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Dragon Lite.....another Tincture Thread

Discussion in 'Weed Edibles' started by PsychedelicSam, May 15, 2013.


  1.  
  2. Wow reposting so it's readable, see toast for brains.

    Hey all, Sam and Brass. I know you guys have some awesome stuff posted, but right now I have toast for brains. Been having some trouble sleeping so I am making a stab at a tincture to help. I have a gram of Grape Ape CO2 that is suppose to be 88 to 92% THC. I decarb'd in a convection oven at 220 for 20 minutes. So my plan is to add 190 proof and bring back up to 168 degrees until completely desolved. Might add a little of natural oil concentrate for flavor.. Just a drop. Question is how much of the ever clear to add and if It needs the 2nd heat or if I can just desolve the decarb wax?
     
  3. Third time's the charm, Robinthecook.

    You're overthinking it a little. I had a video with the easy process but YouTube thought I was a terrorist or something and deleted it after 2 years. It was my most viewed video and I haven't had a chance to do another one yet but you're on the right track.

    When you decarbed, did all the bubbling stop? That's how you'll know that it has decarbed. The CO2 from the carboxyl group forms bubbles as it's released and when the bubbles have stopped, it's ready to ingest. The usual temperature for decarbing concentrates is 240-250°F until those bubbles stop.

    You really don't need to bring your alcohol/wax mix back up to 168° specifically nor that hot. When you add the room temperature 190 alcohol to your decarbed wax, just stir it to get it started into solution then just set it in a pan of hot water and stir it long enough to get it fully into solution.

    I personally like to use an oz of 190 per gram of concentrate. Since yours is 88-92%, it will contain 880-920mg of THC for that oz of tincture. That should be a very potent tincture. :ey:
     
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  4. Thanks so much Sam. That sounds right to me. The "Master Wu" method that I have seen calls for a second heat for 20 min to 168F. It seemed like overkill to me.. Just so long as it desolves. Maybe you need that using cuttings or bud with the heat method.

    The Decarb looked right, as my oven was preheated, and I have tested it with my laser sensor... Love that.. A great cheap tool! I decarbed in a Pyrex cup and the bubbles were all gone. So, I am gonna add my 190 and just warm in the crockpot until it's completely desolves. Let you know tomorrow if it came out good.... If It came out good, I should be too wasted to post tonight.. Lol, believe me I need the sleep!
    :icgreen:
     
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  5. BTW, I have tried many times to watch that video... So sad it was removed. So I decided to go with two ounces of the ever clear once got to thinking a about the 920 mg of THC... I thought two bottles for my first tincture. I'LL start with one drop... Thanks Again!
     
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  6. Okay, I was worried that my decarb was insuffient. This morning my daughted ( a cannabis lightweight ) claims she slept 12 hours after one drop of my tincture. I did two drops and slept 4 hours, woke and did 2 more drops slept 5 hours. I'm gonna say this worked well! Lord knows I needed the sleep..lol

    For my next one, I'm thinking of bringing up the decarb temp, just to make sure. But I liked the tincture method. Easy to make with CO2 oil, and under the tongue is a fast onset. Thanks for the help. Nice to have someone both wise and experienced to call on!
     
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  7. Happy to help although I'm not real sure how "wise" I am. I do have some experience, though. cligner.gif
     
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  8. You know the thing is on a fixed income, I'm always afraid of wasting my expensive and hard to come by medicine. I have no other contacts with other MMJ patients, so just saying how nice to have help! :ladiegaga:
     
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  9. I had the same issues when I started. There was no one to help and being on a fixed income meant that I had to improvise quite a bit. That experience led me to share what I learned with others in the same predicament. A lot has changed in the community since I started and I've tried to keep up with the times. Concentrates make things so much easier now and more cost effective for people like us. :)
     
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  10. #1191 neslex, Mar 27, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2018
    Hi PsychedelicSam,

    This is my first post here. I just want to say thanks for being such a legend and helping everyone along the way. Love that you are still so active almost 6 years after your mega tincture thread.

    I've been making tincture for the last 12 months based off a combination of different guides and trial and error and it's pretty similiar to your methods; however yours does seem more refined.

    I have a couple of questions if that's okay. Sorry if you've answered these.

    Decarb
    • Do you decarb sealed/unsealed? I saw in a video unsealed which was surprising to me as i thought the general consensus was sealed was best.
    • 240f @ 40/45 minutes then straight to freezer?
    Evaporation / Reduction
    • Do you think theres any chance of terpenes or anything of value being lost in the evaporation process? I've tested (not lab, myself and girlfriend) a couple of batches to compare, batch 1: 50% reduction batch 2: no reduction, and whilst there was more burn in batch 2 we found it quite similar in potency, perhaps slightly less but definitely not 50% less potent if that makes sense.

    • The first time I ever tried reducing a few years ago I had the temperature too high/didn’t keep a watchful eye and ended up evaporating way too much; I just feel I could be a bit more scientific here. If alcohol evaporates at ~173f is that the temperature that I should be aiming for within the tincture beaker that’s in the double boiler/rice cooker?
    • I want to use as little alcohol as possible as a bottle of 95% everclear costs over $70 for 500ml in Australia. My next batch I plan to use 60ml for first run and 30ml for second run (to save on costs); do you see anything wrong with this method?
    Misc
    • Again, anecdotal but I've always kept my mason jar in the freezer for ~48 hours and never had a problem with chlorophyll, my tincture is always yellow/golden in hue and tastes amazing, i'm confident this is because it is kept at a very cold temperature. Sam have you tried doing lab tests between 24-48 hours? Perhaps there's no difference, keen to hear your thoughts.

    • Do you think there's any point at all including soy lecithin for alcohol tinctures or is this only relevant for fat soluble versions (MCT/Coconut oil

    Also does anybody know if there's anyway to increase the numbers of posts per page? I want to CTRL + F and search for keywords rather than looking through page by page.
     
  11. #1192 PsychedelicSam, Mar 27, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2018
    Howdy, neslex. I hope things are well down under. I'm glad to have been a help for so long but I don't know about that "legend" stuff. I'm just a guy.

    I'll be happy to go over your points and give you my take for what it's worth. Here goes.


    I decarb unsealed. I don't have any need to keep it sealed. It doesn't retain anything other than moisture and moisture isn't good for the tincture. However, I have tested a sealed jar in the oven at 240° for 45 minutes and got a full decarb with no degradation. 60 minutes started to degrade the THC to CBN. Sealed or unsealed is up to you but the time/temp is the same. Then it goes directly into the freezer unless it's moist then an air dry might be in order.

    If you decarbed you won't need to worry about losing terpenes to the reduction process. The heat of the decarb is much higher than the evaporation and most of the terpenes are gone by that time. The few remaining are safe at that lower temperature. If you want to retain your terpenes then you would do a natural decarb over the course of 4 months it takes to cure. For that I use a natural evaporation instead of heat.

    I don't know what to tell you about batch #1 and #2. There could be all kinds of reasons for your experience but I haven't had that same response. When I first started I did try the first run and the second run and then the combined, before the lab tests, and while the results for me as a new recruit were surprising, all the unreduced versions were very inferior to the final reduction.

    It's good to keep a watchful eye on your reduction. Once the volume starts getting low it will go very quickly and turn to RSO if you're not careful. You can always add some fresh alcohol to get it to the ratio you wanted. Your alcohol isn't going to get hotter than 173°F and you can use boiling water for the bath but don't let the water get in the beaker.

    At that price for the alcohol I would be stingy with it, too. You haven't said what the batch size is so I don't know what to recommend for that. You should have a good cover of the material for both runs and you won't need as much for the second one because the material absorbed alcohol from the first one and won't soak up more. The more alcohol you use the better your extraction.

    I haven't done any comparison tests for the soak time and don't see a need for it. Anything extracted during that extra time is going to be other plant compounds and not the cannabinoids. Those are extracted within a few seconds after mixed with the alcohol. Lab tests don't test for those other compounds. I've left jars for a couple of days before. The extra time might not make much difference with buds but trim definitely seems to get greener.

    I don't recommend lecithin for your alcohol tincture. It's not a good mix.

    I hope this has helped. You can use the search box to search the thread for the keywords you're looking for. Select "Advanced" and go from there. I use it for my long thread all the time or else I'd never find my way around in there. :rolleyes:
     
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  12. With Ethanol costs being so high it may be worth it for you to get your cannabis concentrated (dry Ice Hash, BHO etc) and then only use a small amount of ethanol.
     
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  13. Very good point! 190 proof works well with concentrates. If there was only 151 proof available as in my case, it’s better to stick with natural buds. Also! You get much more THC in a gram of concentrate vs flower.


    Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
     
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  14. Hey all! Thought I'd let you know how pleased I am with my simple tincture. When I first starting treating with MMJ, vaping was recommended by my pain Dr. The problem with that is I live in Florida so unless you're a six month fatal..... No THC for you. Now while I do believe in CBD for many issues, including the anxiety I deal with, pain issues call for good old THC. While my Dr. Is willing to get me a card, last time I checked it cost $175, every six weeks to maintain my prescription to legally buy over priced CBD oil only. Sooooo, after a long search I found a source for CO2 oil .... So grateful for compassionate people. I have to say that the MMJ community as a whole is full of kind people.

    So my experiments are all about finding better ways of dosing and with CO2. Reading about you're tinctures are inspiring! I love the fast onset which gives more control for my sleep problems. I see more tinctures in my future! Sorry for the short rant, but for me one of the hardest things is how the law isolates us from the support that we need for fear of legal ramifications. Don't know about you, but my health is way too poor to survive jail! I kind of want to lol.... But it just ain't funny!
     
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  15. Concentrates have provided a lot of new options that weren't previously available. They've made consistent and more economical dosing available to a lot more people. You can do a lot of things with your CO2 extract besides tincture. The exact same technique is used for infusing oil for caps or recipes or butter or other things. I just made some homemade chocolate with shatter that was great. The only limit is your imagination. dragon (2015_10_01 04_32_03 UTC).gif
     
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  16. Thanks for your helpful response Sam. With decarbing / freezing and mixing the herb with alcohol do you ever break / cut it up or leave them whole? Does it matter? Keen to get your thoughts as I've read mixed things
     
  17. I used to do a coarse grind in a mini-food processor before decarb but I don't do that anymore. There's a loss of trichomes from the grinding plus it opens more surface area to oxidation so I've stopped doing that. I did some lab testing on whole but decarb and found that whole bud decarbed just as well as coarsely ground at 240°F for 40 minutes. I don't decarb large buds while whole, though, especially if they're dense. I break them by hand into smaller budlets before they go in the oven or jar.

    They're really crisp when finished and I just put them in the jar whole and put it in the freezer. When I pour in the cold alcohol, I just crush the buds in the jar with a spat. You lose none of the trichomes by doing that. If you shake the jar of buds while it sits in the freezer you'll be able to see the brittle trichomes falling off and gathering on the sides of the jar. :)
     
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  18. Hey there! Thanks for the amazing recipe; everything is currently in the freezer. Just a question I could not find an answer to:

    How much of the filtering is really neccesary? Does leaving plant material impact the potency negatively or does it have any drawbacks im missing except taste and chloro in the dragon?

    Just asking since I have a mesh coffee filter on the way and dont mind a bit of plant material in my products; hoped to avoid excessive filtering with the coffee filters; seems they would soak up quite a bit of dragon too? Was planning to filter using just a mesh kitchen filter and then through a thin tshirt maybe?
     
  19. Howdy, james6262, and thanks for joining in.

    You don't have to filter it real fine at all. That's completely up to you. For your final filter, whether it's a paper filter or a t-shirt, you can wet it with fresh alcohol first then pour your solution through it. The wet paper or cloth will keep your GD from absorbing into it like it would if it were dry. :)
     
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