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CO2 hash oil extraction? How to?

indifferent

Active member
Veteran
Oh I definitely was, that was misinformation as glaring as when Hashmasta Kut claims that the lemon smelling highly volatile terpenoids in his oil are terpenophenolic compounds.

I wonder how the molecules are so volatile if they're heavy enough to have a whole phenol attached to a terpene? Kind of like a...cannabinoid.

Good spot, may be glaring to you, but few of us have sufficient knowledge of molecular chemistry or even of the properties of the cannabinoids and terpenoids to spot such errors.

In your opinion, which extraction method produces the cleanest product in terms of no solvents or nasties being left behind?

Also, what extraction method, in your opinion, produces the product with the widest range of terpenoids still present? We know ice/water method loses water soluble terpenoids, is dry sift the only way to retain ALL terpenoids in your extract?
 
BHO-type extractions are the best for our purposes. They are the pinnacle of current methods for home extraction, done properly. There are several problems with them including residual solvent, loss of volatile flavor compounds, purity of solvent and difficulty determining such, leaving behind of more polar psychoactive and organoleptic compounds, and more. The good news is that with BHO-type extractions one does not lose all the "lemon-smelling compounds" as Kut calls them. These are the more volatile monoterpenes with 10 carbon base structures. One simply loses some.

The whole bubble hash vs. BHO argument is a red herring designed to keep bubblebags economically viable. Flash vaporization of bubble hash is not possible for reasons that should be articulated here or elsewhere, but not now. One is either vaping it in a less efficient manner than BHO or pyrolyzing it and losing/destroying terpenes with the slow high heat. So even with dry sift, how can one enjoy it as efficiently as BHO so as to actually taste the terpenes?
 

Juice_Box

Member
Flash vaporization of bubble hash is not possible for reasons that should be articulated here or elsewhere, but not now. One is either vaping it in a less efficient manner than BHO or pyrolyzing it and losing/destroying terpenes with the slow high heat. So even with dry sift, how can one enjoy it as efficiently as BHO so as to actually taste the terpenes?

with a titanium burner pad!

you can in fact flash vaporize bubble hash with them
 
Before you vape that bubble hash why don't you put a little piece of BHO in some water and watch the terpenes make a rainbow colored pool on top of the water as they leech out. Then try it with your bubblehash. But wait, that's already been in the water.
 
Does anyone here have a guess to what the Sugar was?

It's still a legend in CA and CO.

At the height of it's crazy people were gladly dropping 100 a g. kind of insane.
 
Yeah back in the day I used to fuck up too and make budder like that. Shatter now though. Shatter always. The initial insistence that the product had trichomes since it was granular is sad like the ring comment. It was just budder. Microscope or other close device-assisted examination would have revealed this. Unless it was a mixture as it was said not to be.
 
So what is Shatter and how is it made?

Is that the pure thc crystal that looks like amber that has been pictured a few times? looks / sounds like a dream but I'm sure the process is something that a lack of experience inhibits you from.
 
Shatter is a pure representation of the hexane-soluble fraction of cannabis, free from any admixture of gas or solvent. Here is some "non-whipped" "automatic-style" budder that grow nerd posted today in this forum. Does this look anything like the fabled Sugar? A product like this looks feels and crumbles like maple sugar which would lead end users to speculate wildly about its origin I imagine. More granular products that resemble brown sugar are produced by long purging/cooling to leave a very thin and cold faux-shatter layer that will scrape to form small shards of amorphous material that resemble crystals to the naked eye, much like broken glass.
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indifferent

Active member
Veteran
BHO-type extractions are the best for our purposes. They are the pinnacle of current methods for home extraction, done properly. There are several problems with them including residual solvent, loss of volatile flavor compounds, purity of solvent and difficulty determining such, leaving behind of more polar psychoactive and organoleptic compounds, and more. The good news is that with BHO-type extractions one does not lose all the "lemon-smelling compounds" as Kut calls them. These are the more volatile monoterpenes with 10 carbon base structures. One simply loses some.

Thankyou for that info. The 10-carbon monoterpenes, do they include limonene? I have often wondered in the past if lemon smells in cannabis are associated with a clear effect in the head as I find that most plants with a very clear head high have a lemon component in their palette of aromas, lemon and a ringing head buzz seem to go together. Conversely, I think rotten, fecal matter smells are associated with sedative, stony effects.

Do you have any opinions about lemon smells and heady effects?

Before you vape that bubble hash why don't you put a little piece of BHO in some water and watch the terpenes make a rainbow colored pool on top of the water as they leech out. Then try it with your bubblehash. But wait, that's already been in the water.

My argument against water extraction has always been that you lose some terpenoids and they are crucial in not only taste and smell but also the character of the effect and for me, that is the primary concern. I don't flower a pure sativa for months just to wash away a significant component of the special high that made the long wait worthwhile so I'd never turn plant material from a sativa into water hash, I always dry sift sativas. Before I even knew about terpenoids, their contribution to the high and their water solubility I had noticed that water hash made from sativa material lacked some of the cerebral character of the high that was found in the buds from that plant. Dry sift however retained the same character of effect as the buds, just in a more potent, concentrated form. When i learnt about terpenoids and their solubility, I understood the reasons behind my unscientific observations.

Shatter is a pure representation of the hexane-soluble fraction of cannabis, free from any admixture of gas or solvent. Here is some "non-whipped" "automatic-style" budder that grow nerd posted today in this forum. Does this look anything like the fabled Sugar? A product like this looks feels and crumbles like maple sugar which would lead end users to speculate wildly about its origin I imagine. More granular products that resemble brown sugar are produced by long purging/cooling to leave a very thin and cold faux-shatter layer that will scrape to form small shards of amorphous material that resemble crystals to the naked eye, much like broken glass.
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So, in laymans terms, Shatter is what you get when you use Hexane as a solvent and purge it completely so it is purely the material extracted from the cannabis with no contaminants such as waxes and pigments from the plant matter or solvent residue?

I have read that Hexane is a better solvent than Butane but isn't as easily available and costs much more. A friend obtained a bottle and used it to make an extract using a similar technique to the QWISO method but rather than a 30 second wash he used much longer, something to do with the polar nature of the Hexane not removing undesirables like waxes and pigments so a long wash was possible.

It is possible to buy small pressure vessels designed for the extraction of essential oils from plant material via co2. Eden labs sell a unit for 1650 dollars US. I believe the operation is quite simple - connect a bottle of co2 such as is used for welding or in bars for fizzy drinks and open the valve so the co2 enters the pressure vessel. Let the pressure get to the point where the co2 begins to condense into liquid, then it drips down through a basket containing the plant matter extracting the essential oils. The liquid drips through a fine mesh in the bottom of the basket to be collected in the bottom of the pressure vessel. Once all the co2 has condensed and all the liquid is in the bottom of the pressure vessel, a mild heat it applied to the bottom of the vessel and this causes the co2 to turn back into a gaseous state and exits the vessel through the valve you have opened after disconnecting the co2 bottle. This would leave behind just the desired cannabis extracts in the bottom of the vessel. I think it also needs a cold water feed to the condensor.

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Professional Unit

The Coldfinger Professional unit is ideal for the full-time herbalist. The high capacity soxhlet basket will hold up to one half pound of ground herb for extraction. The extra long inverted condenser provides a heavy flow of solvent to speed your extraction process. The heating unit provides pinpoint temperature control and a warm air convection current that wraps around the whole unit providing the ideal environment for solvent evaporation and condensation. Price includes heater.

Price: $1,650.00

That is my layman's understanding of the process, and it sounds like something that would be feasible for someone to do in their garage or workshop. There is nothing more dangerous than you would find in a welding shop or any air compressor (a pressurised steel vessel).

So apart from the costs of the equipment, isn't co2 extraction by this method the best possible way for the home diy person to make a pure extract?

To be honest, 1,650 isn't that much to pay for something that will provide you with exceptionally good extracts for possibly the rest of your life. I don't like water extracts, making great dry sift is arduous and the possible dangers of solvent residues worry me so co2 extraction intrigues me.
 
The hexane-soluble thing was technical language you see a lot in the literature but it can mean anything including propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, and probably on up the alkanes but for lab purposes they usually stop with the heptane. It includes isomers of course, it's any alkane you can get to be nice and liquid and extract with. Getting rid of it is what makes the shatter. It's easier to get rid of butane with available equipment than hexane. Did you know hexane and those others are all alkanes, straight-chain single bond chains of C with H on the sides? And that as they get more Cs, you get the plant waxes. Those are definitely in the hexane fractions, they're the same thing. They're in hash too. And gasoline and diesel fuel. But they're not the toxic hydrocarbons in fuel. Remember gas and diesel are complex blends.

Limonene is a monoterpene, a true one, and lemon tasting. There are papers published about the benefits and sedative or stimulating effects of its inhalation. The ColdFinger extractor couldn't use CO2, everything would explode, you'd need some sort of dry ice/acetone bath or something to "heat" from to turn it back into a gas. Or colder, I'd have to check the lit. See the coldfinger's meant for steam distillation. For people cooking Ecstasy and things like that, fryin' up some sassafras root. I wonder how much they've made off hopeful stoners looking for the next best thing?
 

indifferent

Active member
Veteran
I'm afraid I was not allowed to continue with chemistry past age 13 as I made thermite and melted a big hole in the science lab floor so I;m very limited in my understanding of chemistry but I think I follow you.

Interesting about the Coldfinger, the website really doesn't give a clear impression of how the kit works. Is supercritical co2 extraction beyond the realms of possibility without a proper lab setup? I guess i need to look into getting some high quality butane.

On the Limonene, do you happen to know if the papers are available online? I am of the avowed opinion that a good knowledge of the effects of terpenoids will be of great use when making selections, for instance, if you are seeking a clear, cerebral high, pick the Lemony ones.
 

Trichgnomes

Member
Does this look anything like the fabled Sugar?
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It looks vaguely similar, but the consistency and color are completely different. How about you Howard? Does it look like the Sugs you speak of?

Really Sam, would you agree that the supercritical extraction is a viable method if one had the chemistry background/ access to the proper facility? Clearly it does not seem safe or economical on the home level, or do you think it is just ridiculous? I am just curious, as others do claim of its existence, including the collective in CO that is linked in this thread (I can't speak of the validity of the collective's claim, as others have pointed out CA clubs have simply changed the name of BHO to CO2 to avoid legal issues)
 
Keep the data flowing please Really Sam

Do you think there is any benefits to using hexane over butane to extract other plant oils (terepenes) or are they best left out

I did notice that when i did a final wash with water to a butane extraction that the water gave an increased TDS reading and also that iredensence(sp) shine to the water that you explain as being leached terepenes (thank you for that)

Can anything be done to limit the rate THC changes to CBN (using the nitrogen from a wine kit any use) or low temperatures in a freezer?

Please teach to the kitchen chemists like me so that we can expand our knowledge on this subject as we cannot afford to subscribe to all the journals
 

vta

Active member
Veteran
I picked up some of Dave's Pure Kush CO2 GOO in Malibu today. Nice shit :abduct:


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Sorry for the dirty bowl....It hasn't been cleaned in a few days:biggrin:
 
Unless you have a cascading waterfall of hexane the butane will get out more terpenes with less solvent in less time using the BHO method. Hexane extractions of plant material are traditionally done by recirculating and precipitating the solvent over and over in a soxhlet device. Even if you wound up with more terpenes in your final solution, you'd still have to evaporate the hexane and would lose terpenes as they evaporate with the hexane and the heat you put it on to rid it.

As I just said and it didn't go through, that's not CO2 oil. It's made with trim. Wet trim. It's poorly purged. Dave's a liar.

Nitrogen in wine kits would slow degradation. Degradation of THC is mainly from air and light. Heat is less important. Your TDS increases because the water leaves behind its dissolved solids. Purging with water is a suboptimal method of solvent removal.
 

indifferent

Active member
Veteran
Can you describe your suggested purging method for BHO? I take it you suggest purging very slowly with minimal heat in order to preserve the more volatile terpenoids?

BTW how do you know it was wet trim? From the dark colour? Does that indicate moisture from wet trim?
 
Start from scratch

Start from scratch

RS

As there is so much myth mixed with fact could you do a quick run down on what is fact and what is myth?

Starting from wet or dry trim, frozen or not, cured or fresh, could you cover everything and give a quick scientific description of what you are doing please

Could you also use kitchen material rather than lab glass so everyone can gain a better and safer insight into the process of BHO extraction

Salutes to the alchemist
 
If you start from wet you're adding water to your solvent, if you start with frozen you've created ice crystals which will grind the plant material open exposing undesirable cell material, terpenes always go away with time and lack of freshness. Stainless steel tube and unbleached coffee filter are surprisingly effective. From there one must just limit what one puts in and maximize what of that one gets back out while retaining what came from the tube. Butane doesn't want to come out easily and purging does take time and just the right amount of heat. It also requires manual attention and the reshaping of the oil to your will.
 
What everyone wants to know

What everyone wants to know

The purge

Sam, could you please explain in both scientific and words a porn mag reader would understand, the best way to purge

Once again could i ask in terms of kitchen labware please.

Thank you once again for taking the time to do this for the online community Sir.
 

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