Tincture, Revisited

zymos · Nov 26, 2007

Here's my latest experiment-
4 grams high quality trim (about 1/2 actual bits of bud,the rest crystally bud leaves) in 8 oz organic 190 proof grain alcohol.
I let it it sit a couple of weeks,shaking ocasionally, then pressed it in an herb press, recovering virtually all the alcohol.

In a mason jar with the lid sitting on top but not screwed on, I put it in a pot of water and brought to a boil. When the tincture itself started boiling (around 170 F) I let it go for about 15 minutes.Volume was reduced slightly, but I didn't boil off all that much.

Mixed 2 TBS (= 1 fluid oz, so around 1/2 gm of weed) in some water with a splash of lemon, and drank on a fairly empty stomach. Started feeling something in around an hour, and was definitely high in 2 hrs. Got a medium buzz-nothing too intense. I'll probably double the dose next time. Note I have a pretty low tolerance for a regular toker.

The tincture, both before and after boiling, has what looks like trichomes that settle out to the bottom, like a thin layer of sand. Perhaps the alcohol is saturated? I don't think I'd want to make it with a higher proportion of alcohol, since an adaquate dose would then equal 2-3 strong drinks.

Plenty more trim, so next up, butter...!

Nubie Biatch · Nov 28, 2007

Follow the butter brick road! I think cannabutter is tops! It really is my favorite way to ingest THC. It will only take a single cookie, brownie, or whatever to get you blazed out of your mind. :canabis:

Papulz · Nov 28, 2007

imo you have no need to soak for 2 weeks, i usually make my tinctures in an hour or so.. however i am a huge fan of them, and favor them over edibles on many occasions due to the speed of medication that a tincture brings... its also rather indiscreet and many times less of a taste issue than with ganja food if that is an obstacle.

ive been thinking about possibly making a large batch of tincture something like a pint maybe.. i just dont know how long it would remain viable for.

zymos · Nov 28, 2007

Papulz said:
imo you have no need to soak for 2 weeks,

No doubt- I just let it sit around till I felt like pressing it...

boroboro · Nov 28, 2007

I made a tincture recently, using ISO oil and Bacardi 151. Unfortunately I didn't measure how much ISO oil I used. Volume-wise it could have been about 6 - 10 pea size balls (1 cm balls).

Added the ISO oil to 750 ml of Bacardi 151. I got all the oil out of the container by soaking it in the Bacardi -- it's an excellent solvent! Heated the entire bottle for about 30 minutes, not quite boiling the alcohol. Not boiling it down, just trying to cover my bases a bit in case there is something to the heating/decarboxylization/activation thing.

1 - 1.5 capfuls of this tincture keeps me happy for most of the evening. I do have a low tolerance, though...

I also see a similar settling / sediment layer at the bottom if the bottle sits still for a day. Shaking the bottle for a 5-10 seconds mixes it back up, and it seems to stay in suspension for hours and hours.

So far it's my favorite cannabis ingestion method

zymos · Nov 28, 2007

boroboro said:
So far it's my favorite cannabis ingestion method

Much as I enjoy drinking alcohol in various forms, I can't see this replacing a quick toke or 2!

boroboro · Nov 29, 2007

I get pretty paranoid about the smell from smoking, since I spend a lot of time, day and night, around people who shouldn't know about my preferences. With a strong tincture mix the amount of alcohol is pretty low, maybe 1/4 of a shot for me.

Deft · Dec 12, 2007

Trying it for the first time, mixed up 50ml of Gin and Chronic

I felt something right away, different from smoking, I gulped it down and immediately all the stress in my face dissapeared.. was very nice, like all the tension just vanished a split second after shooting it. Something is going on but its being slow, I might mix up another 50ml of the chronic and tonic in a few hours if this doesn't get better by then.

Ohh and the trichs are suspended in the alky, looks weird.

GET MO · Jun 3, 2008

I made some tincture last year, I filled a masson jar with good shake and then everclear. I let it sit for 2 months, shaking every other day. then I strained it and let it sit open so some of the alcohol could evaporate.
I remember the first tilme I tested it I was playin gears of war online, sippin on a little wine glass half full. after an hour I didnt know what the fuck I was doin, I was lost, I had to go pick up my girl from work too, I was fucked up. after that a poored it in the little medicine dripper bottles, everyone loved it, tasted hella nasty though so I added honey... Next time Im gonna heat it up...

HeresTheDank · Jun 4, 2008

Haha, glad i saw this thread. One of of my good buddies got a big ass mason jar full of this stuff. It was put in 151, adn however it was made thats what was used. He'd sell a vile(not sure how its spelled, like a vile to shoot liquid) with it to sell for 20 bucks for the whole shot, or these mini things for 5 bucks. id get like 2 of the mini things n get a nice ass body high/buzz. The one time i took a whole shot thing of it, damn i was high beyond belief

nightowl · Dec 9, 2008

I was just wondering if anyone had a good recipe for canna-vodka? Does it really need to be heated or does the alcohol absorb without needing to be heated? Does it need to be overproof alcohol? And what do you use to strain it? I mean, if I use a coffee filter, are some trichs gonna get lost in the filter? I just have this half litre of svedka and pile of frosty leaves in front of me giving me ideas. I've reached some good results with my butter, I've even been accused of putting hallucinogens in my baked goods, but they call for sooo much butter, it's so fattening...

aeburnside · Dec 9, 2008

nightowl said:
I was just wondering if anyone had a good recipe for canna-vodka? Does it really need to be heated or does the alcohol absorb without needing to be heated? Does it need to be overproof alcohol? And what do you use to strain it? I mean, if I use a coffee filter, are some trichs gonna get lost in the filter? I just have this half litre of svedka and pile of frosty leaves in front of me giving me ideas. I've reached some good results with my butter, I've even been accused of putting hallucinogens in my baked goods, but they call for sooo much butter, it's so fattening...

1. Vodka might be too weak to extract a lot of the goodies from the trim. Using the highest proof you can find will definitely help with extraction.
2. Heat will also help to extract the cannabinoids from the leaves faster and more efficiently.
3. Your extracting the chemicals from the trichomes, not the trichomes from the leaf, so filtering it isn't as big a problem as with bubble hash. Just making sure to get all of your alcohol out of the leaf matter by squeezing it.

grumio · Dec 11, 2008

I use the toe of a nylon stocking to strain, fitted over a fine-mesh metal strainer. I press it with a lime juicer. Quite convenient.

I've only used the hot method, & it has worked fantastically well every time. Takes about an hour.

I have, though, apparently ruined a coffee grinder that I used to grind the bud. I use the alcohol (151 Everclear) to rinse the grinder base & lid after grinding.

The last time I made a batch, the grinder blade was just about frozen. I've been making the stuff for almost a year.

Time for a new grinder, I guess. But using the alcohol to clean it is important - you can see the trichs left all over after you grind.

GET MO · Dec 21, 2008

how do you heat the bud up before enclosing it with the alcohol? do you heat up the alcohol too?

grasspass · Feb 28, 2009

I used to cook the chopped up herb for 5 minutes at 300f to activate the thc. before putting in alcohol. The last batch I forgot to cook and it works just fine for my arthritis pain. I'm not going to cook it anymore because I read that CBD evaporates at 150f . I want more than just thc. Now I'm just going to put it in 190 proof for 4 weeks then use it.

grasspass · Feb 28, 2009

If you want to use tincture to get high cook the herb 5 minutes at 300f before putting it in the drinkable alcohol. For pain in my joints it seems like I don't have to cook it. Uncooked you won't get as high. If I wanted to get high I would just smoke it. Both at the same isn't so bad either. :abduct:

grasspass · Apr 18, 2009

Ok , after more experimenting. Heating the herb before putting it in the alcohol is a necessary step for tincture. 320 F, 6 minutes seems to be working best. Over 320 F is too hot.

SouthernGuerila · May 14, 2009

I just let my herb sit in everclear for a short while, less than a day. Strained out the buds, added to 1oz bottles and diluted about 40/60% water/everclear.

I liked to do about 1teaspoon, slightly intense but I'd be so mellow and content.

Gray Wolf · May 14, 2009

zymos said:
The tincture, both before and after boiling, has what looks like trichomes that settle out to the bottom, like a thin layer of sand. Perhaps the alcohol is saturated? ..!

Your 8 oz of Everclear is no where near saturation and it is most likely is the material you see on the bottom is the stuff that was finer than your filter.

I rough filter through panty hose and then a permanent metal coffee type filter, but always follow up with a paper coffee filter before cooking and while the liquid is still thin. I find that I lose too much resin if I wait until it is more concentrated to final filter.

Your mix contains enough just alcohol to get a buzz, so you might consider reducing it by boiling. It doesn’t take much alcohol to suspend the extracted oil.

If you are boiling in a canning jar, just put a 1/8” NPT bulkhead fitting in a jar lid and you can even recover the alcohol to use again by making a cheap ice water condenser out of some tubing and a pan of ice water.

Get the jar up off the bottom of the pan using a stack or lids or something to isolate it.

I also recommend that you forget about cold ethanol extraction and either do it hot, or do a pre extraction with petroleum.

I make alcohol tinctures in various forms for a MMJ program using 190 proof Everclear. Two drops in its most potent form is typically enough to medicate a patient orally, and painted on a rolling paper and allowed to flash off, it changes ordinary smoking herb into two toke super weed.

The cold ethanol extraction process that you are experimenting with doesn’t extract all the cannabinoids short of days of processing and also extracts the plant waxes, vegetable oil, pureens, water, etc.

I don't know about you, but the combination tastes super greeeeeeen to me and the patients in the testing panel.

If you will cook the herb for about thirty minutes and decant and reserve the liquid about four times, and then reduce that wash the point that when you swirl it, it leaves green roily material on the side of the jar, it will produce a rather tasty and distinctive floral berry flavor at about two dropper (not drops) full per 8 ounces of a Frappuccino drink, but will burn the end of your tongue and leave a bitter aftertaste if ingested sublingually.

That after taste moves us on to the next step, and that is how to get rid of that gawwwwwd awful greeeeeen chlorophyll essence of cow pie flavor. While cooking it boils off the pureens and breaks down the chlorophyll, it is still bitter in concentration and stains badly when used as a topical.

You can soak the plant material in warm water and squeeze it out several times, but besides being a pain, it also washes away some of the trichomes.

Aging the material will also break down the chlorophyll, but the most effective way that I have found is to just start with kief or bubble hash. Most of the plant material is gone that contains chlorophyll, so it becomes pretty much a non issue. I just boil the hash in Everclear, filter it, and reduce down the liquid the same as if I had used plant material.

That is how I produce the concentrated infused Good-Night-Irene oil tinctures for a cancer project that is typically a two drops to sleepy time medication. I infuse the oil from 28 grams of bubble hash into 100 milliliters of menstruum oil like sesame or almond.

Far more popular than the above Good-Night-Irene infused oils, are the speedy alcohol suspended tinctures that I first extract using butane or hexane and then re-dissolve in Everclear, before cooking back down to a super saturated solution.

Most of the 190 proof is gone, so it can be used sublingually without ulcerating your mouth and leaves no chlorophyll aftertaste, so it can also be used to improve whatever your drink of choice is, without adding eau de barnyard flavoids.

It makes the fastest topical delivery I have found yet and when painted on rolling paper and allowed to flash, it leaves the paper transparently amber, with a delightfully potent oily film, which imparts a pleasant flavor, with a lowered cough index.

Gray Wolf

ICETOKER · May 15, 2009

the sediment is trichome sticks, not heads cos they will be dissolved in the alcahol but the stalks will not!!!!!

Tincture, Revisited

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