Tincture attempt question

Hi, Dirtygainz. I see the problem. If you're using standard 40%, 80 proof, liquor then you're going to have to add a lot more vodka to get it to finally go into solution. You can use it to extract as long as you have enough volume and then evaporate it down to the goo without any problem but it doesn't work in reverse. You evaporate the water when extracting until it's gone but you're adding more water back to it when reconstituting.

It takes a certain ratio of alcohol to cannabis oil to keep it together and when that ratio drops you start getting the separation. Unfortunately, the only way I can say for sure will work is to evaporate it again and then use at least a 151 proof alcohol or higher. I can't tell you how much more vodka to add for it to clear up but it's going to be pretty dilute. Heating it to get it to blend just evaporates off more alcohol and defeats the purpose.

If you don't want to evaporate it down again you may be able to make it more potent if you can start adding some higher proof alcohol. It will still be diluted but not as bad as the 80 proof vodka.

It can still be used as it is if you don't mind shaking it up before every use to get it dispersed. It's still cannabis oil.

 

Found this forum while looking up "black dots" appearing in my tincture during evap, and this seems to have opened up some new ideas, so I had to join and further my journey into making homemade tinctures.

That being said, I have a number of questions from what I've been reading throughout a number of your posts... I hope it's ok to hop in here, or I can create/copy/paste to a new dedicated thread.


Background

I'm using Everclear 151 for my extraction and I understand that there is more water which results in quicker separation of the oils, high water content, and a more difficult evap process if you want to take it down to the black oil/sludge. Everclear 151 is the highest alcohol that I can get, so that's what I have to work with.

For context, I decarbed my bud (in this case a home grown batch that is not high quality, but I know that it "works" from some quicks tests with my vaporizer), then mixed with alcohol (didn't do the dry freeze step, I will next time), I left it for two weeks shaking every day (next time I plan for no more than 5 days), then strained, and bottled (only did one rinse). From there I did some tests but it was too weak, hence the step to evaporate.

Without doing any reduction, I found that I could feel some effects with as little as 4 drops (approximately 0.2 ml) but I didn't really notice increased effects by taking more, up to 16 drops at once (approximately 0.8 ml). So that had me questioning the effects and whether or not I was experiencing placebo! After all this is homegrown bud and probably not high THC. I would also say that when taking that much at once, probably a fair amount ends up being ingested, thus taking longer for onset which is not my objective as I'm not a big fan of the effects of edibles.

From the guides I had read, they said you could increase potency (and reduce burn) by doing some evap, but they didn't mention anything about the blacks dots appearing, at least not this early, probably because the guides use 181 proof. I had read about creating FECO but just wasn't expecting the oils to show up as they did. I've been recording and measuring everything as I go, and during my second evap test the black dots started to appear around 22.5% of reduction of liquid by weight.

To evaporate off the water, I put my jars (60 ml each) in a cabinet along with a small dehumidifier running 24/7. I was pretty happy with how fast it took out all the alcohol and water. It took ~2 days but was little to no effort and required no heating which presumably keeps the delicate medicines intact.


Questions:

Ok, so now that the context is out of the way, here are my questions! Rather than submit many posts, I figured it would be best to try and list them all at once, I hope that is ok.

• What is the point of reconstituting the evaporated the oil with alcohol? After spending the time and effort to evaporate the alcohol and water off, I don't understand why the step to re-add the alcohol you just evaporated off... is it because you can add back in less alcohol and make a stronger tincture overall? Is it because it produces a cleaner flavor? All of the above? Any other reason/s?
  
  
• When you reconstitute the oil with alcohol, I've seen people talk about using vodka... Does it matter what alcohol that you use? Obviously lower percentage alcohol requires more volume thus reducing the strength. Would that be the only difference? Is there any other pros or cons to what you use?
  
  
• Presumably if reconstituting with Everclear 151 I would be able to use less alcohol and therefore higher strength... but will that yield a lot of burn? Frankly, I'm willing to live with the burn if it means using far fewer drops... my objective is to take it sublingually and currently it's not easy to keep 20+ drops under your tongue.
  
  
• Is there a good way to determine how much alcohol to use for the reconstituting step? Like if I know how much oil I have by weight...? Or do you just trial by error and add a bit more as you go?
  
  
• I know that the oils sold in stores do not really work sublingually, presumably because of the carrier oil being used, and the size of the molecules. Will the FECO that I've create work if taken sublingually rather than reconstituting?
  
  
• I've read that tinctures should be stored in a cool dark place... is it ok to store them in a refrigerator?
  
  
• Similarly, would it be ok to store FECO in a refrigerator?
  
  
• I yielded several 60 ml bottles and thus far only evaporate a few of them... Is it best to leave the ones that I'm not currently using at full alcohol strength during dormant storage or would it be better to reduce them and then store?

Again, I apologize for the lengthy post but I figured this would be the best approach to lay it all out on the table

Super stoked to have come across this forum, and I'm hoping to hone in some skills and techniques now that I'm here.

 

This is the guide I would have referred you to and it would have saved you some time. Detailed Reduction & Concentration Guide w/video for 151 Proof Green Dragon

There is no reason to reconstitute it with alcohol unless you want a tincture. That's usually the reason people start to make it so you would add however much alcohol you want. If you want oil then you would reconstitute it with mct or coconut or any other oil of your choosing. But if you're okay with RSO then you can leave it just like it is.

More volume needed is the only thing that I can think of which does dilute it considerably. I might leave it a little wet if using 80 proof vodka to help it dissolve in better.

If you want to use it sublingually then I suggest that you put your dose in a shot glass of water and swish in your mouth as long as you can before swallowing or just put it in your coffee/tea/beverage. Oils aren't too good for sublingual application but mct with lecithin works somewhat. If you want just feco you could put it in a capsule or rub it on your gums. It's not quite as bioavailable but will work okay.

If you plan on keeping your product for a while then you should refrigerate it. I would reduce it all at once so you don't have too much loss from all those bottles instead of just a one time cleanup.

 

Thanks. This is great. Watched the whole thing, watched, listened, and read via captions to make sure I got it all.

To be clear, it is tincture as soon as you strain it off correct, it's just not concentrated? Tincture meaning that it's completely dissolved in liquid.

I was confused by this process initially because I couldn't understand why you would evaporate off all the alcohol, only to add it back in. I see now that you add back in much less alcohol than you use for the extraction. I was under the impression that the reduced oil would not dissolve into a smaller amount of alcohol added during reconstitution, and that you' would have to add back the same amount.

I understand now that the reason the oil starts to separate during evaporation is because of the proportion of water to alcohol during evaporation, which is unique to 151 due to the added water content which cause the oil to separate much earlier in the evap process.

Presumably with 181 you can evaporate off more alcohol before you start to see separation, and therefore with 181 you can achieve a stronger post-evap tincture without having to take it as far as doing a complete evaporation and reconstitution, but if you want to get really strong tincture, you'd still have to do these extra steps? Or can you actually evaporate off a lot more when using 181 or 190 proof to the point that you don't need to do the extra steps?

Having watched the video, you answered another one of my questions which was how much alcohol to use for reconstitution? For 7g of bud, you used a total of 7 ounces of alcohol (3.5 ounces for the initial extraction followed by 3.5 ounce rinse), but then for the reconstitution you only used 1 ounce. So 7g of bud extracted and reduced to oil requires about 1 ounce of 151 to dissolve back into liquid (or 1.5 or 0.5). And therefore your final product would be approximately 10 times stronger than the initial tincture produced (a bit less due lose of alcohol soaked up in the bud.)

I thought that RSO was oil extracted using isopropyl, while FECO is extraction using alcohol. I just looked it up, and it would appear that QUISO is what you get from isopropyl while RSO is what you get from using ethanol, and I'm guessing that both are considered to be FECO products?

Good to know. It sounds like evap all the way to oil and then reconstitute with a smaller amount of alcohol to create a higher concentrated tincture is what I'm after. I want something stronger than what I have, but I definitely want to be able to consume in sublingually.

Good point... I didn't know that the initial tincture would be so diluted and so weak, even though I used 50g of my bud. Seems like your process is more efficient and more effective. I am looking forward to trying it this way, start to finish, with some better quality bud.

I suppose if the final product gets reconstituted, it's still going to be dissolved in alcohol so it should keep for a long time. Conversely by taking my initial tincture and evaporating off some of the alcohol without doing the extra steps would result in a lower alcohol liquid with proportionally more water which could be more susceptible to degradation.

Sweet. I feel much more informed now. Thank you for the response and for the video link. Can't wait to try this again.

 

Yes, it could be considered "tincture" as soon as it's strained. Tinctures are in liquid form and generally dispensed with droppers.

Qwiso isn't considered "feco" because it is a quick wash and normally used for toking. You can make a feco out of it but then your material is decarbed and uses a longer soak. You do not want to use iso unless you are going to completely purge it.

With high proof alcohol, 190 and even 181, you don't have to evaporate all the alcohol then reconstitute. It will not separate. 181 will eventually do that if you need to reduce it more than 3/4 or so. If you get to the point with 181 where you're starting to see the black spots you can stop reducing it and add a few drops or ml of fresh alcohol to it until they go back into solution. That would be as far as you could go with potency unless you finished it and then reconstituted with a lower volume.

Your initial tincture is going to be very dilute because of all the alcohol you're using to extract. That's why the need for the reduction. How far you take that reduction depends on your tolerance.

Normally when I do a 7g extraction I use 6oz although there may still be some references to the old 7oz, 3.5 each then for the guide I recommend reducing that 6oz to 2oz. It used to be half but I decided to just make it stronger for modern beginners. My personal tolerance requires me to reduce that 7g batch to 1oz of GD. It just goes to show how the potency can be modified to your needs. That, indeed, is strong.

 

Hi PSam, been reading a few of these threads and watched your videos on green dragon.

I’m keen to make some FECO suitable for ecig/vape, and I’ve heard different things about whether it’s best to use isopropyl or ethanol for such use.. one is for RSO and the other for ISO right?

My plan was to reduce tincture down to the FECO and then mix with VG & PG, is this safe to ingest by vape?

Many thanks


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They're actually one in the same. The original Rick Simpson oil used different solvents that are now considered not safe.

Now people use the term feco, or full extract concentrate, for alcohol extracts using both iso and ethanol. But it's common to hear either terms for the same thing.

Ethanol is generally considered safer for a one pass at home extraction.

Not sure if I can help you make a vape safe concentrate, but I know some cut feco with terpenes to thin it out for carts. But that's not in my wheelhouse.

 

Use 190 proof Ever Clear. Two reasons. One if you don't completely purge it it's not big deal.
Two, You can mix Tincture into PG_VG with far better success than you'll get trying to blend reduced Tar into PG.
You don't even have to reduce the Alcohol from the Glycerin as it's safe to inhale vaporized drinking grade Alcohol.

BNW

 

As MIW said above, they can both be used for that but you need to be sure the iso is purged well for your own peace of mind if for no other reason. I'm not sure you want to use vg/pg for your cartridge. They don't mix well at all. I tried all that years ago and gave up but since then there have been some improvements in the process. Again as MIW mentioned, terpenes are the way to use feco that way. They act as solvents. There should be some guides out there that can point the way. Good luck with that.

 

In my country i'm unable to obtain Everclear Grain Alcohol which is 95%, I can only get 99.9% isopropyl or Ethanol (90%+), is one better than another do we know? I think i can import Everclear but it's 4x the price of the former options.

 

Any very high proof, clear, drinkable grade Alcohol works. "EverClear" is just the most label friendly one we use.
Ethanol is the choice. Ethyl Alcohol is the drinkable one
Isopropyl is Toxic, Blinding, Deadly.

BNW

 

This is what i've ordered, says 'denatured' which i'm unsure about. Thoughts?

 

Is there a way to figure how many mg per drop?

 

Apologies i did not see this before my subsequent post asking for the difference. thanks for the help, just to clarify, when you say 'some cut feco with terpenes to thin it out' what does this mean? I thought terpenes were the crystals on the buds that you wash off into the alcohol? Many thanks

 

You don't want that. You're better off with the 99% iso as long as you make RSO with it. They've poisoned denatured ethanol to keep people from drinking it.

 

No, terpenes are just compounds made by the plant and those are located in the trichomes along with the cannabinoids. It's the trichomes that are the "crystals" and the terpenes are just one component. They can be extracted and used for various things including solvents.

 

If you know your starting potency then you can figure your dosage per drop. Just a little math.

 

Thanks for the advice Sam, little confused now to be honest. Heard that Isopropyl is deadly and poisonous?? Are you saying if i reduce it fully, it will be safe?

 

Look up the definition of denatured... He's saying what you ordered is not suitable, it is worse than ISO, not that you should use ISO.

 

There's a lot of discussion about isopropyl. A lot of people use it for extraction. It is bad for you if you ingest it like in a tincture but not so much if you evaporate it all off for RSO. "Denatured" alcohol has had poison specifically added to it and could be deadly. Stay away from that.

Rick Simpson, the creator of RSO, used iso. You just need to be sure that it's purged well. If you want tincture then you would add your drinking alcohol to it for that. Most of us prefer not to use iso but it's not the end of the world.