe. This is a process wherein 3.5 grams of bud is ground fine and baked in a preheated oven for 5 minutes at 325 degrees F. Hot enough and long enough to dry out the buds and decarbolyze - turn inactive THCA into active delta-9 THC. Not hot enough to destroy the THC. Variations include lower temps over a longer time. My thought was that this immature weed might benefit from a little conversion process.

The next step involves using a double-boiler to heat the eighth in 2 ounces of high percentage potable ethanol @ 170 degrees F. for 20 minutes.

After that the liquid is strained and the weed is squeezed to get as much liquid out as possible. Often the weed is re-boiled with additional ethanol.

At this point the tincture is ready to use. With really good bud this recipe yields 1 to 1-1/2 ounces of tincture worth about 30 doses (one eyedropper full per dose). With the crap I was using I tried two teaspoons. The effects came on much faster than when I eat Cannabis. With this crappy weed, the effects were short lived and barely noticeable.

Next day...2 tablespoons of the tincture in my morning coffee. The affects were kind of subtle, but it was enough so I didn't have to smoke anything. Master Wu claims that assimilation is much quicker when inbibed w/ additional ethanol. On his advice I mixed a dose (2 tablespoons) with a barley-malt pop and downed it after work. After a 20 minute walk/run with the dog, I came home to make dinner. I was starting to feel this latest dose in accumulation with the first one of the day. With dinner I had the rest of the tincture (another tablespoon or two) with another barley-malt pop.

I found myself thoroughly enjoying my dinner. A television show I was watching was intensely interesting and fascinating. My face was twisted into a maniacal grin and I was awash in waves of euphoria like I hadn't experienced in years. I was locked on the couch uttering "oh wow" repeatedly. My mind and body were buzzing. After the most intense affects passed, I had a lot of energy and cleaned up the kitchen. Many hours later I was still giggling uncontrollably at late night talk show humor.

Bottom line is it took an eighth of an ounce, (probably could have gotten two really good doses out of it). Very poor return on the investment, but the process salvaged what to me was unusable bud and made a very interesting medical preparation that masked the pain I have. An interesting side affect of oral ingestion was unexpected. Without going into too much detail, the tincture seemed to cure whatever is the problem with my stomach. While under the influence of the tincture, it was all good. When the affects of the tinc had passed, my stomach was back to normal...not so good.

I can't wait to prepare another batch. Things I might do differently are use on ounce more ethanol during the extraction, and allow the weed to soak in the liquid for a few days before filtering it out.
 
Re: I made a tinture from immature weed

what yor describing is called hash oil. You can use any solvent that is 100% pure (I wont mention any due to liability but cvan easily be found on the web. As the you descrition of the conversion process, as Im not a biologist I cant say for certain but I belive that the conversion happend during the drying and also the curing stages. I dont know for sure about the "baking" of your bud and would be VERY careeful as canaibinoids will vaporize above 200+ degrees (not sure of the exact heat but close). Your 325 is waaaay to high,,,your burning off the canibinoids. 200 degrees should be more than adequate just let it sit longer. As to the extration with solvent, it doesnt take ong at all to strip the noids from the plant material. I ground mine up in an old coffie grinder (not powder but a fine chop) and douse it in solvent for up to 10 minutes at the most. You can let it sit for decades if you want but it wont be any better than 10 minutes. Then we need a safe way to evap the solvent. Ive found that a rice cooker works wonderully for this as it doesnt get hot enough to boil the resin but does boil the solvent off quite well. If/When you do this do it OUTSIDE AND and use a fan to blow the fumes away from you. Do not breathe the fumes.....very bad. 1 more time....USE 100% PURE SOLVENT OR YOULL RISK YOUR LIFE and dont be in a hurry....death isnt something that should be rushed ;)


P.S. When the solvent is evaporated the oil left will be very runny when hot. At this point you have a useable product but I go a step farther. I take a syringe (the large style they use for babies etc with no needle) with no needle and fill it with hot oil. Then its off to the fridge to cool a bit. Once cool, I break out the gelcaps (avalible from health food stores in several sizes) and start filling them with the oil. These work great for those times you cant light up or for those that want to eat it only but cant seem to get enough in them,,,this is the ticket...but once your tollerace gets used to this level your "high" will go away (as in you wont get high any longer but this is meant to people that use lots every day for medicine).
 
Re: I made a tinture from immature weed

Actually what I made was a tincture, not hash oil. I agree with the temperature of vaporization. I've done a bit ofresearch on temperatures of vaporization. The method is probably better with temps at or below 300 degrees F. for the THC, but CBD and CBN flash at higher temps - closer to 400 degrees F. One thing I failed to mention regarding Master Wu's process is that he more recently has had success using lower temperatures in the oven over longer period of time. This is also something I would like to try. This article has some good info:

Cannabis Facts


My main point was that I was able to take something that was medically non-viable and turn it into something worthwhile. :peace:
 
Ah so you did the extraction but left a portion of alcohol in for tincture...I understand :) You do know thats "basicly" the same thing........just dont evap off all the solvent but still a complete extraction using solvent :)



P.S. Yes I totally agree that it is a FANTASTIC way to turn garbage into useable meds. I hope I didnt come off the wrong way I wasnt meaning to be rude or meant any insult :)
 
Re. the leftover ethanol - exactly. I wouldn't want to make honey oil with potable ethanol - residual sugars might make for some harsh smoke...lol

No offense taken. I'm on this site for community and information, and just want the truth about Cannabis to be made known. Thanks for sharing the additional information and pointing out the potential issues with the process. :peace:
 
Tinctures are very easy to make. Go get a bottle of 100 proof booze and soak that weed for a good week (just to be safe but this much time is on the long side). then strain and the liqure thars left is tincture but be carefull burns when ya put it under yer tounge hehe
 
that is totally dependant on how strong you like your acohol as all the canibnoids are in the liqure. You can reduce it if you want but with careful applicxation of the ratio of acohol to weed you really dont need to. But again its up to personal preference:cool:


basicly if you dont like the acohol taste and burn you can let it evap to a more pleasurable level....personal preference :)
 
I made another batch yesterday. I used the same process as originally posted, except after some research reviewing results of some blokes in the UK regarding decarboxylization, I did an initial bake of the weed @ 221 degrees F. for 15 minutes, then the final bake @ 284 degrees F. for 30 minutes.

After the initial hot water bath extraction (this time in 3 oz ethanol), I drained the weed and did another extraction in another oz of ethanol for about 10 minutes. In addition I took half a gram or so of resin from my hash pipe (black gooey long-polymer stuff that you can roll into long thin coils) and boiled it down in an oz of ethanol as well (separate from the weed). I know there's good stuff in it, as well as bad. I figured since the Green Dragon from this rank weed doesn't taste good anyway, what's to lose? Anyway, all that was left when I strained it was a little bit of ash.

All the liquid was strained through an unbleached coffee filter into a small mason jar, yielding about 2.5 ozs of tincture.

Using Master Wu's method adjusted for the poor quality of this weed, I mixed 2 tablespoons of tincture in half of a barley-malt pop and drank it down. An hour later I could feel it coming on, but knew another dose would be better. The other half of the pop with another 2 tablespoons. An hour later, I could feel the train coming. Wow. I really didn't need the next (and last) 2 tablespoons, but I wasn't sorry after another hour. No sir.

So what I like about this over eating it in a fat product (cannabutter or other forms of cooking as food) is I can feel the affects much more quickly (typically takes 5 hours for edibles for me - I don't think I metabolize fats very well), so I can adjust the dose more effectively. It also has an amazing calming affect on my digestive system. Last time wasn't just coincidence. :peace:
 
I know the feeling. I just made 2 8X8 pans of chocolate cake with a very special ingediant......but 1st.

I took 4 cups of cooking oil (any type will do) and 1/4 lb of primo medipot (grew it meself :) )went in as well. I also added 1/2 cup regular tap water. The reasoning is that the oil will leach the canibidnoids from the weed (canaibanoids are oil souluable) and the water is your signal flare when things are getting to hot (water boils at 212 degrees or so but oil and cana tircs melt / burn at around 375+ degrees F and hotter so as long as the water is a steamin your ok :) :. Boiled the concoction for aboutr 2 hours till the water was gone. Then i made cake :) I subed 1/2 cup cooking oil for my special cooking oil. 30 mins later (11:45 this morning) they were done. I let them cool till noon (pst) and cut myself a 2" X 3.5" slice maybe 1.25 inches thick.

Now ill explain a bit. Ive been on medi pot for almost 8 years. Ive always grown my own and whenever I took exsess to the dispensaries they d beg for more so I thought it was pretty good. In fact its normally so strong that ive not actuall been able to get "high" in many many years but I still get the pain relief and nause relief. Ive treid edibles in the past many times but it never phased me at all. Now to present.....

Boy am I blitzed! 1st time in YEARS and it feels SOOOOOoooooo good :) Id recomend that anyone that takes medipot for pain try this but you may have to experiment with how much canaibis to put in the oil. I knew I had a huge tollerance...last week I made hash oil and put it all in gell caps (1/4 teaspoon each). I took 4 at once and nada all day. So I wasnt real optimestic about this oil (again) so thats why I added so much bud to it. In fact il have to do another extraction with new oil as the current oil is totally saturated with canaibinoids and theres lots more in there still heh.:cool:
 
Doing the math, 1/2 cup of the 4-cup batch equals half an ounce of wonderful med grade homegrown bud THC in the batch cake. I can see why you enjoyed it so much. :smokin:

Since my body doesn't seem to process fat very well, the tincture method provides quick and effective relief.

I just did another batch of tincture. This time 2.5 ounces 151 proof ethanol, 1/8 oz ground crappy buds, process like this:

ground bud, tin foiled pan, in oven for 15 minutes at 220-230 degrees F. Removed from oven.

Ramped up oven to 285 degrees F., put tin pan w/ ground buds in it for 30 minutes. Temps were between 280 and 300 degrees F. The baked ground bud had a slightly browner tint. This is something noted in the original recipe I'm using, but which I hadn't achieved before.

Brought a double boiler / water bath to slight simmering boil holding 170 degrees F. on a candy thermometer.

Turned the vent hood on high. Added baked bud to ethanol in a small mason jar. Placed in water bath and inserted candy thermometer into jar. Brought jar / ethanol temp to 170 degrees F and let it boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. (The temp of boiling ethanol is 170 degrees F., so it shouldn't get higher w/ a high proof ethanol).

Poured the mix through an unbleached paper coffee filter into another small mason jar (ring lid holds filter in place).

Boiled the left over mash in another oz of ethanol for another 5 minutes, strained it into the other jar for a total finished product of about 2.5 ounces.

At this point it's done. Less than an hour from prep to completion. The Dragon was a lot darker this time, and had a richer aroma.

I added two tablespoons into half a bottle of the aforementioned "pop" and chugged down the dragon and chased it with the other half. I proceeded to do some housecleaning. Within 20 minutes I could feel the medicinal affects. When I finished my chores I became couch locked. I perceived intense munchies. The ride climbed at quite an accelerated rate, and seemed to peak after about <checks current time> an hour and fifty minutes. I think a follow up dose in a bit will take care of me for the evening. This was the best physical and mental result I've had for a single 2-Tbs dose.

With good buds, of course, the dose can be smaller.

The thing about this is oven temperatures vary. I bought a separate oven thermometer and it reads higher than the oven settings. If you can do a few trials like this you can dial in that key level of heat-work that works in your oven, so you can get that just lightly browning bud at temps of less than 300 degrees F.
 
I used to do that tincture trick with all the stems and stalks from in my homegrown in the 70's. My friends and I would spend all winter having weekend Kool-Aide parties with a pitcher of Kool-Aide and a shot glass of tincture added.

That stuff would knock you stupid. We'd each chug a cup down and head to the bowling alley before it hit us for some stoned bowling. No one wanted to be within three lanes of us once that stuff hit. It was free fire zone with bowling balls.

Our main rule was eveyone had to leave their weed at the house before we went to the alley. Not enough alcohol in it for public intoxication charges and there was no reliable way to check for THC levels then w/o hauling you to a university lab. About all management could do was ask us to leave and the cops would follow us to the city limits.

That being said,one of the old Kool Aide Crew is now respected pharmacist who is pro-legalization for med use. His main interest is seeing it marketed as a tincture.
 
From wiki about decarboxylization: Heating or pyrolysis of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid yields the psychoactive compound Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol.

Even in your dried and cured trim there is THCA. The gentle heating of the THCA in the oven results in THC, the psychoative component. When I made my batches of Green Dragon my research confirmed this, and I just read an article by Ed Rosenthal that backed this up.

If you dried and aged your trim long enough under the right ambient conditions you might find most of the THCA already converted, but the oven at temperatures lower than the vapor point of THC and other CBDs assures greater conversion and potency.

This is important in Green Dragon since you won't heat it when you use it (like in a joint, pipe, bong, or vaporizer). That process of smoking causes the herb downstream from the cherry to go through a rapid decarboxylization process; but the oven and tincture method I think will allow you to get as much of the TCH out of the weed as possible with very little waste "up in smoke".
 
You can try the recipe with an eighth...not much to lose. It is kind of trial and error due to inaccurate oven temp readings.
 

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