Would This Green Dragon Idea Work?

[Chimera]

Good to know, I just couldnt see ingesting that much alcohol

I understand that sentiment so if that were the priority, the green dragon technique would not be the preferred one. The same holds true with butter, olive oil, etc.... you don't want 10 mg of THC in a pound of butter, you want 10 mg in a teaspoon.

We are essentially debating carrier (ethanol) vs solute (cannabinoids).

If the user wants no carrier and just actives, the best bet would be to extract with 200 proof ethanol and then evaporate at 80-85 degrees C / ~185 F until the solvent is purged. However, keeping it in ethanol makes dosing much easier - you can easily mix it into almost anything, juices, teas, jello, etc. Just consider how much alcohol you are consuming.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Is there not also a difference in the THC compound and its absorption when you use Alcohol vs Oil/fat ?

IIRC Alcohol delivers a slightly different THC∆ and that it also goes directly to the Liver ? My friend who is a Cannibinoid receptor expert was suggesting that it could be a significant difference that could be important.

 

[Chimera]

In-depth question Chaos.

Brief answer is no- chemically speaking.

2 issues:
1) Do the extracted molecule(s) pass through the liver?
2) Is the extract comprised of THC-A or THC (CBD or CBD-A respectively)?

What your friend might have been saying, is that when you consume ethanol (beer, wine, tincture, shots, etc) some alcohol is directly absorbed via the lining of the stomach. This is what causes that quick feeling from a beer or wine - some of the alcohol is absorbed through the stomach lining into the blood, which then goes to your brain.

Theoretically, the ethanol as a carrier would bring along some of the dissolved cannabinoid into the blood, and then along to the brain.

Any ethanol not absorbed through the stomach goes through to the intestines, where it passes through the lining into the blood which then passes through the liver. The liver converts THC into 11-hydroxy-THC, and spits that out back into the blood where (if you remember anatomy) it passes to the heart, then to the lungs, then to the heart again, then out to the brain/body loop. So you see, if the THC passes to the liver first, THC itself never reaches the brain, but does so as the 11-hydroxy metabolite instead.

If you smoke, THC goes from the smoke into the lungs, where blood picks up oxygen (and THC), then back to heart, to the brain/body loop before hitting the liver where any remaining THC is then converted to 11-hydroxy THC. Even this is not much, because THC is so lipid soluble, it wants to jump into cellular membranes in the brain and body, so the body does a pretty good job of filtering it from the blood on first pass before it returns to the liver.

If the cannabinoid was dissolved in fat/oil, it would clearly pass to the liver first, with no stomach absorption. If you had a bunch of food in your stomach already, the ethanol would mostly get soaked up by the foodstuff, then pass via the intestines to the liver etc. No/less stomach absorption.

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2) Cannabis produces THC-A not THC. THC is produced when you burn the weed, or heat it via cooking (to approx 110 degrees C, where decarboxylation occurs). When you smoke the cannabis or apply heat to THC (by way of torch, fire, heated bowl), the THC-A decarboxylates and becomes THC and releases CO2.

Thus, heating your extract to ~110 deg C activates the THC, or rather makes the THC-A into psychoactive THC. So you can see that depending on what molecule you want to ingest, and how you are going to ingest it are things that should be considered when making your extract.

For example, if you used Vodka to extract you would slowly heat the solution / extract and the ethanol portion of thee vodka will begin to evaporate at roughly 80 Celsius. By the time your solution hits 90 degrees C, the ethanol has been removed, leaving the remaining water and cannabinoid mixture. If you kept heating gently, the remaining water would boil off around 100 deg C, and then if you keep heating the extract you will see it stop bubbling around 101-102 Celsius as any remaining water comes out. If you keep slowly adding heat, as you approach 108-109 C you will see more bubbles start appearing. This is the CO2 being released as the decarboxylation proceeds. As you pass through 110-115 degrees C, your extract will bubble fiercely like it is again boiling but then the extract will then stop bubbling again. This is the CO2 being released in the decarboxylation, and when this happens you can be pretty sure that the majority of the THC-A has been decarboxylated into THC.

You've now removed all Ethanol and water, but you've also stripped away all your monoterpenes like myrcene, linalool, limonene, the pinenes, terpinolene, ocimene etc... essentially anything that smells really nice and flavourful.

If you extract flowers/buds or unheated resins wihout heat, you are simply extracting THC-A. Only upon heating above 110 deg C, do you get decarboxylation. (CBD is reported to decarboxylate at a higher temperature, maybe 170-180 deg C.)

What I like about tinctures, and not removing ethanol or concentrating the cannabinoids, is that you can estimate (or if you have lab-tested flowers, calculate) your total cannabinoids and make solutions that have specific does.

Ex- 10 grams of 15% THC cannabis = 10 x (150 mg) =1500 mg THC total.

If you suspend that much cannabis in 1 L of Vodka, then strain you have Vodka with each ml containing 1.5 mg of THC. With that info, dosing becomes quite easy with a syringe even for moderate to low amounts of medicine, you can titrate quite nicely.

If your lab expresses the results as THC-A you can do a similar conversion. Now some dispensaries are selling syringes of decarboxylated-THC or CBD oil, with lab results indicating a known concentration of cannabinoids. With that info, its pretty easy to do similar math and make tinctures of low-to-moderate doses of cannabinoids suspended in vodka or similar carrier, to whatever ratio you want that fits your dose and method of consumption.


The real difference though comes from smoking vs. edibles. If you eat a brownie with a gram of 15% cannabis per dose, you are getting near bang on 150 mg of THC, passing via the liver.

However, in smoking a gram joint of the same cannabis, about 30% of the THC is simply destroyed in combustion. Then, after sidestream smoke, exhaled cannabinoids, and various smoking dynamics (your pipe/joint, filter etc), you may only absorb 25-50 mg of THC. You can see from this comparison how much more efficient it is to eat cannabinoids, but remember... it is 11-hydroxy-THC that gets to your brain, not THC per se when you do. 11-hydroxy-THC is reported to pass the blood brain barrier more easily, and also some say is responsible for a higher "potency" of edibles vs. smoking.

Actual dosing is really a complicated science, so when making extracts like Green Dragon there are many factors to consider if you want to achieve a specific dose. Otherwise, with un-tested unknown potency flowers, it's better to start with small doses and work your way up. It just takes one good overdose of THC edible to teach that lesson.

 

[CoCoSativas]

There you have it guys right from someone who knows what the fuck he's doing for real.

Thanks chi I have known not to use heat but I learned a wack from your posts...

Lol yeah no doubt about the OD man.. never happened to me yet but I've seen it a few times and it loos scary as hell

 

[stoned-trout]

always water cure your weed before making anything..edibles ,drinkables ect....it takes out some of the nasty shit ...yeehaw

 

[LeMonte]

Thanks for keeping up with the thread guys, I appreciate it. I just tried 20 millileters as a base dose, so I'll be letting you know how potent it is in an hour or so. I've let it set in 150 F water for about 2 hours, then let it sit overnight off because I didn't want to burn my house down haha.
In case my process hasn't been clear, I've put my weed, 13 grams, in a 3/4 full bottle of vodka, then closed the bottle and put it in a hot water bath at 150 for 2 hours, then set overnight.

Chimera, since you seem to know a very large amount of information regarding this, would you be able to say whether my bud was decarbed during the process or not? I forgot to decarb before I actually put the bud in the liquor. It was at 150 for about 2 hours, and I've read having bud at 150 for 10 or 15 minutes is sufficient to decarb?

 

[EastCoast710]

250F for 25 minutes is decarbing

 

[waveguide]

(and stay below 290f!)

 

[m314]

Make some butter (good YT videos). Keep it in the fridge. Spread as needed

Butter works, but it doesn't stay good forever. I have batches of tincture from the early 2000s that are just as good today as when I made them.

These days (since 2011ish) I prefer to extract hash oil using 99% isopropanol. Isopropanol just works better than ethanol for extracting the good stuff and leaving bad flavors behind. After extracting your oil, purge with Everclear and redissolve in Everclear to make a concentrated tincture. You can make them strong enough that 1 or 2 drops is a full dose.

 

[Runt]

I don´t think heating ethanol in a closed container is safe.