Another Tincture Thread - Try it, You'll like it

I have some more comments and pics about the taste and flavoring and I was going to enter them here but I just cleaned out the bowl I used to make some honey elixir with some hot water and used it for some tea. By the way it's feeling, I have seriously greened out and must get horizontal while it's still voluntary and I can close down the desktop. I'll probably still be stoned when I get up tomorrow. This seems to happen whenever I start making things and have to keep sampling. If I don't answer anything else tonight it's because I can't. I know, it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

 

I must say that I slept wonderfully and pain free all night and woke up refreshed, but in pain. I usually medicate once or twice during the night when the pain is the worst. It works better than morphine and faster.


Now on to the topic for this post: Flavoring your GD.

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Even if you don't have a lot of chlorophyll taste from green weed, the taste of the concentrated final product can be a little overpowering and make you think twice about using it. That taste doesn't transfer much, if at all, to other products. I noticed a little chlorophyll in the honey initially and it diminished as the alcohol evaporated and was completely unnoticeable with the addition of a few drops of vanilla. I've just transferred to some coconut oil with no taste other than coconut. Later today I'll try some butter because I need some cookies and I'll see if that taste transfers to it. I will be including mini-pictorials on all of these transfers to show how easy it is to do, no matter how you make your GD.


Not much image-wise here. Just wanted to show how easy the flavoring can be. I mainly use half-ounce blue cobalt bottles with euro-droppers for my GD. There's 30 or 40 doses in each, less for thicker mediums. For honeys and agave I use droppers because they don't come out of the euro droppers well. I use LorAnn candy flavoring oil. It's more concentrated than extracts and only takes a few drops to overpower the taste. In each of the bottles I put 5-6 drops of the flavoring, raspberry in 2 and orange in 2. I then fill with the GD and shake, then cap it. Pretty simple, huh? Those 4 bottles I filled is several months worth of daily dosing. That was just 2fl oz, half of this recipe approximately, which still leaves half for something else. That "something else" could be one of the following posts.

 

Solvent Transfer Mini-Pictorials
Now we come to the most important section of this thread and that is describing and showing all the things you can do with your GD. The premise of these posts is that you already have your double boiler set up, whatever it may be, and can perform the alcohol evaporation safely. I will be showing beginning and ending shots and steps in between, if any. The concept is the same on all-combining the GD and the transfer medium and removing the alcohol which leaves the thc bonded with the new medium. These posts will also be dealing with how to determine your various potency needs.

Honey Elixir Mini-Pictorial

For the first time I've used raw unfiltered honey with all the pollen left (but not the comb or baby bees) instead of the normal stuff from the market that's been processed and filtered with all the real good stuff gone. It's a little thicker and made for a cloudier elixir with the pollen. This honey came from an avocado grove.

1) Beginning ingredients. The jar on the left is my larger batch of GD. Using a graduated measuring cup.
2) Starting with the amount of honey I want to make for a 1:1 potency ratio, about 2.5fl oz.

3) Add a corresponding amount of GD, another 2.5fl oz in this case. If you wanted to make your honey twice as strong as your GD, you would cut the volume of honey in half and vice versa for half strength.

4) I started this in the evening and because I had been trying the GD for a while trying to get rid of the chlorophyll taste, I was pretty wasted by the time the honey was nearly ready. I couldn't continue to remain vertical so I shut down the process for the night. When I got up the next morning, I didn't want to set up the bigger double boiler configuration for just a little more reducing. This is what I used to finish it. I poured it into a coffee cup and placed it on my mug warmer to evaporate fully. There was only about a half oz of alcohol left and it didn't take long. The dark, thick substance to the left is the final honey elixir. I did add a cap full of vanilla and it turned out great.

5) Final step of bottling and storing. I use amber bottles and vials for this. No particular reason except that's it easier to tell my product if the colors are different. I can say that the honey will last at least 3 months refrigerated. It may last longer but I've never kept any longer. And it seems to get better as it ages. It's a good idea to keep a bottle on the shelf for everyday use so that it's not so thick.

Whatdya think? Easy, peasy, heh?

Edit: Modernized version can be found here: Another Tincture Thread - Try it, Youll like it

 

Solvent Transfer to Coconut Oil Pictorial

This post will visualize the Solvent Transfer process from your GD to coconut oil

The standard strength of the GD we're using is 2.25g/fl oz and will be the potency of the oil as well. That's a 1:1 ratio of GD and coco oil. If my GD was 1.5g/fl oz, then a 1:1 ratio would be that strength, etc. When doing a 1:1 ratio with a lipid (fat) your yield will be approximately 20-25 servings if using your normal GD potency. While you may get more doses with the GD due to the absorption properties of alcohol as opposed to the oil but the effects are deeper and often longer lasting although the onset is delayed. You can use this oil for recipes, daily caps, topicals and many other things.

There's very little equipment needed. Your double boiler setup or hot water bath, a measuring cup and GD and virgin or extra virgin coconut oil, along with a silicon spatula.

Today we're transferring the cannabinoids from 3 fl oz of GD to 3 fl oz of evco.

1) Ingredients: Green Dragon, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil and measuring cups, 3oz of each.
2) After firing up your heat source and using a double boiler, pour your coconut oil into the bowl. ....Note: If using a hot water bath, first add your GD to the oil in a large enough jar to hold them then place your container into the water and let it come up to temperature along with the water, gradually, to prevent breakage of the glass and using a cloth or cotton pad beneath the bottom of the jar. This method is described in phase 4 of the GD guide.



3) If using the double boiler, when the water starts boiling, remove the lid and place your stainless steel bowl over the top and allow the oil to melt and warm up. I prefer a double boiler bowl over a water bath for this because the increased surface area allows the alcohol to evaporate faster. I'll use water bath or a griddle or coffee warmer for an ounce or less but it takes forever.

4) Using the same amount of GD as coconut oil, 3oz, pour it in the bowl with the warm coconut oil if not using the water bath. Stir the contents with a spatula to distribute the heat initially. Notice how the solution looks in the bowl at this point, flat.


5) Shortly you'll see the contents of the bowl bubbling briskly. You'll let this continue until all the bubbles stop and the contents look as calm and flat as when you first set it all up. You can go away and come back and just let it do it's little percolation. The first picture shows the bubbling of the alchol as well as a still photo can, I suppose, and the second is after it's finished. Looks like it did before but with no alcohol and a lot of punch.


6) When all the alcohol has evaporated, take it off the heat and pour it into your measuring cup to verify that there is no extra volume left from the alcohol. It should be the same amount of oil as you started with minus what is clinging to the transfer vessel. If it's more, put it back on the heat for a while yet. I've found that with larger batches it may take an extra half hour after it's flattened to guarantee all the alcohol is gone but any alcohol left will soon dissipate anyway.



7) Since this is being used for recipes I like to portion it up into one ounce portion cups and place them in the freezer for storage until I need one. Since one is enough for a batch of cookies or brownies or 40 "0" caps, having pre-measured portions is quick and easy. And if I decide to make bigger or stronger ones, it's easy to double or even triple without making a mess. In a recipe that called for 4oz of vegetable oil you would use your single portion then fill the remaining 3 ounce volume with your standard cooking oil.



For those wishing or needing to use lecithin with the coconut oil, you would add your lecithin to the finished coconut oil after the alcohol has evaporated and heat it until it dissolves. Standard ratio for lecithin is 0.5 tsp per ounce of oil.

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Solvent Transfer to Butter for Recipes
With this pictorial I'm showing how to transfer the thc to butter in the correct ratios for recipes. I use clarified butter because it tastes the best and doesn't leave any kind of residue. Taste is important because this method leaves no weed taste so it tastes like butter! . Most cannabutter can't compete in the taste category.

Sometimes it can be hard to figure out potency for your butter edibles. You may use a quarter of weed in a stick of butter, half cup net, and want to have your brownies, for example, to have that full strength for a full recipe. But what if your recipe only calls for a quarter or third cup instead? If you add all your butter you run the risk of messing up the recipe. Sure, you can still eat it but it may not be pretty for social consumption.

By using the solvent transfer method to make your butter you can control your potency and use the exact recipe quantities. There is no loss of enhanced butter left behind in the pressed cheesecloth, no cheesecloth in fact.

For this pictorial I'm making some butter with which to make some walnut oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and the recipe calls for a stick of butter, 1/2 cup. So I'm using 4oz of clarified butter. I like my cookies to be at least double strength but preferably more, with a half cookie really good for most. Since I will make 2 dozen cookies, I need a minimum 48 edible doses. I consider 1fl ounce of my GD at 20-25 edible doses at least, so I want to use 2fl oz for a great buzz.

If this recipe called for a quarter cup and I wanted it at the previously noted potency, I would still use 2oz of GD but only half as much butter. Conversely, if the recipe called for 3/4 cup of butter and you still had the same number of servings, the GD would remain the same but the butter up 2oz. The GD will remain the same as long as the number of servings remain the same. If you only have 10 servings but want to keep this same potency, you would halve the amount of GD and so on....

1) The ingredients are my GD in the glass and a half cup of clarified butter.
2) Showing the 2fl oz of GD
3) Combine both ingredients in a double boiler and evaporate off the alcohol until all the bubbling stops.
4) This is the final product. It is a light green but i could detect no weed taste when I spread some on that roll pictured there. It was gooooood!

Time to make some cookies

An update on those cookies. I know this isn't a cookie recipe but we did address potency ratios and this can give you a good idea of how that actually works in real time. I have mentioned that I like my cookies and brownies to pack a wallop but not green out, at least for me. Others with less tolerance watch out. I use what I consider 40 doses using 2fl oz of the GD to a half cup of butter. Making 24 servings, that's nearly 2 strong doses each. Well, by what I've been able to determine with this batch, mainly because I wanted to give a more accurate dosing report. I ate one when I first got up before I did anything else so I could check it out. 45 minutes later I was fast asleep. So, that wasn't much fun, so I cut one in half and got a really intense buzz for a couple of hours before I nodded out again. That was better. The second half I was able to keep my eyes open but only by getting up and doing some dishes. So I feel each little cookie has 4 doses for a seasoned consumer and probably more for a newbie.

5) This is one cookie. About 2in across. I cut this in half and still was blown away.
6) When I make my cookie dough I roll it up and put it in the freezer to use as I want. I made half this time and wish I'd only made 3 or 4 because I have a hard time not eating them if there are a few laying around. This roll gives me 12 2" cookies.

With this GD 7g recipe you would be able to make 2-3 potent batches with absolutely no weed taste. None. Does your butter recipe do that?

Another update: I guess that I can say maybe 4 potent batches. I've got to give this GD more respect. I decided to make a few more cookies from the roll and this time I cut each cookie into 4 pieces before baking. 1 of them is a really nice buzz and hasn't knocked me out yet. Now I know that I could easily have used only a quarter of the GD I did use. Wicked stuff

7) Smaller cookie 1/4 of larger one and quite a bite size treat!

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Select an image to expand

 

Pain Cream, Salve, Balm, Lotion, etc. - Small Batch

This is a pictorial showing how to make topical application from infused coconut oil, no matter the method used for infusion. With this process you can add whatever other herbal ingredients you might want for particular reasons. For example, you may want to add some cocoa or shea butter for skin health or glycerin for moisture, or eucalyptus or camphor or menthol. Also, by adding or reducing the amount of beeswax you can make any consistency you want and how you want to use it will influence other ingredients. You can use this to make a skin lotion that will flow through a pump, or a firm cream, a hard salve or lip balm.

This is a basic formula using activated thc infused coconut oil as a base for a moderate to severe pain treatment. Of course, the coconut oil was infused by using a solvent transfer from the Green/Gold Dragon. The coconut oil is diluted to 1/3 standard strength if using bud or sugar trim but in this particular instance I'm using fan leaf. For your reference, many or most cannabis pain creams on the market in legal states is less than 20-40mg in a whole ounce, so it doesn't take much and we overdue it to make sure.

1) Aloe vera, infused coconut oil, vitamin E, Tangerine and Tea Tree essential oil, beeswax, silicone spatula and a scale



2) Equipment: 1qt saucepan, 1 cup pyrex measuring cup, temperature gun (optional), scale and a fork.



3) Measure out the amount of coconut oil to be used for the cream and pour it into the glass pyrex measuring cup.


4) I have found that using beeswax pellets is much easier and safer than using a block. I've nearly lost a finger or two with a block. Measure out your beeswax for the type of product you want, taking the weather into consideration. If you live in a hot area and don't have air conditioning you'll want a thicker salve and vice versa if in the cold. I've also found that 6-10g of beeswax per ounce of oil will work in most conditions and for most people. For this one I like 8g of beeswax per ounce, or 24 for 3oz.


5) Have your additives ready when needed for better efficiency. Our additives other than the beeswax is aloe vera gel and essential oils. Also, I like to use an inexpensive temperature gun to help me with my flow but it is not necessary.



6) Fill the saucepan about halfway and turn the heat on medium high. Place the glass measuring cup containing the coconut oil into the pan and hook the handle over the edge. This removes the need for the pad under the container to prevent tipovers and because the handle is over the edge, it stays in place as you're stirring.


7) Once the oil gets warm or around 130F, dump the beeswax pellets into the oil and continue to heat. While waiting, prepare your containers. Here I have a 2oz and 1oz jar since I have 3oz of cream.



8) Continue to heat, stirring occasionally. As the oil heats, the pellets will all rise to the top and keep stirring until they are all dissolved, around 145F.



9) Turn off the heat and remove the cup with the oil and beeswax, being careful because it is very hot and you don't want to drop it. At this point add your aloe gel if you plan to do so. My measure isn't real exact here. For every 3 oz of oil I use a good "squirt". Mix well while the mixture is warm.



10) At this point just keep stirring until it cools and starts to gel, approx. 125F. Constant stirring is needed when using aloe gel to keep it incorporated until the beeswax gels. If not using aloe you can stick it in the freezer for a few minutes at a time until it starts to form.



11) When it starts to gel, add the essential oils of your choice. I use 2 drops of tea tree and 4 drops of Tangerine oil per ounce of oil for mine. Continue stirring until peaks start to form, like beating egg whites or whipping cream.




12) Your pain cream is now ready to pour into your containers. Let cool.




And there you have it. I haven't seen any real pictorials showing how easy it is. I swear it works. It is also great as a massage oil. There's even a rumor that it can enhance sexual arousal, but I don't know anything about that. Too old.

 

Thanks, y'all! I want to make this a destination for "one stop shopping" of all things that can be done with ease with GD, no matter how you make it. It's actually for a thread about the advantages of solvent transfer. I still have a lot of other things to make but am starting to get low on available GD for tutorials. I still have to make the rest of my normal products to get me by for the next month.

I do plan to add a glycerin transfer this cycle because my last one is nearly gone. Also, since it is cold and flu season, I was thinking of making a cannabis cough syrup pictorial if anyone was interested. Because I live in AZ, I don't get more than smoking cough usually in the winter. But I am interested and have already scouted out the ingredients. Instead of codeine, it's active kicker is thc and includes other herbs and spices.

I'm trying to keep this thread in the top half of the first page so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle, but someday I'm going to run out of things to write and then the thread will be banished to the back pages. Oh, well, that's the way the world turns.

 

Decarboxylation - Yea or Nay?
I imagine that many of you have been waiting for this post and had wondered if I'd forgotten. Well, I haven't forgotten. I was just waiting until I could do an honest test. I've been sampling all the other things but didn't want to tackle the decarb comparison until I had a clean palette, head wise.

This morning I awakened refreshed and ready for some "scientific exploration". I've been using the fully decarbed batch of GD for everything up to this point and we know it works really well, but this is the first I've tried the "raw" or "carbed" batch.

I declare: The non-decarbed version of the freezer method Dragon is as strong and intense as the decarb version.

I used 12 drops of the "raw" GD in my cup of coffee this morning. I had not eaten or drank or smoked any other mind altering substance and had an empty stomach. On a previous occasion, I used 8 drops of my standard strength GD and used more this time because this 7g recipe as is runs about .5g per fluid ounce weaker, so I added a few extra drops.

BKS states that in an alcohol tincture, if you don't decarb then the effects are more of an uplifting, racy, or cerebral, high. Since I had known from previous experience that not decarbing still produced a potent product, I was interested about the different type of buzz, couchlock opposed to cerebral. That was why I waited so long, so that I could tell if that was true.

From what I can tell, it may be a little more enegetic than the decarbed batch in a titrated dose. The strain of marijuana is going to make a difference there, too. I will probably do a little more side by side comparison in different settings to fully determine that question. What I do know is that the buzz is extremely pleasant and has been going on for a good while now.

I think that the only occasion where a more energetic high might be a negative is if you are using a full sativa. For some people that could cause an increase in anxiety. For a strain that has a fair amount of indica, like Blue Widow, the added cerebral effects is quite nice. The pain relief is there but the couchlock is reduced.

So, I'm not saying not to decarb. What I hoped to show here is that it isn't absolutely needed for this method. If you're in a stealth situation where you can't decarb because of the smell, you can still make your GD and not worry about it being a failure. By not decarbing, there will be no pot smell permeating throughout the house or dorm.

Before I decided to run no-decarb experiment, I was helping someone use mids in a stealth situation-kids in the house. I was having him use a can in the sun. I even did a walk thru of my own by taking some of my recent trim and putting it in a little Whitman's Sampler chocolate box for a couple of hours in my car. The trim was dry but springy from internal moisture so you could tell if the decarb was working. After 2 hours, my trim was nice and crispy/crunchy just like it would have been from the oven. Unfortunately, my friend has disappeared online and I haven't been able to get an update from him.

So, what I've shown here is only that you don't have to decarb in order to get a potent, quality Green/Gold Dragon alcohol tincture. If you can decarb, do so but don't fret it. This conclusion is only applicable to this GD freezer method at this time.

Update 9/26/12: I'm getting ready to make some honey and fudge from the "raw" batch so that I can determine any difference in the type of buzz. More later.

Update: Tests have shown that a non-decarbed GD will naturally decarb over a 4 month period when stored at room temperature.

 

That is a great idea, cannabutterking! That would cut down on that chlorophyll. I've used that for smoke that hadn't been flushed well but the thought never occurred to me for this. Thanks. I've got a little of that trim left but no smoke so I'm probably going to use it to toke, but the next batch I'll do a pictorial about water curing as a means to remove the chlorophyll. Not many folks know about that and how effective it is in removing unwanted gunk. I'll put that on my "to do" list.

 

I'm not sure how that happens, either. I have been wondering. It would be nice to have it available to folks without a lot of searching. We'll see.

 

Thanks, Xproject. It's part of that Pisces thing, I think.

 

This will be one of the projects for my next batch which I hope will be in a couple of weeks. I've been eyeing it for a while and now have an excuse to do it.

Butterly Love: Add Culinary Flair to Cannabutter |

In the next couple of days I'll have some glycerin transfer and some fudge, I think.