Capturing THC from vapor in oil?

So, I'm new to using cannabis regularly in general, having been an infrequent social user in the past. But I recently started using it for medical reasons on a daily basis, so I bought a vaporizer to save wear and tear on my lungs which works well for me.

Now, I'm thinking I might want some edibles. But I'm lazy, impatient, and not much of a cook. So I started thinking, why not try to capture the cannabinoids from the vapor in oil, or perhaps butter? I could use some olive oil to dip bread in and eat, so I don't even have to cook anything. I did a little searching on this and the only thing that comes up is people saying that the vapor will mostly go through. But I wonder, why don't we just recapture the air and repeat? (This is assuming we get a decent amount each cycle.)

So...I envision a setup that infuses vapor into oil while capturing the used air to consume or reuse, like this:

1. Put oil in a fairly narrow, reasonably tall vessel so vapor is exposed to as much oil on the way up as possible. Put a few layers of saran wrap over the top (air will be pushing against this so you do want at least a couple layers probably.)
2. Use whip tubing from vaporizer, attach either directly to vaporizer OR to end of balloon that's been filled. I have a HerbalAire so both methods are available; I figure direct is easier since I can use the pump, but with the bag I can squeeze vapor in by hand at a controlled rate which may be helpful.
3. Stick end of whip tubing through saran wrap down into bottom of oil.
4. Take spare balloon, stick it through the saran wrap as well. This is where the used air will go (thus multiple layers of saran wrap, the mouth isn't that wide so pressure on the saran wrap will be somewhat high); if a significant amount of vapor is left over, this can be consumed (but might taste horrible, perhaps butter would be better?) or it can be pushed through the oil again. This obviously solves the issue of wasted air ASSUMING that a decent amount of cannabinoids are absorbed.
5. Tape/twist more saran wrap around the two pieces going through the holes to make them reasonably airtight. Activate vaporizer pump or start pumping in from the bag. Watch bubbles that are hopefully releasing some useful compounds on their way up!
6. Take spent vapor bag and either inhale it or repeat the above to capture more.
7. Enjoy oil, hopefully!

So, obviously this hinges on some THC/CBD/etc being absorbed on the way up. We also need to capture at a decent rate, hopefully 10% or higher per run, ideally 20% or more. At 20% per run, 6 runs through gives you 75% of the active ingredients. I'm wondering if butter might absorb better, though I'd rather the healthy olive oil! Also, I was thinking of perhaps sticking a small chunk of sponge on the end of the whip tubing, to create more diffuse air bubbles which might be absorbed better, or perhaps coupling the end of it to a piece of a drinking straw with a bunch of pinholes stuck in it to lay along the bottom.

Thoughts? Will this work, and how much THC will I get per run if it does? It doesn't seem like a lot of effort really, and while I'm too lazy to go get rubbing alcohol or use the stove to extract ABV or whatever, it seems like it'd be fun to put this together. (Though I suspect cleanup may be a bit messy, especially if the bag gets a lot of oil residue. But I do have a couple of spare bags, and old bags are bad since the reason they got retired is due to developing holes.)

Edit: I realize this will create rather weak oil for the amount of vapor in a bag. I figure that I either need a high capture rate (30+% or so) to make doing multiple crucibles and multiple bags per crucible worth the effort, OR there needs to be at least some capture AND the post-oil vapor needs to not taste bad. In the latter case, I could use the oil setup like a bong of sorts and capture vapor over time until the oil is infused.

Edited by vapeos, 26 March 2011 - 12:54 AM.

This could work, but it would honestly be so much easier to extract normally into oil.

But hey, if it floats your boat go for it
I'd want to see pics.

you say your too lazy to cook but you come up with an idea x100 times more labor intensive. Take your weed, put it in a pot of butter, enough butter to cover the weed, and cook for like 4 hours on simmer. Strain the weed out with cheese cloth collect the liquid. Drink it, spread it on bread, bake cookies with it, whatever. if you prefer olive oil , do the same thing.

you say your too lazy to cook but you come up with an idea x100 times more labor intensive. Take your weed, put it in a pot of butter, enough butter to cover the weed, and cook for like 4 hours on simmer. Strain the weed out with cheese cloth collect the liquid. Drink it, spread it on bread, bake cookies with it, whatever. if you prefer olive oil , do the same thing.

It does seem possibly labor intensive, unless there's no bad aftertaste (butter might actually taste okay), in which case this could serve as a passive infuser that would take no effort after setup... Need there to not be residue on the bag as well, butter also seems more likely to work in that case. Now, if there's residue or a bad taste, then yeah, this may be too labor intensive to be worth it...I think I will try a small scale test with an old vaporizer bag to just blow air through both oil and butter into and see what happens as far as residue and taste. (I can use detachable pump from my vaporizer to make that a pretty easy process.)

Really I don't mind a bit more effort, if it's more fun. (But not 100x the effort for minimal returns, of course.)