Curiosity has the best of me. Has anyone made an alcohol tincture and then either evaporated the alcohol or somehow replaced the alcohol with oil or vegetable glycerin? As certain oils can lose their beneficial properties when heated, this seems like a way get a tincture more quickly and effectively than letting it sit in the dark for a month to not heat the oil. Can an alcohol tincture be totally evaporated? It seems it would be pretty easy to just mix the remainder with oil if this is the case. Before suggestions come in, most heated oils give me bowel problems and I can't consume any alcohol.
Your post is a bit confusing. "Has anyone made an alcohol tincture and then evaporated the alcohol" -Yes, this is called hash oil. To be truly considered an oil, a small amount of alcohol is left in to keep the viscosity low. Made with Isopropyl Alcohol, it's called ISO Hash. Although, "tinctures" are supposed to be made with Ethanol, which I prefer using. Evaporating all of the solvent creates a goo similar to resin but light in color. Dry Alcohol hash should have a short curing time to allow all of the solvent trapped inside the goo to evaporate before storage.
^just to footnot that excellent post-Do you know why you are intolerant of "heated oils"? The specifics of this condition may be helpful in determining your optimal method of ingestion.
I don't know why I don't digest heated oils well. I do fine if I stick with unheated olive oil or something similar. Ideally I'd like to make a mix with olive oil that's more diluted than straight hash so I can put a few drops on something and eat it. My idea was to make an alcohol tincture, evap the alcohol, and mix an uncooked oil in, such as olive oil. That way I could dilute the tincture down a bit and use it on food. Is this efficient? I've read a number of conflicting guides on alcohol tinctures and glycerine tinctures so I'm kind of confused...
Honestly, as uncommon as eating THC is (relative to smoking), it seems strange that someone who has problems eating oils would try doing it more. To eat pot, the cannabinoids first need to be absorbed by edible solvents, fats or other oils. So, your olive oil idea can actually work well. You should use grain alcohol of the highest concentration you can get to make the hash oil and leave just enough in to keep the oil liquid. Then, mix it with the olive oil and cook on low heat until all alcohol is evaporated. Leaving some alcohol in the hash oil before cooking will dramatically increase the speed and uniformity of its dispersion throughout the olive oil. edit:Actually, since you'll be evaporating all of the alcohol when mixing it with the olive oil, isopropyl should work just fine. It's more important to use ethyl when you leave some in. Here's some info about making THC ready for consumption: Cooking with Cannabis Science - THC-Extraction - Cannabutter, Cannaoil, and more | Marijuana Cooking, Recipes, Tutorials, Cannabutter, more
I don't digest oils that have been HEATED well. Non heated olive oil is fine. Looks like Iso is the best for this.
My apologies. For some reason I assumed you meant "hot oils," rather than "oils heated in the past." If you completely dry hash oil, it turns into a resin-like goo. I don't think this goo will dissolve in olive oil well, but I could be wrong. If it doesn't, you'll need to leave some alcohol in the oil before mixing. So here's the thing. If you're not going to use any heat to evaporate the alcohol, then after mixing with olive oil it will probably take a long time to do so naturally. Since it can take just a few drops (depending on batch size) to thin the hash, you might be better off just thinning with Ethanol, mixing with olive oil and then using as is. Aside from liquor stores, Ethyl rubbing Alcohol is also sometimes found next to the Isopropyl in grocery, department and pharmacy stores. To make hash oil without heat, you might consider a Butane extraction. Butane boils at room temperature and works much better than cold alcohol. This is my preferred method of hash oil making. Here's a c&p how-to for making a butane extractor: Get ahold of a can of butane, a drill bit the same o.d. as the butane can plastic tip, a drill bit the same size as the i.d. of the plastic tip, a short length (~6") of roughly 5/8" i.d. steel piping with steel caps for both ends. Place each cap in a vice threads-down and drill all the way through the very center of each with the smaller drill bit. In one of the caps, bore out the first hole halfway through with the larger bit, creating a step inside the hole. Screw on one of the caps, preferably with a little teflon tape, and tighten down permanently. Fill the tube with bud and screw on the second cap. The tip of the butane can will fit halfway through the stepped hole and stop when it hits the step. Point the other end of the tube at a ceramic or glass bowl and push the can into the tube until it sprays. The butane should fill the tube, dissolve all oils and spray into the plate, where it will boil at room temperature and evaporate. Stop spraying when very little to no oil is coming out and it starts spitting little fibers out. The resulting goo is unthinned hash oil. Very nice stuff. Cooling the tube before use helps keep the butane liquid while inside.
Hi, I realize this is from a very old thread. I have a bunch of dragon I made from 190 proof grain alcohol and lots and lots of kief. I loosely guesstimate it to be 1000 mgs of THC per 30ml (I don't know how to measure thc dosage (but would like to know); this estimate is based on a previous med my friend used; the maker said it was 1000 mg thc per 30ml). My friend wants a dragon (or something) with around 5000 mg THC per 30 ml (for pain and swollen lymph nodes after a bad reaction to antibiotics, nearly causing her death). My dragon works for her, but she can't stand the alcohol (I suggested she evaporate it in warm water or tea, so will hear back about that). She asked for something made with a light oil but I didn't know if I could make one quick enough, so I thought I'd try glycerine since I have it and it's far tastier than alcohol. I wanted to convert my green dragon to a glycerite, and super potent at guesstimated 5000 mg per 30 ml). I started with 12 oz of green dragon and reduced it to 6 oz. I then added 6 oz glycerine, then reduced most of the ethanol out of it. The oil remained separate from the glycerine. So I evaporated the rest of the ethanol. But it didn't work. I have a huge glop of dark oil sitting on top of the glycerine. The oil is so thick it's basically RSO. (Maybe I should have her try RSO.) Anyway, how do you get yours to emulsify? I'm in the hot seat because she needs it today. Thanks for any help we can get!