Vegetable Glycerin Tincture of Cannabis

[purcellville]

Background and Introduction
This primer is for a high quality vegetable glycerin based tincture. Information on vegetable glycerin is provided below. This tincture can be blended with food, drink or applied directly under the tongue. It will not burn or require alcohol like many other tinctures recipes I have found. As you will read below I believe vegetable glycerin is the absolute best solution available for maximum THC extraction in a liquid concentrate form.

I will not include a primer on how to make BHO (Blond Honey Oil), as this is outside of the scope to this document. I will however recommend you start with the highest quality material through out this process. It is my belief that a well purged BHO product that is then used in this process is as close to chemical free and pure THC as is attainable. I will also not debate ISO or any other concentrate methods, I am sure you can do this with plenty of other concentrates for an equally appealing good time. Please feel free to discuss your variations in this thread.

Background on Vegetable Glycerin
Vegetable Glycerin is a clear, colorless, and odorless liquid with an incredibly sweet taste having the consistency of thick syrup. It is used as an agent in cosmetics, toothpaste, shampoos, soaps, herbal remedies, pharmaceuticals, and other household items. It is soluble in both, water and alcohol.

Other uses include its solvency action which aide in extracting botanical properties from plant materials without the use of alcohol. This is especially helpful for those with alcohol sensitivities as most liquid herbal extracts contain alcohol. But given its severely limited shelf life, extracts made from Vegetable Glycerin typically have a shelf life of 14-24 months whereas alcohol extracts can have an extended shelf life of 4-6 years.

Vegetable glycerin comes to us through a very complex and sophisticated method of extraction known as Hydrolysis, and the end product that we refer to as "Vegetable Glycerin" is usually the by-product of another oils production. The basics of this system is that the fats and oils of a raw ingredient (usually palm or coconut oils) are split into crude glycerol fats, under the combined action of water, temperature and pressure. These temperatures can exceed 400° degrees and the material is usually kept under pressure for 20-30 minutes. What is actually occurring is a sort of "counter-flow" where the water absorbs glycerol from the fatty acid phase of the oil production. After this phase this glycerol is isolated and further distilled to give buyers a standard 99% Glycerin product.

Ingredients
Kettle of hot water
Vessel to soak vial in hot water
Butane Torch Style Lighter
1 gram well purged BHO
1 15ml amber vial with dropper
10ml Vegetable Glycerin

How to Make the Tincture

1. Place kettle of water on to boil
2. Fill your 15ml dropper bottle half full of glycerin. This will leave room for the BHO and the dropper, so as no to loose your precious liquid.
3. Carefully insert 1 gram of BHO into vial. A word of wisdom here, this is a very concentrated dosing. Please vary this component to your liking. Just be warned this is a very efficient method of THC extraction.
4. Seal vial with dropper lid.
5. Place sealed dropper in soaking vessel and cover with hot water. I like to use a small espresso cup so as to have enough room to soak the vial and change to water with one boiling pot.
6. Soak for 5 minutes and shake vigorously. The change the water and repeat for 30 minutes. I like to soak on all sides and upside down for a period of time and continuously shake.
7. Every 10 minutes I slowly crack the vial open for off gassing. Caution, the liquid is hot, it has expanded and some off gassing takes place. You will notice the rubber dropper top expands like a balloon.
8. Turn vial upside down and allow it to cool for 10 minutes. You will notice that a glob of dense BHO forms at the top below the air pocket.
9. Now with you butane torch lighter begin to heat the oil and glycerin from the outside of the vial as you rotate it. Do not get any one spot very hot or it will crack. You will see the BHO begin to bubble as liquefy. Shake it vigorously and do this for 5 minutes.
10. Let cool 5 minutes
11. Repeat step 9 and 10 until the glycerin cool thick and 90% of the BHO mostly dissolved and integrated into the glycerin.
12. let cool and stand for at least one hour.

 

[Haps]

This sounds quite interesting, how is the effect, since you think it is pure? Reckon lots of folks would like to try that. But is seems like a lot of heating and shaking. Is the heating and shaking just to get it to dissolve? Does it stay dissolved? Could a crude centrifuge do the job more efficiently? Can you buy the veg gly locally? Is it fun? Too many questions?
H

 

[Haps]

OK, this veg gly is available at health food stores cheap, some ok for internal some not. I am thinking that a few drops in an almost empty BHO vial, and some gentle warmth and shaking would make a worth while experiment. Has anbody survived trying this to tell about it?
H

 

[purcellville]

Haps,

I buy only food grade ultra high quality glycerin. check out for my favorite source Mountain Rose Herbs I am sure you can find equal in a local health food store. A single 16oz bottle is a few years supply, though I replace about every 9-14 months.

as for the excessive heating it is to release and extract the THC from the solid oil, as my HO is usally rock hard. I am sure you can get away with a lot less, you just may want to let it sit for a few days in case. The mixing is a pain and in the end I usually have some chunky globs stuck to the dropper and cap. I do not have access to a centrifuge but I am sure the results would be much better. If you have one give it a try

 

[purcellville]

As for effect and potency.... I find oral ingestion to be the most powerful way to use cannabis. It all boils down to the starting material. Good cannabis=good BHO=good clean THC concentrates. Smoke it, eat, glycerin.... it's sure to send you to the moon.

food grade glycerin is perfectly safe for oral consumption, I use it all the time.

and yes it is a great way to clean out BHO vials. This was what drove me to try it. I didn't want to waste those last few hits per vial. The results were good and I tried making a whole vial.

 

[sugabear_II]

Love the tutorial Purce but I gotta ask - for those of us without the where with all to make BHO, have you tried to do a glycerin tincture using bud or dry sift or bubble hash?

I'm just a wonderin cause I like tincture very much but can't really do the alcohol any more as I have gout - an arthritic condition agrevated by alcohol consumption

thanks

-suga

 

[robotwithdreams]

BUMB. So who else has tried this?

Sounds amazing.

I wonder how many doses the above recipe provides. 10 grams=1 gram oil. So maybe ten doses in that vial? or should it be more? Ofcourse this would be for a heavy smoker.

I am also wondering about the above statements regarding the preference of quailty bud for edibles. I remember reading that the cannabinoids, including thc convert to delta 11. So should the quality of starting material be irrelevant. Am I rememberin this info wrong, if so,someone correct me.

 

[JiggabooJones]

it the butane torch part really necessary ??? Maybe low heat over a long period or something. Blowtorch plus me equals fire

 

[dbfr3sh]

i grind up leaves, scraps and small buds into fine powder, put it all in a mason jar, then add the veggie glycerin and let sit for a month or two. then filter out the powder from the glycerin using some kind of micron bag. squeeze the bag and get the most out. i take 2 tbsp at bed and instanly go to bed or brush your teeth and then swish it in your mouth to relieve nausea and migranes.

 

[JiggabooJones]

then with oil and or hash 2 weeks would be good ??

 

[robotwithdreams]

bumb, just cause i want to.

 

[Weedhound]

any way to do it without the butane or and alcohol? I tried a cold extraction (although i did heat it up at one point later) and the result SUCKED. As a cancer survivor and former alkie I'm trying to stay away from chemical .......well like butand and alchohol.

Any tips welcome.

 

[vinivici]

weed hound, throw some keef into your glycerin and let it sit in a warm place for a week or so, you can speed it up by doing the process above, but if your not in a rush just put it by ur oven, or water heater or behind a tv the constant low heat will do the job just right

 

[Gray Wolf]

Other methods

Other methods

I make glycerin tincture using both the cold and hot method. If I want to taste plant pureens and the subtle nuances of the bud, it is hard to beat bud and glycerin in a jar tumbling for 60 to 120 days.

You can also cut the cold process time in half by putting the jars in an ammunition case vibrator for a couple of weeks. It has less subtle nuances than the long cold process, but is still potent and tasty.

If I want a potent tasty glycerin tincture without the subtle nuances, I crank out a hot potion in a week that is stronger than a typical cold tincture and use only sugar leaf. I do that by bringing a jar 3/4ths full of pulverized material and covered with about ½ inch of glycerin, up to 160F in a hot oil bath and cooking for 30 minutes at that temperature.

During that time, I frequently stir the mixture using a wooden spoon. A metal spoon will work, but you are more likely to tap the hot jar too hard and crack it.

After thirty minutes, I take it out of the oil, cap and wipe it, and set it away to cool. The next day I set it back in the hot oil and bring it back up to 160F while stirring. When it reaches 160F with the oil at 200F, I take it out, cap and wipe it, and set away.

Hot cycling creates a pumping action that speeds up the process.

I do that for seven days and on the seventh day, I pour it in a bag I sewed up out of a high thread count bed sheet, and press it in a press I made out two stainless dog dishes, some scrap metal, and a hydraulic bottle jack.

It produces a sweet tasty tincture with no noticeable burned flavor, but alas no subtle plant pureen flavors either.

The best part is that if you take the pressed pucks from two jars and put them in one jar, fill jar with glycerin and stir in a hot oil bath until it is well broken up again, bring it up to 160F and repeat the process, you will get a second squeezing that will rival the first, though lower in volume. Depending on the material, I sometimes get three squeezings.

I have used bubble hash or kief, and use the same process as for the plant material, other than I only cook it one hour at 160F and decant it. You can adjust the potency pretty much to whatever levels you want with hash or kief, though I haven’t been able to achieve the potencies in glycerin that I have in oils and tinctures.

You can also bump up potency by running the glycerin through multiple batches of plant material.

Likewise, I have bumped up potency by first extracting the cannabis oil using alcohol or hexane, but glycerin is very specific about what it will dissolve and there has always been a lot of flocculant left over after infusion, which is difficult to remove and isn’t tasty.

Gray Wolf

 

[Lean Green]

Gray Wolf- How much glycerin do you use? I'm confused.

 

[dankitydank]

hey purcel!
is that vegetable glycerin to mod an e-cig?
have we met? haha

 

[Gray Wolf]

If it is plant material, I fill the jar about 3/4 full of material and enough glycerin to cover it about 1/2". The level has to be adjusted after it is stirred a bit and some of it absorbed.

If it is hash or kief, I put in as much glycerine as I want to end up with and add hash according to how potent I want it.

Gray Wolf

 

[PhilCuisine]

this sounds like the best method fo me....

this sounds like the best method fo me....

i grind up leaves, scraps and small buds into fine powder, put it all in a mason jar, then add the veggie glycerin and let sit for a month or two. then filter out the powder from the glycerin using some kind of micron bag. squeeze the bag and get the most out. i take 2 tbsp at bed and instanly go to bed or brush your teeth and then swish it in your mouth to relieve nausea and migranes.

there was also an article in high times pertaining to this method...but i decided to make 2 different kinds of tincture..1 with alcohol and 1 without. hope this helps.

Ps, this is the highest proof of booze i can find...2nd. highest was grain alchohol.