Alcohol Tincture

[DuckLucky]

Hello,

I am in the process of making an alcohol tincture. I am a brewer, so the idea is to add the tincture to beer...

I just want to make sure that alcohol tinctures are effective when consumed in beverages instead of being administered sublingually?

NOW CRITIQUE MY METHOD!

I used 94% tasteless alcohol from my local liquor store.

1-Grind 7G of dried purple power plant bud
2-Bake at 300F for 4 minutes
3-Prepare bath of boiling water
4-Pour 4 oz (~100ml) of alcohol into glass jar, with an open lid
5-Lower glass jar into hot water bath, and heat the alcohol to a temperature of 150-165F
6-Add weed, maintain temperatue at 150-165F for 20 minutes
7-Strain weed
8-Add ~200ml of hot water to the alcohol
9-Raise alcohol/water/weed mixture to 185F, until all of the alcohol has boiled off (do not bring to boil, keeps temps <100C)
this process took me about an hour, at which point I the alcohol was no longer visibly boiling.
10-refrigerate
11-Siphon green waste water from the jar leaving resin residue on bottom of jar.
12-Add small amount of alcohol to dissolve resin residue.

Anything wrong with my method here? In the future I would repeat steps 10 and 11 for a total of 3-4 rinses.

This method is supposed to extract the thc, and refine it. The tannins and nasty weed flavour stays in the water, but the thc falls to the bottom.... It took about 60 minutes of maintaining the alcohol/water mixture at 170F - 185F before there was no longer any visible boiling of alcohol.

 

[eloquentsoution]

do check the cannabis resin thread. search for graywolf processes used at skunk pharm research if you want a scientific process.

sounds like you are trying to make a concentrate rather then a tincture. never seen and alcohol extraction done quite like that, boiling with water. you can eliminate the need for water by using a quick wash rather then a refluxed type of process. it sure eliminates a lot of work plus produces a fine product.

 

[darklands]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but this method sounds incredibly complex and time consuming. Instead of adding water to the alcohol mixture as a way to remove chlorophyll and other water solubles, I think you'd be better off starting with kif or powdered hash instead of bud. If you don't have access to kif, then a quick wash of chopped, decarbed bud in a small amount of Everclear (just enough alcohol to cover the bud) yields a potent tincture without any boiling or reducing.

I find that decarbing at 300 degrees F for four minutes is effective. Preheat the oven to 300, then turn it off before inserting the weed/kif.

 

[darklands]

One more word of advice to DuckLucky: The resins in tincture are extremely sticky and will adhere to all surfaces, so if you intend to add tincture to your beer during the brewing process, be prepared to lose a lot of it inside your brewing vat and bottles. Cleanup will be a bitch too. I always take my tincture in a small glass of whole milk because the fat in the milk helps prevent the tincture from sticking to the glass.

 

[DuckLucky]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but this method sounds incredibly complex and time consuming. Instead of adding water to the alcohol mixture as a way to remove chlorophyll and other water solubles, I think you'd be better off starting with kif or powdered hash instead of bud. If you don't have access to kif, then a quick wash of chopped, decarbed bud in a small amount of Everclear (just enough alcohol to cover the bud) yields a potent tincture without any boiling or reducing.

I find that decarbing at 300 degrees F for four minutes is effective. Preheat the oven to 300, then turn it off before inserting the weed/kif.

You're talking about using the cold extraction method...There are a few problems with this method, mostly that it takes 4-8 weeks to extract all the thc, which I don't have. I'm not interested in quick and easy method of extracting a partial amount of the bud's thc, and having alcohol soaked weed to deal with. I'm also under the impression that using the hot extraction method is more efficient.

...I am adding water to the alcohol/cannabis mixture for the sole purpose of removing as much unwanted flavors as possible, because I do not want to affect the flavor of my beer. You can most certainly make a potent tincture without doing this, it would be Green Dragon, and even with the cold method it will taste like shit.

I don't have kief or hash, and frankly I wouldn't waste it on a tincture if I did...

You have a very good point regarding loss of resin during the brewing process. It would be unwise to add THC to beer during the fermentation process, as a high percentage of the THC would be lost to yeast cake. I therefore intend to add the tincture during bottling. It did occur to me that some of the resin may stick to the bottles themselves, but I think it should be minimal. I may be wrong on that final note however, this is an experiment.



FYI: this shit is fucking potent...I don't have an eyedropper so I can't be sure of how many ml I consumed, but I took what I'd estimate to be 2-4 drops and I was FUCKED!

The tincture I made still has a cannabis flavor to it, although it is MUCH milder than Green Dragon. When I added it to a beer, the flavor was detectable, but just barely...it did not have a significant impact on the flavor of the beer. I think that the next time I do this, I will do a two or three rinses with sterile water to further refine my tincture.

 

[DuckLucky]

do check the cannabis resin thread. search for graywolf processes used at skunk pharm research if you want a scientific process.

sounds like you are trying to make a concentrate rather then a tincture. never seen and alcohol extraction done quite like that, boiling with water. you can eliminate the need for water by using a quick wash rather then a refluxed type of process. it sure eliminates a lot of work plus produces a fine product.

I wanted to make an ethanol tincture...The only reason I bothered with concentrating it is that my process of refining the tincture allowed me to do so. It is beneficial to concentrate the alcohol tincture if adding to beer, because 1ml of 94% alcohol will raise the Alcohol By Volume percentage of your 335ml beer by .25%. This will change the profile of the beer, which is not desired.

I am not interested in using butane for a few reasons. The first reason is that I don't have confidence in the purity of these products, nor in my ability to evaporate 100% of the butane. I'd rather use ethanol, because it is already present in the final product that I am delivering, and I am less intimidated by the dangers of working with ethanol. That being said, you could in theory make honey oil with butane with the purpose of adding it to beer, and then dissolve the resin in ethanol, prior to bottling. This doesn't seem like it's much less work than my method, because you have to do more than one wash to extract all of the thc with butane anyhow...

 

[DuckLucky]

My methodology here revolves around incorporating my tincture to beer. Therefore Oils are completely out of the question, as they mess up the beer's head retention, for one. Glycerin would be possible, but it would raise the final gravity of you beer as it is an unfermentable sugar alcohol, increasing the body and mouthfeel of the beer. To me, ethanol alcohol was the obvious solvent to use, as it is already present in beer. Even then, adding a minute amount of high proof alcohol to your low proof beer will effect the beer's alcohol percentage, and therefore profile.

Basically I don't want to do a quick wash because I'd rather put in a slight amount of work and achieve better efficiency, and I'm pretty sure that a quick wash is less effective with ethanol alcohol than with isopropyl alcohol...It really wasn't that much more effort to use this method as opposed to the traditional Green Dragon method...About an hour of boiling alcohol off, put in fridge and forget about it a few hours, then spend 10 minutes rinsing water. Considering the beer brewing will have taken me 10-15 hours, I'm happy to spend an extra hour to refine my tincture and maintain the quality of my beer.

 

[Sheriff Bart]

make decarbed amber, dissolve in minimal atm 95%etoh, add measured amts to bottles prior to bottling, condition in bottls like normal, enjoy weed brew

 

[DirtyCarpet]

I am interested, DL. Sounds like a hella lotta fun! I wonder if there is any benefit in doing a water wash???submerging dried herb (carefully, gently) into a water-filled jar and letting it soak until the water darkened, thus removing all the water-soluables (and then drying again?) before using in such an experiment. I used this water-wash technique many years ago on some shit-tasting homegrown which afterwards smoked, smelled, and tasted like BlankNothingUndistinguishable, and got me higher than the HackGagGreen it was beforehand. Best of luck, PLEASE update your results! Thanks, and.....Peace.

 

[DuckLucky]

I am interested, DL. Sounds like a hella lotta fun! I wonder if there is any benefit in doing a water wash???submerging dried herb (carefully, gently) into a water-filled jar and letting it soak until the water darkened, thus removing all the water-soluables (and then drying again?) before using in such an experiment. I used this water-wash technique many years ago on some shit-tasting homegrown which afterwards smoked, smelled, and tasted like BlankNothingUndistinguishable, and got me higher than the HackGagGreen it was beforehand. Best of luck, PLEASE update your results! Thanks, and.....Peace.

Yes it's something I hadn't thought of but I'm familiar with water curing bud. If I make it again I will prepare the bud in advance with a water cure. I think it would help, because as I stated my rinse method is not 100% effective...I'd say it's more like 90-95% effective.

The beer in question is lagering so it won't be ready for another 6 weeks, but I'll let ya know when the final product is finished.

You really don't have to add it to beer prior to bottling though! I brought my tincture to the bar last night and poured some into my drink...it was fine to consume it as such. It was very mild but I could detect it's presence...it certainly didn't lessen the quality of the beer...nfact the slight weed taste complemented the flavor of the hops nicely. Ideally I would go for zero flavor coming from the tincture however.

The advantage to adding the tincture prior to bottling, is that I can calculate dosage more easily. If I have 5 gallons of beer, and I add 50ml to the 5 gallons, then I know the exact effects of 1ml tincture/355ml beer. Also I find it easier to conserve my tincture as such, because I don't like getting drunk, so I will only ever have 1-3 beers in a sitting. It helps spread it out

 

[DuckLucky]

make decarbed amber, dissolve in minimal atm 95%etoh, add measured amts to bottles prior to bottling, condition in bottls like normal, enjoy weed brew

I thought you were talking about decarbonated amber ale?....

That would imply that you had previously carbonated it, and then decarbonated it. Haha. I was gonna tell you to go back to brewer's kindergarden.

 

[m314]

Yes it's something I hadn't thought of but I'm familiar with water curing bud. If I make it again I will prepare the bud in advance with a water cure. I think it would help, because as I stated my rinse method is not 100% effective...I'd say it's more like 90-95% effective.

The beer in question is lagering so it won't be ready for another 6 weeks, but I'll let ya know when the final product is finished.

You really don't have to add it to beer prior to bottling though! I brought my tincture to the bar last night and poured some into my drink...it was fine to consume it as such. It was very mild but I could detect it's presence...it certainly didn't lessen the quality of the beer...nfact the slight weed taste complemented the flavor of the hops nicely. Ideally I would go for zero flavor coming from the tincture however.

The advantage to adding the tincture prior to bottling, is that I can calculate dosage more easily. If I have 5 gallons of beer, and I add 50ml to the 5 gallons, then I know the exact effects of 1ml tincture/355ml beer. Also I find it easier to conserve my tincture as such, because I don't like getting drunk, so I will only ever have 1-3 beers in a sitting. It helps spread it out

I've tried water curing trim or buds before making green dragon, and it does help with the taste. I prefer my current batches of tincture where I make QWISO from trim and dissolve in everclear 190. I posted a recipe in the other tincture thread. It only takes a few drops to get as high as I want. Add 3 or 4 drops (or whatever's right for your tolerance) to a bottle of beer, and the tincture taste isn't noticeable at all.

 

[_Ina_]

This is 'rakia"(strong alcohol drink made from grape,about 45,50%alc)with trim leaves I still didnt try to drink this thing but it was great for compress when my kid has nasty influence(i,m not sure about that word,we call that grip with lung problems). i just add leaves as much as possible in 500 or 700ml bottle of rakia(homemade of course)and leave it about 10,14 days until it gets dark green. The smell is like cocktail with mint or something fresh and strongyou are a brewer? me and my husband are real beer lovers!I wouldn't add more clean alc to my beer,even if it is a vodka Cheers!

 

[supermanlives]

well i water cure all weed before making butter now. should work for you too. definately made the butter cleaner tasting. i have had green dragon way back. wasnt that good.

 

[Banefoul]

hmm i brew as well and have been considering this. i would prefer to do a mead myself and think the honey would go better with canna. the water cure is a good idea i will try this as well before doing budder again.

 

[jump /injack]

Water cure

Water cure

well i water cure all weed before making butter now. should work for you too. definately made the butter cleaner tasting. i have had green dragon way back. wasnt that good.

Takes all the nastiness out, I don't flush when I'm doing this. "Freezer Boy" has the way to do it right, 7 day's no taste, no smell. If you have as dehydrator [$50 on Amazon] you can dry it in about 6 or 7 hours. Decarboxylize it first, wash with 190 and get your eye dropper.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

hmm i brew as well and have been considering this. i would prefer to do a mead myself and think the honey would go better with canna.

Just dropped 3lbs of honey in a gallon jug yesterday... That gives me 2 months to figure out an 'add' before drinking. NOTHING reaches bottling stage around here. LOL

Homemade is gooood hooch!

Stay Safe!

 

[Sativa Dragon]

From Treating yourself Website

From Treating yourself Website

Hot Extraction:

This is a simple and efficient 4 Step process.

Ingredients:
1/8oz high quality cannabis
2 oz Bacardi Rum – 151 proof


Process Summary:

1. Chop cannabis very fine (coffee grinder works great)

2. Place in a shallow pan (pie pan with aluminum foil works great) and bake at 325°F for 4-5 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and place cannabis and place in 2 oz of rum (use a small wide mouth mason jar)

4. Simmer in a water bath for 20 minutes. Maintain temperature of the rum/cannabis mixture between 150°F – 165°F.

5. Strain the mixture and store.


Dosage:
One eyedropper is very nice. Two puts you in space. But you should self-titrate. Effects take about 1.5 hours to begin (at least in myself) and lasted for 5 hours (1 dropper) to 7-8 hours (2 droppers).


Process details—references and rationalizations:
1. Chop the cannabis—more surface area gives means a faster and more efficient extraction.

2. Bake the cannabis.

In whole-plant cannabis, THC content is expressed as THCA (tetrahydrocannabolic acid) prior to decarboxylation into THC, which takes place when cannabis is heated during cooking, and smoked or vaporized ingestion. THCA is a mild analgesic and anti-inflammatory but does not have good affinity with our CB1 receptors, so in order to make a THC-rich tincture that has many of the same therapeutic effects as smoked ingestion (including rapid absorption, quick relief and ease of self-titration), we must convert the THCA in the plant matter into THC prior to extracting it through an alcohol soak. (from Vancouver Island Compassion Society http://thevics.com/cannamist.htm)

THC vaporizes at about 380°F. We want to heat the cannabis to convert THCA to THC, but keep the temperature under 380°F. That is why 325°F is used. Between four and five minutes your oven (and house) will start to smell very strong. This is the time to remove the cannabis from the oven.

Notice also that there is considerable misinformation regarding heating the cannabis. It is true that you don't have to heat it to extract both THC and THCA, but the amount of THC in whole plant preparations is relatively small compared to after decarboxylation of the THCA. So if you want to maximize the strength of your tincture you must heat the cannabis prior to extraction.

3. Use the highest proof alcohol available. In my area this was Bacardi 151. The more alcohol the more efficient the extraction will be.

4. Simmer the mixture.
This is one of the areas that seems to be most debated. Many recipes call for placing the cannabis (unbaked of course) into the alcohol and waiting 2 – 6 weeks. The main concern with heating the alcohol is that it is “explosive” (not exactly true...it is however flammable).

The purpose of the simmering is to heat the alcohol mixture to improve extraction rates and efficiencies. Heating during extraction increases the motion of the molecules (basic physics/chemistry) and drastically decreases extraction times. The boiling point of pure ethanol is 173°F (78°C). We will use the water bath to heat the rum/cannabis mixture to just below the boiling point of ethanol.

Heating the alcohol mixture can be done very safely using a hot water bath. You will need an accurate candy or quick read thermometer. Place about 1 inch of water in a wide, vertical-edged pan (9” wide x 3” high). Bring the water to a low simmer. The rum/cannabis mixture should be in a small (1 pint) mason jar. Do NOT cover the jar.

Put the thermometer into the mason jar and place into the simmering water bath. Bring the temperature of the rum/cannabis mixture to about 165°F (I maintain it between 150°F and 165°F). You want the alcohol mixture to be just barely moving (not boiling, but showing active convection within the mixture). If the mixture starts to bubble too much, just turn down the water bath.

You should have the oven fan on high. You will notice that any alcohol fumes are mixed with water vapor from the water bath and vented out the fan. This combined with the fact that you are trying not to boil the ethanol makes the process quite safe.

5. Strain, titrate, and store.
When you are finished with the extraction you will be left with about 1oz of green dragon tincture. Note that one ounce of the alcohol has evaporated.

Now you should test your eyedropper. In my test 34 full droppers equaled one ounce of liquid (this is a little less than one gram of liquid per dropper full as 29g equals 1ounce).

The liquid should be dark green and smell like cannabis.

6. Dosage.
Everybody is probably different. It takes me 1.5 hours to feel the effects of eating cannabis. Similarly this tincture also takes 1.5 hours to take effect.

I had tried a tincture someone had made using the cold extraction method with the same amount of cannabis and found that 5 droppers did pretty much nothing.

Using my Green Dragon technique I find that one dropper will bring effects on in 1.5 hours and last 5 hours with 1.5 hours of lingering aftereffects.

Two droppers gave me a "spiritual dose" (as strong as any brownie I ever had). Effects lasted 7-8 hours with lingering effects for 2 more hours.

This means that 1/8oz of good cannabis yields about 30-34 doses of tincture (1 dropper full is really all I need). And is much more pleasant than smoking (which really is bad for you and your lungs and the reason I've stopped smoking entirely).

Cold Method with Ethanol

Making tincture cold preserves the integrity of cannabinoids. To be potent, this method requires starting material high in cannabinoid content such as flowers or kief made from trim and leaf. The material must be mold free and dry. Drying can be accomplished in the freezer (-4-10 degrees Celsius) or better yet by placing in a liquid proof bag into a dry ice/ethanol ice bath (-70 degrees Celsius). Once water has been removed then the surface area of the starting material requires expansion. This can be accomplished a number of ways but two ways stand out:
Using flowers (bud)- Place dried buds in a coffee grinder and pulse until thoroughly ground but not powdered.

Making kief- Rub dry trim and leaves over a silk screen. Collect the powder the comes through the screen. It should be a very pale green. "Kiefing" is an age old way of extracting trichomes from plant material.
Whether kief or ground bud is used both should kept ice cold for this preparation. Similarly, the ethanol to be used should also be ice cold throughout the process.

Selection of alcohol- ethanol or ethyl alcohol is the form of alcohol that can be used by humans. The proof listed on commercial alcohol refers to the percentage of ethanol that the beverage contains. The proof is twice the percentage, so 80 "proof" means that the mixture contains 40% ethanol. The higher the alcohol content used, the better the extraction will work. Ideally, 200 proof ethanol would be best except that ethanol cannot be distilled to this proof so benzene is used to remove the last vestiges of water. This makes "pure" ethanol poisonous.

Many folks use "Everclear" which stands at 190 proof or 95% ethanol. Everclear has no taste. Apparently, Everclear is not available in all States. A close second choice is 151 proof rum. This is a light amber liquid that is 75% ethanol that has a sweet taste. One of our caregiver writers will use nothing but Korbel brandy because she likes the taste. Others use iced Russian vodka. These "normal" distilled spirits are 40% to 50% ethanol. Some patients find that the higher proofs ethanols like Everclear and 151 rum burn too much under the tongue. If burning is a concern consider a high quality 90-100 proof Vodka.

Cold Extraction and purification- Use at least one ounce of starting material to each pint of ethanol. Place cold powdered kief or ground cannabis flowers together with ethanol in a glass quart-mixing jar. Close the jar tightly and vigorously shake for five minutes then return to the freezer. Continue to agitate the mixture every few hours with refreezing. Continue for a period of two to three days.

Pour the cold mixture through a double thickness of sterile cheesecloth. Save the cheesecloth "ball" for topical uses or use the material to make bud butter once dried. The liquid collected through the cheesecloth should then be filtered twice through a paper coffee filter. Use gloves throughout the process, as it is necessary to squeeze the cheesecloth and coffee filters to facilitate the extraction. Without gloves some of the material will be absorbed on the skin.

If Everclear is used the tincture will be pale green to golden. If 151 rum is used an amber tincture results. Dark green tinctures mean that excess plant material is present. This does not mean that the tincture will not be potent, just taste nasty. When Everclear is used, various flavor extracts may be added (vanilla, raspberry, etc.). Be careful to use only a few drop of flavor extract.

Traditional or Warm Method

The old fashioned (and effective) way to make tincture from trim, leaf or "shake" is to grind the plant material to expose surface area. A fine grind is not needed and will just make the tincture cloudy. A rough chop will do. Most folks can’t afford to use kief or bud for tincture but may have leaf handy. If so, this is the way to go. Use ethanol as described above in the same proportions. The key difference is that in this preparation the materials are kept warm (not hot). Light must be avoided.


Place the ethanol and chopped cannabis in a large glass Mason jar. Shake at least once a day. Place the jar in a brown paper bag or otherwise shield the jar from light. Leave in a warm spot (near a window) for 30-60 days. The mixture will turn a very dark green. Strain as previously described through cheesecloth. Save the "shake ball" for topical applications.

While this method produces a nasty tasting tincture, it is powerful. It may upset some fragile stomachs. It is recommended that Warm Tincture be used orally in cranberry juice or coffee with sugar. Keep the filtered tincture in light blocking glass jars or bottles in a cool dry place (refrigerator or freezer is fine). The shake ball should also be kept in the freezer. For topical applications, just take out the cold shake ball and apply a few drops of fresh tincture to the cloth then hold it on the affected area for a few minutes with gentle rubbing.


This link might be helpful.
Metric Conversion: http://www.worldwidemetric.com/metcal.htm