Methanol THC Extraction

[RedheadCanuk]

Howdy All,

I have been a small-scale grower for 35 years. I prefer smoking bud, but I have recently begun to appreciate vaping, especially after I mixed some menthol flavor in my last batch.

I have decided to try my hand at concentrates, specifically Hash Oil.

I have tried the BHO method and produced some awesome oil, but butane is a tad pricey and seriously freaking dangerous... I knew a guy in Louisiana that was blasting outside and his cat walked up during the run. Yep, you guessed it. He touched the cat, shooing it off the table and set off an explosion.

Not, that I am worried... I just know how things happen.

I have done an Ethanol extraction and it was good, but the chlorophyll changes the taste and I love the amber liquid. Did the sunlight thing to get rid of the chlorophyll and did not care for the result.

Now I am considering a methanol run.

The Plan:
1. Grind bud.
2. Decarboxilate in the oven at 220 F.
3. Place in glass container covered in Methanol. Store in the dark , periodically agitating for 24 hours.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.
5. Boil off most of the Methanol using a stirring hotplate.
6. Add EtOH wash (190 Proof), agitate and boil off once again, this should also remove all of the remaining methanol.

This should produce a beautifully clear amber Hash Oil, without the danger of turning yourself into Richard Pryor.

Has anyone tried this process? Is it better to decarboxylate before the methanol?

When using ethanol do this

Grind up material and freeze it
Get the ethanol as cold as you can
Mix the two together in a jar for no longer than 30sec
Pour out on glass baking dish to evaporate or run though an oil distiller. I prefer glass ones.
Further refining can be done doing a short path distillation method but this is very time consuming, has a high upfront cost and takes practice however the thc-a distillate you get is out of this world. Almost 100% thc.

The quick wash will produce a beautiful golden amber and retain a lot of the terpines responsible for taste. The longer you soak the only things you are extracting are chlorophyll and tannens. All which produce bad tastes and have no value.

That's old school honey oil made the old tried and tested way.

Happy smoking. Hope this helps.

 

[Radagast97]

When using ethanol do this

Grind up material and freeze it
Get the ethanol as cold as you can
Mix the two together in a jar for no longer than 30sec
Pour out on glass baking dish to evaporate or run though an oil distiller. I prefer glass ones.
Further refining can be done doing a short path distillation method but this is very time consuming, has a high upfront cost and takes practice however the thc-a distillate you get is out of this world. Almost 100% thc.

The quick wash will produce a beautiful golden amber and retain a lot of the terpines responsible for taste. The longer you soak the only things you are extracting are chlorophyll and tannens. All which produce bad tastes and have no value.

That's old school honey oil made the old tried and tested way.

Happy smoking. Hope this helps.

Absolute ethanol or 95%?

 

[nickeluring]

Absolute ethanol or 95%?

I don't think you can get more than 95-96% ethanol. As soon as you would open a bottle of 100% alcohol, it would absorb some water from the air and you'd get 96% or thereabouts...

 

[Radagast97]

Get no, but you can make it from the azeotrope by treating it with CaO or a molecular sieve. I store mine over a 3 angstrom molecular sieve.

That said, I am taking it you used the azeotrope. Thanks

 

[PaulyG]

Howdy All,

I have been a small-scale grower for 35 years. I prefer smoking bud, but I have recently begun to appreciate vaping, especially after I mixed some menthol flavor in my last batch.

I have decided to try my hand at concentrates, specifically Hash Oil.

I have tried the BHO method and produced some awesome oil, but butane is a tad pricey and seriously freaking dangerous... I knew a guy in Louisiana that was blasting outside and his cat walked up during the run. Yep, you guessed it. He touched the cat, shooing it off the table and set off an explosion.

Not, that I am worried... I just know how things happen.

I have done an Ethanol extraction and it was good, but the chlorophyll changes the taste and I love the amber liquid. Did the sunlight thing to get rid of the chlorophyll and did not care for the result.

Now I am considering a methanol run.

The Plan:
1. Grind bud.
2. Decarboxilate in the oven at 220 F.
3. Place in glass container covered in Methanol. Store in the dark , periodically agitating for 24 hours.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.
5. Boil off most of the Methanol using a stirring hotplate.
6. Add EtOH wash (190 Proof), agitate and boil off once again, this should also remove all of the remaining methanol.

This should produce a beautifully clear amber Hash Oil, without the danger of turning yourself into Richard Pryor.

Has anyone tried this process? Is it better to decarboxylate before the methanol?

Hope you mean ethanol not methanol. Methanol is racing fuel. And poisonous.

 

[Radagast97]

Methanol is poison. Menthol not much better. Have you considered edible oil extractions?

Everything is poisonous, even water. Three people a year die from water toxicity in the US. "The dose makes the poison" - the toxicologist maxim.

The procedures mentioned should have quite a bit less methanol than your average beer (and yes, methanol is produced in small quantities when fermentation occurs).

 

[Jaygrowing]

Howdy All,

I have been a small-scale grower for 35 years. I prefer smoking bud, but I have recently begun to appreciate vaping, especially after I mixed some menthol flavor in my last batch.

I have decided to try my hand at concentrates, specifically Hash Oil.

I have tried the BHO method and produced some awesome oil, but butane is a tad pricey and seriously freaking dangerous... I knew a guy in Louisiana that was blasting outside and his cat walked up during the run. Yep, you guessed it. He touched the cat, shooing it off the table and set off an explosion.

Not, that I am worried... I just know how things happen.

I have done an Ethanol extraction and it was good, but the chlorophyll changes the taste and I love the amber liquid. Did the sunlight thing to get rid of the chlorophyll and did not care for the result.

Now I am considering a methanol run.

The Plan:
1. Grind bud.
2. Decarboxilate in the oven at 220 F.
3. Place in glass container covered in Methanol. Store in the dark , periodically agitating for 24 hours.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.
5. Boil off most of the Methanol using a stirring hotplate.
6. Add EtOH wash (190 Proof), agitate and boil off once again, this should also remove all of the remaining methanol.

This should produce a beautifully clear amber Hash Oil, without the danger of turning yourself into Richard Pryor.

Has anyone tried this process? Is it better to decarboxylate before the methanol?

Are u doing any purging or the methanol is 100% lost in the boiling process

 

[Radagast97]

Are u doing any purging or the methanol is 100% lost in the boiling process

You're argument smacks of bifurcation argument flaw - aka it's all or nothing. It doesn't have to be 100%. Reread "the dose makes the poison.". You have to look at this quantitatively.

When we're talking about a product like hash oil, where the dose of the oil is about 1 drop (50 mg). 1 drop of methanol is not going to cause you problems AND the amount of methanol left in hash oil using some of the procedures mentioned is less than 1%. 1% of a drop, less than mg (about 0.5 mg): certainly in the range of how much methanol is in s single beer, less than for distilled spirits. It's not a cumulative poison.

Methanol is converted to formaldehyde in the body, then to formic acid. Both are serious poisons in the right dose. That said, there is formaldehyde in pears when you eat them. Does anyone know of someone going to the hospital for overeating a normal amount of pears? A single 100 g apple or pear has about 3.8 mg of formaldehyde(~38 mg/kg), at least 5 times the dose in a drop of hash oil, probably a great deal more.

 

[Radagast97]

I've always thought that methanol was technically poisonous alcohol. Do its derivatives not accumulate in the body. For my peace of mind, I would try ethanol.

No, non-cumulative. It is poisonous because it converts to formaldehyde, then formic acid in the body. A pear contain more formaldehyde than you’d get from a drop of hash oil with 10% methanol. Your body can remove that small an amount without a problem.

So unless you consider pears poisonous, methanol extraction is fine for making HO.

To give you a gauge of its toxicity, the LD50 is ~850mg/kg, so for a 110lb woman, your talking 42.5 grams acute dose. That’s about 1.8 fluid ounces.

 

[zeroday]

I've always thought that methanol was technically poisonous alcohol. Do its derivatives not accumulate in the body. For my peace of mind, I would try ethanol.

You are (basically) correct. Vaping anything with residual solvents is unwise. I don't care the amount. When you heat solvents, they change form chemically and can potentially cause unwanted results, regardless of the amount.

That said, if you decarb the crude oil, the result after evaporating off as much of the solvent as you can, at 120c for the proper amount of time given the volume of oil, it will decarb the THCA to THC as well as evap off any remaining solvents: Acetone at 56.05c, Methanol at 64.6c, Ethanol at 75.5c, Isopropyl Alcohol at 82.4c, Heptane at 98c.

These days (for me) its cheap enough to get the oil tested ($25). Doing the above has consistently produced 0% residual solvents, regardless of the solvent used.

 

[Radagast97]

You are (basically) correct. Vaping anything with residual solvents is unwise. I don't care the amount. When you heat solvents, they change form chemically and can potentially cause unwanted results, regardless of the amount.

That said, if you decarb the crude oil, the result after evaporating off as much of the solvent as you can, at 120c for the proper amount of time given the volume of oil, it will decarb the THCA to THC as well as evap off any remaining solvents: Acetone at 56.05c, Methanol at 64.6c, Ethanol at 75.5c, Isopropyl Alcohol at 82.4c, Heptane at 98c.

These days (for me) its cheap enough to get the oil tested ($25). Doing the above has consistently produced 0% residual solvents, regardless of the solvent used.

You are basically incorrect. Heating a solvent to vapor doesn't change it chemically, that is why it's referred to as a physical process, not a chemical one. Water is a solvent, distill it and the water is the same, chemically. It's why I can distill my solvents and reuse them, else they would be chemically different. Some compounds can break down with heat. THC tends to degrade at temp, fortunately not too much. That said any solvent mentioned in this thread is thermally stable to well past its boiling point.

Only someone without knowledge of toxicology takes the position that "any amount is dangerous". I'm a chemist with a good knowledge of toxicology. Occasionally route of entry is important, but not in this case. Here the total dosage is important. If you extracted via methanol, acetone, or butane and then dried it to the form of an oil, the dose of any of those solvents is vastly less than just smelling them. There is a lot more methanol in a beer than you'd get in vaping hash oil.

As a chemist, there is no way to get the solvent down to 0%. Probably not below 0.00001%, so the saying the amount doesn't matter is wrong. From a *practical* POV, it's at zero - hence why methanol is not a problem from a toxicity POV, if following the evaporation/decarboxylation method you mentioned.

 

[MackMurder]

Guys... he was outside. The butane was in the middle of the run, the cat heard the hissing and was curious. My buddy was shooing the cat off the table and barely touched it. That little static charge was enough to singe the cat and my buddy, it also blew the extraction tube apart.

I have made mercury and silver fulminate, nitroglycerin, and Semtex. At my age you realize how stupid things like that are, and how lucky you were that fate intervened and allowed you though those natural selection events. Now I try to avoid the entire situation as opposed to having to pull a magnificent idea from my fourth point of contact.

Been using butane for bho since i was 16.....im 36...never blew anything or anyone up. You just have to do it outside and dont do it with people and fucking cats its not rocket science.

 

[joetherag42]

Howdy All,

I have been a small-scale grower for 35 years. I prefer smoking bud, but I have recently begun to appreciate vaping, especially after I mixed some menthol flavor in my last batch.

I have decided to try my hand at concentrates, specifically Hash Oil.

I have tried the BHO method and produced some awesome oil, but butane is a tad pricey and seriously freaking dangerous... I knew a guy in Louisiana that was blasting outside and his cat walked up during the run. Yep, you guessed it. He touched the cat, shooing it off the table and set off an explosion.

Not, that I am worried... I just know how things happen.

I have done an Ethanol extraction and it was good, but the chlorophyll changes the taste and I love the amber liquid. Did the sunlight thing to get rid of the chlorophyll and did not care for the result.

Now I am considering a methanol run.

The Plan:
1. Grind bud.
2. Decarboxilate in the oven at 220 F.
3. Place in glass container covered in Methanol. Store in the dark , periodically agitating for 24 hours.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.
5. Boil off most of the Methanol using a stirring hotplate.
6. Add EtOH wash (190 Proof), agitate and boil off once again, this should also remove all of the remaining methanol.

This should produce a beautifully clear amber Hash Oil, without the danger of turning yourself into Richard Pryor.

Has anyone tried this process? Is it better to decarboxylate before the methanol?

Did you mean to say ETHANOL Alcohol? METHANOL is wood alcohol.
Good Plan, Looks good to me. One difference is I use a BUCHNER FILTER, to strain the residue. It has a glass beaker with a vacuum hose on the side. You need to hook it to a vacuum source and it goes very fast. It comes with round filter papers in the kit.
I also do not use Methanol which is Wood alcohol. I used to use it when I first started the RSO method, but got switched to using Everclear or 190 Proof Ethanol.
I decarboxilate prior to wash. seems to work good that way.
only other difference is I use an Alcohol Distiller. Takes about two hours. I look at the solution after about one hour.
If almost done, I put it into a Pyrex glass measuring cup and put it on a coffee cup warmer until the rest of the Alcohol is evaporated out.
I'm into doing a Small Batch of RSO lately.
Oh, I also use Everclear, that way if there is some residual Alcohol in the soup, it will not harm me.

 

[Ballsyone76]

Howdy All,

I have been a small-scale grower for 35 years. I prefer smoking bud, but I have recently begun to appreciate vaping, especially after I mixed some menthol flavor in my last batch.

I have decided to try my hand at concentrates, specifically Hash Oil.

I have tried the BHO method and produced some awesome oil, but butane is a tad pricey and seriously freaking dangerous... I knew a guy in Louisiana that was blasting outside and his cat walked up during the run. Yep, you guessed it. He touched the cat, shooing it off the table and set off an explosion.

Not, that I am worried... I just know how things happen.

I have done an Ethanol extraction and it was good, but the chlorophyll changes the taste and I love the amber liquid. Did the sunlight thing to get rid of the chlorophyll and did not care for the result.

Now I am considering a methanol run.

The Plan:
1. Grind bud.
2. Decarboxilate in the oven at 220 F.
3. Place in glass container covered in Methanol. Store in the dark , periodically agitating for 24 hours.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.
5. Boil off most of the Methanol using a stirring hotplate.
6. Add EtOH wash (190 Proof), agitate and boil off once again, this should also remove all of the remaining methanol.

This should produce a beautifully clear amber Hash Oil, without the danger of turning yourself into Richard Pryor.

Has anyone tried this process? Is it better to decarboxylate before the methanol?

What is EtOH wash, what is the product used for it

 

[Ballsyone76]

When using ethanol do this

Grind up material and freeze it
Get the ethanol as cold as you can
Mix the two together in a jar for no longer than 30sec
Pour out on glass baking dish to evaporate or run though an oil distiller. I prefer glass ones.
Further refining can be done doing a short path distillation method but this is very time consuming, has a high upfront cost and takes practice however the thc-a distillate you get is out of this world. Almost 100% thc.

The quick wash will produce a beautiful golden amber and retain a lot of the terpines responsible for taste. The longer you soak the only things you are extracting are chlorophyll and tannens. All which produce bad tastes and have no value.

That's old school honey oil made the old tried and tested way.

Happy smoking. Hope this helps.

What do you mean about purging what is purging

 

[Phytoplankton]

What do you mean about purging what is purging

You probably won't get a reply, that poster hasn't been heard from in over 5 years!

 

[Radagast97]

What is EtOH wash, what is the product used for it

Without going back to the original post, I feel sure what they mean by an ethanol wash (EtOH = ethanol = ethyl alcohol), is using ethanol to extract the terpenes and cannabinoids.

The product is pretty much hash oil. It can be smoked in a hash oil pipe, or some applied to papers to supercharge a joint.