Hi!

Jump_Amber in 15 minutes from cutting


I washed fresh bud covered with trichs just cutted from plant in pure grain alcohol (spirit)

the material ive got as result is similar to BHO made from buds

it remindes me more amber then oil or honey
it's solid state brittle material
at room temperature it's not sticky and even not plastic at all
being heated with fire it melts

Fresh plant material is full of water keeping in its cells
i think that's why spirit has no way to achieve inner parts of plant body
and cannot solve chlorofill and others
spirit wipes some water from fresh plant material and weaks,
but at this moment trichs are already disolved in it

Dry material is open for solution, but doesn't contain anything good for us. And it dusts.

So that's what I did:
-put bud and small amount of spirit in small mason jar,
-turn it upside-down several times to wash the bud
-separate solution from plant material with stainless steel strainer
-purge solution using casserole with boiling water covered with plate
-collect from plate with razor blade

Result is light yellow colour - no any green at all!

you may repeat the procedure several times and waste empty bud
or remain the rest of solution on the clean bud for next generation user

At room temperature the material is hard to collect from the plate, it's tough
It's better to collect when the plate is still hot, but already handle

This method is not dangerous, not toxic, no need to dry the plant material, no filters and
It takes 15 minutes after cutting bud from plant!

Jump!

Hiya,

Sounds cool mate ,any pics of the finished oil,

I have only made oil once from butane was some strong stuff.

But i am put off doing it again by how dangerous the stuff is.

What is pure grain alcohol?.

Mrm

Hi, MrMullen !

Sorry, no pictures. I see no any reason to post pictures. It looks like bud bho. What else? Proof?
Take a risk of loosing one ripe bud, 50g of pure spirit ( Ethanol, C2H6O ) and 15 minutes of time,
and you'll have your own pictures.

I've done bho several times and find it very attractive, but this method is extremely dangerous.
I've read about lethal victims. What for ? You decide.

Jump.

Hey I've posted more pix internationally but the forum rules doesn't allow outer links here that's why I made one special session with some WW not so good popcorns

Interesting looking stuff. Why do you suppose it's turned into such a solid state? The ethanol?

How does it react with the warmth of your hand?

My my seems there is no need for quick dry buds anymore ill get me bottle of that ethanol for next harvest

Top stuff mate

Can you post your pics as clickable thumbs please mate

Thanks

Owd

Hey Owderb
Thanks for recommending it. Big pix - never again. I was mistaken when I thought that big pix are more comfortable and faster to view just was trying to do better for viewers. Excuse me plz and thanx again.

Hey Herbal Kint
thanks alot for stopping by
I’m sure you will not be disappointed with fresh wash and most likely you’ll never back to quick dry nightmare and maybe drying at all. Btw it works even on fresh bonsai leaves that give not amber but smokeable good.

Hey Blayz'd glad you asked
I suppose it's turned into such a solid state just because of correct extraction.

I’ve got bud-bho of same glass quality several times. The sample on the last big picture above is maybe bho.. not sure ‘cos these two have identical specificity and I keep them together -they’re similar. One thing I see on pic is that this one was filtered. There is no difference observed between bud-bho and quick amber samples. I’m sure that bud-bho and quick amber are the same highest grade resin extract that man can obtain at home just reached in different ways.
And bho-way is much longer.

Top quality to say without false modesty. This is objective reality. Try and you’ll meet sensation.

The melting point is higher than 36,6C (98F) but not so far. After minutes of finger warming it becomes a dense plastic and just a little bit sticky. Lighter help is needed to unite the debris.
Warmed it becomes extremely sticky plastic like thermo-glue or chewing gum. You may pull out a spider line that in few seconds turns to glass fibre an breaks.

Ethanol 96% is perfect medical solvent I use in many ways but it’s not a main hero of the story.
The point is in freshness I think.
I suppose that inaccessibility of inner parts of a plant body for solvent plays a significant role.
I suppose that fresh bud is intact and its epidermis cells are full of water that is good defence against a solvent. This is much more than just ‘unbroken bud’.
Our fruits are above the surface in a distance of a trich stalk everything beneath trichs is unwanted. The more resistable are other deeper parts the better is extract.
Fresh cells embarrass and postpone solvent action on unwanted inner components of a plant and allows to elongate first amber wash to provide more complete trichs dissolving.
When unwanted elements start to polute the solution with it’s green (about 3 minutes from the start) the melting point of extract goes down and it becomes sticky or/and liquid at room temp.

The flowers dry fast after alco wash.
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314...3_2055_2939.jpg

Micro-pix of the washed buds. Most stalks are empty.
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_90927.jpg
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_48637.jpg
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_69372.jpg

½”Gun is loaded to bho.
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_39575.jpg

BHO residue after alco wash.
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_38308.jpg
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314...3_2055_1519.jpg

2 Moderator
I tried to thumbnail pix but failed.
Sorry.

Hay jump,

This is a great thread, i might try this with abit of air bud and trim from next crop, also wanted to try budder bud this just seems like a quicker way, good job.

What would you say the ratio is for bud:ethonal ? is this just just what you use normally for ethonal extractions, as i tryed looking around the net and cant fid anywhere to purchase it.

Nice picks too!
Sticky.

I do the Isopropyl alcohol wash mainly. It's problematic, sticky, messy, etc. So is - to a certain extent - the BHO wash and the BHO is extremely dangerous. The boiling point of methanol is 148F! I've got a 180F hot water tap right in my sink! I like this idea because it makes the material easier to handle and harvest.

Well done, indeed!

Anything on dosage?

Oh, and I have a harvest coming up in about 10 to 14 days and guess what? We're going to do a major methanol extraction and provide a comprehensive rant supporting it so that everyone can see how this works out. This is really the way to go when you think about it.

It's stealthy - the resulting material is greatly reduced - so it can escape detection quite easily.

It probably has no odor or very little odor.

You don't have all the sticky residue to try and clean up like we do with BHO and isopropyl extractions - a big difference!!!

It's a safer extraction. Boiling water and you have a winner.

It can probably be stored FOREVER in your fridge.

How you smoke it is the thing. Those of us who don't use tobacco are faced with some interesting possibilities.

I'll be ordering the methanol today... a 16 ounce bottle delivered to my door costs about $15.00 (USD). Yep, I'm all over this...

smoke it like crack .
seriously tho you have to put either ash in your bowl or put some wire wool over you gauzes an put the oil on that,
you can also jus put it on ur gauze in ur bong but most of the oil will melt right thru an ul need twice as much but still works if u got no ash.

i dont think we can buy methanol here in the uk someone let me know if we can please i looked but cant find it.

What happens when you put a flame to that, can you get a picture of what happens when it melts Jump?

foil sounds easier. I use that for oil and pop them in a dry bong. I get some stuff pooling at the bottom and it gets a new wash and extraction and smokes every bit as good as it did the first time through...

Isn't methanol used in race/ drag cars?

E2A: Just found this , Not the same as Jump used.

Hi jump ive seen your pics in the gallery very nice.

Thumb nails....

1,This is what i do go to pick in gallery right-click-view image.

2,copy URL at top of page.

3,then in reply box add link.

4,then paste in copied URL press enter,

5,then paste in copied URL again but this time add img tags at both ends [img$] [/img$] without dollar signs, then type tn_ before gallery then press enter.

Think thats right.....

Methanol is wood alcohol, methyl alcohol, wood spirits or carbinol. You can drink it but it causes blindness. Pure poison. My understanding is that drag racing engines use a combination of methanol and water injection to power their chariots of fire. Powerful stuff.

yeah this is just using ethanol, grain alcohol..

seems very similar to iso wash to me.

Hey
CaptainStoner , Sublime , potstinkus , Blayz'd , oliwog , playground , stickyblack
good to have you around the show colleagues,

I made a lot of BHO runs but today was the last one.
Today I made it just to illustrate what I know that QuickAmber extraction is quite complete and the residue doesn’t cost a labour it requires to get.
I always redissolved my bho to filter it and it doesn’t matter if evap.bowl is stretched or not . This time because of small quantity I used inox evap.bowl instead of usual soup-plate and small extractor DIY1/2”.
The can wasn’t full and it took a short time. After butane was over and dripping stopped I’ve touched the bowl with gun nozzle for a last drop as I always did
…SPARK!
For my good luck it’s -19C outside and there was no fireball but until the spark was visible I’ve thought “SHIT!..finally it happened! What for !? Was it really worthwhile?! What’s wrong? Metal! Shit!...”. I’m not mystic at all but it was The SIGN.

And i said,
"no, no, no, no, i don't butane it no more,

Ethanol ( C2H5OH) is perfect medical solvent it’s eatable and drinkable but sadly we also don’t have it on free market. This is not a strong prohibition but one have to know ways and contacts to buy. It costs about 100Rub(~ £1,9~ 2,11 €~ $2,8) /L in plastic canister 500.-/5L.

Everclear -I don’t know what is in 4-5% is it good or bad. I’d try it.
Years ago they sold here in pharmacies 95% light green ethanol with useful aglae content.

Methanol (CH3OH) is NOT the same! It’s poison! I never used and cannot recommend it because they wrote that swallowed 5-10ml= blind, 30ml= dead, vapor explosive.

Isopropyl alcohol – I know that in many places iso is the easiest thing for people to get a hold of but I didn’t ever saw it, there’s no iso wide offered here – just in special chemicals shops.
And I’m not going to find it for scientific experiment. I think that iso experiment is the easiest thing for people using qwiso.
I will not . You will. And I hope you will post about it.

I’ve failed tried to budder bho-goo and don’t know where is this goo from when butan is so selective.

Ratio of solvent to bud is a visible thing imo. Good is to drown buds in solvent but freshies have low volume density and require too much to be drown. You’ll see when it’s not enough liquid to wash good and add more. Too much alco is a lost of alco and nothing more.

For smoking I use small DIY one-hit-size metal pipe with wire wool organized of gauze, windshield washer hose to watch the process, resin condenser and oak-wood thermo handle.
The load is about 2-2,5mm ball piece for only one inhalation.
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314...2055_110055.jpg
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314...3_2055_3755.jpg
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_29308.jpg
http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/123314..._2055_43537.jpg

When I put a flame to that it melts – bubbling shortly and disappears without residue. I don’t use foil it’s too cumbersome for me. I’ll try to make a photo with foil and post.

Hey Sublime thanx for your help and reminding me The Blues Brothers (& 2000) and UB40 !
Tried hard but still failed with thumbnails, I suspect the position I got wrong is “..type tn_ before gallery…” could you explain more plz.

jump!

Very interesting. Will have to try this.

Just wanted to mention that you probably do not want to smoke using aluminum foil playground. I've heard it's been linked with alzheimer's disease. A google search shows some information but I didn't really take the time to look through it right now. Regardless I have never smoked out of aluminum foil because of this.

I believe a glass screen would be a much better method. Usually around 1 buck each at a glass shop.

Cool thread.

-TJ

Nice one Jump. Looks like some interesting stuff. Thanks for showing us mate.

Woops

Thumb nails....

1,This is what i do go to pick in gallery right-click-view image.You must view image to get the right URL with gallery in it.

2,copy URL at top of page.

3,then in reply box add link.Like you done with your last post.

4,then paste in copied URL press enter,like you did in last post.

5,then paste in copied URL again but this time add"type" img tags at both ends [img$] [/img$] without dollar signs, then type tn_ before gallery in the add link box then press enter.

Mine look like this without Dollar signs..


1st paste[$url="http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/1233149274/gallery_7844_1803_57829.jpg"] then2nd paste again but add img tags and tn_ ..[img$]http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/1233149274/tn_gallery_7844_1803_57829.jpg[/img$][$/url]

without guff - $ signs
[$url="http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/1233149274/gallery_7844_1803_21703.jpg"][img$]http://www.uk420.com/boards/uploads/1233149274/tn_gallery_7844_1803_21703.jpg[/img$][$/url]

The round junk spot repeates the form of initial melted drop. At that moment imo sediments go down and the resin melts further and flows wider. So it shows the way of purification by melting under boiling point. The sediments may be observed on first pic as non-transparent something.



Brown aureole was disappeared/evaporated by lighter.





2 Moderator
Can I have more than one album in my gallery plz ?
I got “You have the reached the limit of albums that the administrator will allow you to create”.

jump!

Nice looks loads better and is easy for dial up peeps aswell.

Hey Sublime thanx again mate
I'll train more to make it good

I got hillbillies all around my neck of the woods


"Everclear" can't that be bought at most liquor stores ????

No problem

will this stuff do the job linky

Sorry it was my first thumbnailing. Tried to repair but 'edit' closed.

Hello Jump,

Great pictures

That would go lovely in me bubbler .

Mrm

Hey Mr Mullen

Hey jump,

As said before nice picks, & v useful info- looks like a lovely smoke too

Although i found this;



So, you can use this method with IPA?

Sticky!

Hey stickyblack let me quote myself plz

I do isopropyl all the time. You buy the stuff for 99 cents a quart at Walmart.

I bought a quart of methanol for $15 on eBay.

Iso will not give you this product. Iso will give you a darker oil than BHO that is quite strong, but a sticky mess. I've been using iso for quite a while and it certainly has its advantages, but it cannot make a hard product such as we see here.

The hard product has all the edges in this high-stakes game of stoner engineering.

Iso oil has odor. I bet this has none.

Iso is sticky. This is obviously capable of existing in a solid state.

Iso is kind of dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. You can easily kill yourself. I am particularly cognizant of this fact every time I cook a batch of oil.

This eliminates the issues because:

1. the boiling point of methanol is significantly lower than that of boiling water, giving you an easy means of quickly and safely evaporating the solvent out of the suspension.
2. the resulting product is easier to handle than oil - it's as simple as that.

I can't wait to harvest. I'm going to turn this entire batch into hard candy. I wonder how much candy a quarter pound of pot will make?

Hi Jump, I agree with your conclusions with regards to the fresh plant cells stopping the penetration of the solvent. Infact, I had come here to mention something similar to a member called Blayz'd, in another thread. He had mentioned that he had made BHO with fresh bud and that he was pleased with the quality. My reply to him was going to be that the results were so clean because the butane wasn't able to penetrate the fresh plant cells and remove the waxes, pigments and tar. In the case of butane, the water within the fresh plant cells freezes solid and nothing can penetrate.

With regards to the use of ethanol, my advise to you would be very careful, Jump. From your mention of rubles I presume that you're in russia. I watched a documentary a few months ago exposing the fact that people in moscow were being poisoned with alcohol being bought on the black market. There were cases of so called moonshine alcohol, on the black market being spiked with contaminants. Some people became critically ill and suffered total liver failure. All I can say to you is be very careful, if you're in russia.

As for those of us in the UK, food grade ethanol is very heavily taxed so most people don't use it and the denatured ethanol that isn't heavily taxed has nasties added to it to make it inedible. If you buy denatured ethanol, make sure that the only added denaturing ingredient is methanol and make sure that you purge off the alcohol very thoroughly afterwards, to make sure that all of the methanol is removed. Some of the other denaturants can't be evaporated off because of their high low boiling points, so if you use denatured ethanol, contact the manufacturer to make sure that methanol was the only denaturant added. Fuel grade ethanol is also denatured by the way, Robert Plant.

If I had a choice between using pure methanol, or ethanol that had only been denatured with methanol, I'd use the ethanol because it contains only a few percent of methanol and any traces of methanol left in the purged oil would therefore be lower. Each to their own though.

As a side note, the other benefit of using fresh plant material is that the end product has a fresher fragrance, as Blayz'd mentioned in another thread. Although he didn't say why, I think he knows the reason. I'll explain it for those that don't know. The fresh plants give off scent from volatile terpenes, to deter insects and perhaps fungi. During the drying and curing process these most volatile terpenes are lost to the atmosphere through evaporation. When fresh plants are used for extraction, these terpenes make it into the extract rather than being lost to the atmosphere. That's why fresh flowers like lavendar are preferred over their dried form when making essential oil. The delicate, fresh smell from the alive plants is captured.

However, the only problem is that any heat used for purging the solvent from the extract will destroy or evaporate off these delicate notes. To avoid this, solvents are either evaporated with a vacuum, or solvents with a very low boiling point such as butane or C02 (low sublimation point) are used. So whilst using alcohol on fresh plant material will capture the delicate, live scent, vacuum purging of the alcohol is required to not lose that scent. Butane on the other hand boils off at below room temperature and it can also be freeze purged, so it's an ideal solvent for capturing the delicate scent of fresh plant material, when one doesn't have a vacuum facility. However, this thread is'nt really about that side of things, so it's just a side note for anyone interested in the other benefits of using fresh plants. As a final note, when using fresh plants one should remember that the oil will require additional curing time, so that the cannabinoids can decarboxylate and become fully active.



Gunna

Thanks Gunna, good read that. Interesting point about the freezing of fresh plant matter to a point where the butane doesn't penetrate. Very good point actually, I didn't consider that. I had an idea about the scent but you cleared that one up a bit for me too, nice one.

Also I find it interesting that you mention the function of the scent or aroma to be a deterant. I'd thought about this before. I didn't really go looking for answers, just thought about it with a spliff as you do. I came to the conclusion that the function was attraction of insects maybe for polination or something. The same as I believe flowers work. What makes you think it's a deterant? Another thing I considered at the time was the resin. I think we're sure the trichomes have the effect of protecting the plant against harmful rays of light and also maybe the effect of coverting said rays to something of use to the plant. A side thought I had at the time about resin was that insects get stuck in it. OT has a top pic of a fly stuck to one of his plants. It was that which made me think. I thought that if the plant attracted insects, which then got stuck and struggled (dropping any pollen they had) it would aide to facilitate natural propagation. Interesting. That post should help me get the result I desire the next time. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks man.

Hi Blayz'd. Cannabis is a anemophilous (wind pollenated) species, like corn. It produces no nectar to attract insects. Bees will only visit anemophilous species to collect pollen, when other sources of pollen are scarce, as pollen from anemophilous species tends to have a far lower nutritional value than pollen from entomophilous (insect pollenated) species. Bees have no incentive to visit the female cannabis flowers, however. The male cannabis flowers drop all of their pollen soon after opening, demonstrating their wind orientated design. If you wish to learn more about the function of terpenes in nature you can read the article below.

http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v3/...bio.2007.5.html



Yes, there is evidence that the cannabinoids may offer some protection from ultraviolet light. However, it is no coincidence that some of them mimic the endocannabinoids and behave as intoxicants. If there were no benefits to producing substances that mimick the effects of endocannabinoids, the plants would instead have evolved to produce compounds that only conveyed the benefit of UV screening. There is ofcourse a clear benefit to producing substances that intoxicate foraging animals; to deter further grazing.

Early phytocannabinoids probably first evolved to convey just one benefit to the plants, before evolution steared their design down a path that resulted in the conveyance of a second benefit. With that said, I think you'll agree that we should stear our discussions back to the original theme of the thread.


Gunna

Hello all,

This thread is great!- very infomative!

Thanks to all the info being posted by Blaze'd n gonnaknow. I now reckon imma keep to bho method- easier to get hands, from where im from. Also seems producing budder has very simular end product. Although more time consuming, i think this is way forward for me; im in no rush...

But as said great thread with lots of info!
Thats what we like too see
sticky!

Jump deserves your praise too, Stickyblack. He went to the effort of posting his findings, with pics. I hadn't ever really considered the benefits of using alcohol on fresh plants until Jump brought it up. It seems obvious to me now, given the fact that I had previously considered the benefits of using butane on fresh plants. All good ideas seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight but they're not so obvious before someone else has thought of them for you.

Each solvent offers it's own benefits. I value alcohols just as much as butane, for the qualities that each has to offer. The main focus of this thread should be regarding the benefits of using fresh plant material, in terms of purity and ease. The benefits of fragrance is just a side note, for those who's preferred solvent is butane. Retaining the fresh plant fragrance isn't a priority, it's just a nice bonus that was worth mentioning.


Gunna

Hey gunnaknow
thank you for taking care of my safe, but do not worry I never use moonshine alcohol.
My ethanol is industrial made and goes very clear ways to a big chemical science institute where my friend works as very important person. Others take it at a big pharmaceutical firm that is not easy but possible.
Since ethanol isn’t so easy to get I try to use it economically and sometimes recycling it with simple laboratory equipment.
That accidents you heard were caused by fake vodka and it’s not mine branch of life and this is more relative to denaturated alcohol and methanol that I never use and did not recommend anybody.

Ask google about FORANE_SOLVENTS such as FORANE 141b MGX for example, maybe it would be interesting as a substitution to ethanol.

Plz look at quote from ICMag I found there as jump117.

QUOTE=ilife;806954 ... when using frozen fresh cannabis material you will more than likely end up with a white clump of resin that will never feel like it has dried completely. And will crumble at the touch. Never sticking together properly.

Is that about high melting point of fresh resin or what?.

Hey Blayz'd
I do know that the common idea is the trichomes have the effect of protecting the plant against harmful rays of light.
I’m not a biophysicist nor organic chemist. My thinking is based only on common sense that nevertheless may lie.
Excuse me. But it seems to me a far-fetched supposition.
I cannot believe that Nature could be so stupid engineer to design such full of holes uv-protection shield.
Does it protect even against rain? - No. They say UV and trichs are related. Okay, cause and effect.
The dark green color of a leaf is an effect of nitrogen excess but is not a defensive act.

I’d rather think that trix and aroma are the rudiments of reproduction program that million years ago involved animals that may feel the scent and move. BBC Wild Life theme.

The scent or aroma is very pleasant to smoke with no doubt, but in our natural /social environment it will attract with confidence any other animals, incl. people in uniform.

I definitely separate aroma from resin as two independent sides of a coin.
Like in a wine or a brandy ethanol is psychoactive component and it’s % is significant but a taste and smell is another story and costs much more.
But sometimes somewhere somebody drinks something of terrible taste and smell just for ethanol.
Others take ethanol and add good taste and smell from another bottle.
I think same with resin.

The smell of resin is only a little part in bouquet where the most is formed with water-soluble substances.
The easiest illustration is water cure where the water at a room-temperature takes out all the scents in just a few days, except oil. Another illustration is when I rinse ethanol washed buds with water to collect ethanol residue to a last drop and then let the water to evaporate it smells good.

Hey Playground better save than sorry plz remember that Ethanol and Methanol (CH3OH) is NOT the same! It’s poison! I never used and cannot recommend it because they wrote that swallowed 5-10ml= blind, 30ml= dead, vapor explosive.

Thanx again for your interesting letters, I always love to learn some more.
Jump!

I agree. I water cure a lot of harvest because taste wasn't as important as what I was looking for the pot to do for me; the sign of a true addict I'm sure we'd all agree.

Clean pot ready to be isopropyl extracted or butane extracted.

I like the methanol idea because it appeals to my innate desire for more drugs now. Instead of all those weeks waiting to see if Mother Nature was good to you, you do the methanol extraction fresh off the vine!

WOWWWW!!!

Now that's some fucking first-class stoner fuckin' engineering. Definite Freak Brothers Hall of Fame Omnibus issue material!

No problem buddy.



Have you thought about making your own reflux still and making your own 95% ethanol? Try typing 'bokakob mini-still' into google and you'll find some nice designs. As a disclaimer, I don't recommend that anyone actually distills spirits unless it's legal to do so in their country!



Ofcourse, one must choose the methods and end products that best suit one's own circumstances.



As do I, Jump. Did you think that I was recommending one method of extraction over another? No, I was just informing them of certain things, so that they are better informed to make their own decision.



I wasn't referring to the smell of resin, as you say. I was referring for the most part to volatile terpenes, which make up the majority of the essential oils. These are what produce the majority of the smell, due to their high volatility. Yes, there are other substances that make up the scent but the volatile terpenes are the dominant smell. You can't capture every single aspect of the fragrance of live plants. I should have been clearer with you that I meant that more of the fresh smell would be captured in the oil; not that it would smell exactly like the scent of the living plant.



This is similar to what is referred to as a hydrosol, which is the fragrant water obtained after distillation of the essential oils. There is no extraction method that can extract all of the fragrance of the living plant, it's impossible. Not only are some of the scent compounds polar, whilst others are non-polar but many undergo oxidation upon processing or are destroyed by heat. If one really wished to create an extract that was the closest to the smell of the fresh plant, one would first extract with a polar solvent, then a non-polar solvent and finally distill the remaining essential oils from the spent plant matter, before combining all three extracts together. Hardly worth the effort, unless you're in the perfume industry.

As I said before, fragrance is not the main priority here, for you or for me. However, the benefit of capturing more of the fresh plant fragrance was a side note, that was worth mentioning. For those that are interested, the main aroma compounds found in plants are alcohols, aldehydes, esters, ethers, ketones, lactones, terpenes, terpenoids and phenols. Some of which belong to the same groups.



For the most part I agree. I don't recommend that he or anyone else use pure methanol. As I said to Playground in an earlier post though, ethanol that has been denatured with 5% methanol should be ok. So long as the manufacturer clearly states that no other denaturants besides methanol have been added. I can tell you that in the UK, ethanol that has been denatured to this specification is called Industrial Denatured Alcohol, or Industrial Methylated Spirits. Not to be confused with the more commonly sold purple methylated spirits, which is technically known as Completely Denatured Alcohol and has dye and other toxic nasties added. Industrial Methylated Spirits isn't that easy to buy if you don't have a license from the government (although I have read that it's easy to get one by explaining to customs that it's needed for certain hobbies) but it is still possible to find the odd supplier that will sell it to you without a license, I think.

The reason why this grade of denatured ethanol is okay to use, is because it only contains 5% methanol, as the sole denaturant. Assuming that no more than 3% alcohol was left in the purged oil, at worst, the total amount of methanol in a 1 gram sample of oil would be 0.0015 grams. In reality it would be less than that because the methanol has a much lower boiling point than ethanol and would therefore evaporate more quickly, decreasing the percentage of methanol in the ethanol considerably. So, the total amount of methanol in a 1 gram sample of oil is likely to be considerably less than 0.001 grams (1 milligram). You get more than that amount of methanol just from drinking a bottle of beer and about ten times more from a shot of brandy! That's if you can even manage to smoke a gram of oil, which I know I certainly couldn't!


Gunna

Thanks for those links mate. I'm just about to make a cuppa and go through them. I'm thinking it will lead me elsewhere in my little journey of discovery, so maybe I'll make 2 cups Nice one.



The scent isn't really a priority for me either. Just an interesting thing I liked. To be honest I don't think I have any priority. If anything my priority is to have different things happen each time. I like a bit of variation. Over all I think I've had best results with dry matter. Regarding effect and yield. Although the effect may well be better with cured fresh plant oils. I'm not quite sure. I'd have to do a comparison and smoke test on them or something.

Another difference I noticed between fresh and dry. With dry I seem to be able to collect what looks like dry sift in the oil. I asked someone about it and they remember grobag mentioning spent trichome casings or something like that? I never did find the reference so still not sure what thatt was. Maybe you have an idea on that? I've extracted it with speed extractions. Basically flash freezing the dry plant matter with the butane so it's crisp, beating he'll out of it with a wooden spoon and quicky filtering the butane through a screen with holes large enough to let small particles though. Whole process took about 2 mins start to finish. I thought that the freeze and the bashing of the trichomes in such a way, over such a short space of time, so as not to let the butane fully disolve the trichomes, but instead aggitate them away from the plant, might have been what happened. The effect seemed consistent. Not watered down by it. Much higher yield than usual. Again there would be though if I let a load of spent material though in the filtration. The stuff did seem to be exactly like dry sift. Got really excited at the time thinking I'd do a dry sift extraction with butane I never did find the a reference to where grobag talks about this. So I'm still in the dark on it. Although I never had a microscope and the time so couldn't see in more detail what had happened. I do now so that's another thing I'll put on my list to look at. Great thread this. Giving me plenty to think about and look at.



Thanks for that Jump. I'll look that up aswell. Always interested in new solvents. Thanks.



Interesting. I think that with everything being in a constant state of evolution, nothing is quite ever perfectly designed through natural selection. Another thing I think is that previously evolved mechanisms which are no longer seen today still sort of exist. I like to think that there are multiple functions for some mechanisms. For example. It would be fair to suppose that trichomes are sticky so that they can easily catch pollen from the air. Therefore it would be fair to say the trichomes act as a tool in that regard. So, if this is true and they also have an effect in filtering UV, they have more than one use, possibly many uses.

Here's a question for ya. This was another thing which led me to my trichomes trapping animals theory. First was that if we're so effected and intoxicated by the active indredients in the trichomes, how does it effect smaller animals and if it does why? So the psychoactive element threw me. I could well be through selection from people, always going for the most psychoactive weed over generations resulting in selection in that way. Which I find really interesting. It's hard for me to stay on topic though To many ideas.



Interesting that is. I like learning things too man. That would also correlate with your earlier suggestion of trichomes protecting water soluble parts of the plant against rain. Very interesting stuff. So I think the trichomes deffinately have many uses. They seem to serve a number of different functions. I plan to start learning about all other resin coated plants soon to better understand this plant. I saw an interesting animal eating plant the other day which caught prey with resin. I think I'll start with that plant.



I like to extract from fresh because it's chop to toke in an hour I think the effect is deffinately not as prominent in my short experience, but the stuff still works a treat anyway. For some reason I always seem to get a fresher sort of substance. If there isn't much difference between cured fresh oil and dry plant oil, I think I would choose to extract from fresh material and then cure. Instead of drying the plant first and extracting from dry. For some reason I keep thinking to myself that fresh trim is a cleaner quality. Again, nothing more than a passing thought. That just keeps on passing



More interesting stuff. Do you work with plants or study them or something? Learn something new every post, it's great

I agree with the smell not being priority though. It's more of a bag appeal thing. Like a unique facet to a thing with many sides. Seriously though, if you have some nice smelling fresh stuff. It's worth running an extraction to get some oil with the scent in it. With some cure the aroma is amplified. The smell itself isn't as pungent as the green, but damnnnnnn, that stuff impressed me. Never seen anything like it before. It's just an aspect to play with really, just another avenue to explore along with all the rest.

Thanks for all this lads. Very very interesting.

Oh, I tried to smoke quite alot of oil at once in a J. I woke up the next morning with not much gone from the J. I remember now having to put it down and lay back because I was on a collision course with a whitey. Never did recover from it I guess. So I doubt I could get through even 0.5 without being in some trouble. Should've weighed that to see how much I put in. I gave some to my brother the next day and 2 tokes he gave it back after spitting up a lung and proclaiming "Holy shit, what's that" So yeah. In moderation I think is the way to go with this stuff.

Take it easy lads. Good stuff Jump.

One last thing jump. I've never had that thing you describe, with the white clump of resin. Not sure what's going on there mate. Sounds like it's gone into a state of budder. I've had that stuff go similar, into a solid, white which crumbles.

What is the melting point of resin?

Cuppas cold now too Proper stoner, make coffee and forget about it, do it a good 5 times a day

Hey ThurgoodJenkins thank you for your care. I have never smoked out of aluminum foil instead of this I smoke tobacco that btw statistically reduces a risk of alzheimer's and parkinson’s diseases.

Hey Playground will you make more exact plz did you told about using iso on fresh buds and failed?

Hey gunnaknow I love your words “The main focus of this thread should be regarding the benefits of using fresh plant material, in terms of purity and ease”. But as for me your side stories are good.
You right I have my own laboratory glass reflux and I’ve used it several times, it works with water pump supply but you see it’s not equipped comfortable and suitable evap.soup-plate is broken. I think it’s very useful instrument for Amber seekers. I’ll make it good and show you.


How do you understand bio-chemistry of resin? About that “the cannabinoids can decarboxylate and become fully active”. What manner of keeping is correct from this point of view? Thick or thin, opened or closed, light or dark? It seems to me that polars and non-polars will cure in different ways. Humidity doesn’t play a role in cure of resin I hope but what about the temperature? I’ve heard that decarboxylation events when flamed, is it ?
I really don't know the subject.Curing oils is mistery for me , I cannot comment this. I suppose my Ambers may over before the proper curing will complete.

Hey Blayz'd that QUOTE=ilife; from icmag was about using fresh in ice-o-lator or bags, the man described that fresh resin is “Never sticking together properly”. I’ve thought maby this is because of it’s high melting point (the temp. when it starts to melt)?

About that “dry sift in the oil”. My idea on that – it is empty junk. Shells, casings and micro debris of trix stalks –that’s what it is. It consists of nothing useful. Exept the scent it has.

Btw when you use butan and shake it to get more output, what vessel do you use? I think that I’d prefer a thermos flask than coffee-press if you sure that timing doesn’t matter because of perfect selectivity of butan.
From my point of view it’s not good to be near the place where liquid butane is evaporating for a long time during filtration.
It’s better to shorten the time of the presence in dangerous area and make filtration later after evaporation. We cannot provide the purity of evaporating in open air. I redissolved bho in ethanol before collecting, filtered solution and evaporated again. The result was cleaned from gas bubbles and fireworks.

About smells.
Friend of mine named Gleb lives it the nearest suburban area called Moose Island. He grows punctuate outdoors and told me that moose and boars used to attacked his plants several times pulling them out. Smell attracts them but what for I don’t know –to eat juicy roots or to toke. It wasn’t useful for the plants, they were killed.
Animals are not indifferent to cannabis. Cats attack weed all over the world all the time. Any cats and dogs and even horses love it to toke. I know the true stories and have my own experience. I had two cats –one was the stoner, another one - was not.

The others don’t love this smell at all and try to keep away from it.
Once in my life I’ve traveled by car through Hungary and stayed for a night on the border of a corn field near Debrecen. The edge of a field was decorated with very big cannabis plants. They were very fragrant and smelled so balmy and strong !
Because it was their work and duty – to scare away a plant pests from a corn. THC was none.
So maybe they smells to defense?

Now it’s time to animate the discussion.

Here I’m exploring the time limits of the quick Amber extraction. I elongated first run even to 5 min on and the second up to 4 min. Total extraction time 9 min.
This small third one is a result of the water step that I didn’t describe above. After alco washes were complete I flooded the washed buds with water then rinsed and strained. I tried to remove the residue of solution from the surface of buds. After this water was dried and left a dry whitish film I rinsed it out with a little ethanol, filtered and evaporated. The result is small dark amber.
1-st and 2-nd grades melted together to play with Amber colors.

Three grades in one pea on a penny and oilcake.

Touch a flame and tweak a pea! Tweeeak…

After the buds were dried I disassembled a bud to look what’s inside. The washes were long but in places of dense contact there were trichomes. Through the microscope it seems a very much of them, it’s not true. They seem to be colored in amber by red pistils. The source suspected of Amber trix color.


After my butan-SPARK!- incident I go butanless way.

Dried buds were crumbled, sieved 300mcr (have no less), bigger parts were quick ethanol washed (like qwiso) and rolled with kif into the smaller pea on the penny above.

I looked for the primary shaping of a bud as open her wider but failed. It’s better to use sparse buds to amber than dense ones. More air – more flow – less residue.

Jump!

I do the isopropyl extraction on dried materials. I've never done it on fresh-cut material, but now that you mention it, I will do an extraction on some fresh material to see if the isopropyl extraction is any better or worse for waiting until the plant has completely cured.

My suspicions are that it makes no real difference because once I add the alcohol to the bag/bottle/jar and do the wash, I then filter it through a paper filter before I boil off the excess alcohol using either the electric oven method, boiling water method, stove-top method or crock pot method. As I mentioned previously, the oil is usually as thick as raw honey and has a darker color than the oil I get when I do a BHO extraction. The color of the oil is also dependent upon how far down you cook the oil when you start boiling off the alcohol (please - if you don't know what you are doing, do not try to boil off alcohol or butane at home folks, call an expert or at least someone who didn't sleep through high school chemistry). I have found this is a function of the heat in the mixture and the amount of alcohol that is left in the resulting mix because the isopropyl alcohol causes the oil to float on top of the evaporating mix where it appears to be just a bunch of icky, dark junk (note picture).

Isopropyl Extraction - Alcohol Solvent Reduction Phase with Oil Forming on Surface
Click to view attachment

I think the wash at the cut stage will create a better product because all of the resulting dust and bits of plant matter that get caught in my filter would be eliminated even though the mixture would be quite green (note picture).

Isopropyl Extraction - Straining Solvent After Washing Cured Plant Material
Click to view attachment

I hope this answers some questions and yes, I will be posting my findings within a fortnight because the harvest is coming in and I need to do one to show a friend how to do both the methanol and isopropyl extractions. Definitely will come with pictures and a full write-up on getting it done.

I also think the worries about methanol poisoning are way, way overblown. While there could be some chemical reaction that would create a poison, the thought of being poisoned by the remaining methanol left after the material is evaporated and turned to hard candy is definitely at the trace element level and won't be worrying me one wit.

I hope this helps.

Interesting post jump. I have a theory on the above. Maybe the animal eats the flower, along with seeds, and then deposits seeds along with a good dose of raw nutes.

I find it all very interesting.

The yield will obviously be less, due to the solvent not extracting anything from within the plant tissues. One can do a second extraction on the material once it has been dried, to get at the cannabinoids inside the tissue but there isn't all that much goodness within the tissue itself. Plenty of other stuff that you don't want though, like pigments, tar, wax etc.

The potency of the oil from the fresh material will certainly be lower than that from dried bud. As I said earlier, the cannabinoids need to decarboxylate. Dried material has already undergone considerable decarboxylation but even oil from that can often gain potency if cured for a while, or gently heated for a few minutes. If you can keep your hands off the oil from fresh material for a while, it will make a significant difference. Chiefly, it's the delta-9-THCA converting to delta-9-THC that makes the main difference in potency.

I did read that in afghanistan, the best hash is stored in a cool, dry place for two years before being released onto the market. They wrap it in cotton or paper, so that the hash can breath. Perhaps because the decarboxylation process releases C02 but it's probably just to let any excess moisture out. They also stockpile it for so long, so that they can release it steadily in smaller lots throughout the year, to keep prices and demand high.



No, I just read alot, Blayz'd. Science journals, study papers, encyclopedias, scholar.google.com and ofcourse, forums. Anything technical that I can get my hands on. I like to research all kinds of things, hense my name. Hopefully I don't come across as a know it all, I'm a long way from knowing it all. I'm not an expert in any field, I just know a little bit about alot of topics because of my reading. Most of the stuff that I know is useless.



That depends on it's make-up. The more volatile terpenoids that are present, the lower the net melting point. The cannabinoids might still be solid yet suspended in molten terpenoids with a lower melting point. The major cannabinoids themselves melt from 66°C to just over 80°C. CBD melts at 66-67°C and CBN at 76-77°C. I'm unaware of any studies mentioning the melting point of THC but I suspect that it is a little higher than that of CBN, due to THC having a higher boiling point than CBN (200°C and 185°C respectively).


Gunna

Glass stills do look nice don't they? Do you distill any home brewed alcohol with it? I have a suggestion that will significantly improve the amount of reflux from your still, Jump. You need to fill the reflux chamber with material, to increase the amount of surface area that the alcohol can reflux from. The more times that it can reflux, the purer the alcohol becomes. Stainless steel pot scrubbers are ideal material for filling the reflux column. Leave atleast 2" of clear space between the top of the scrubbers and the takeoff point for the vapour to expand into and so that the reflux falls back into the scrubbers. The other thing to do to increase reflux is to back off on how much heat that you use to heat the alcohol, aswel as keeping the level of heat supplied constant.



This isn't my area of expertise but I do know that fresh plant material contains THCA, which is a carboxylic acid. It needs to lose this carboxylic group (CO2H) to become the psychotropically active THC. It can be converted slowly on storage or more rapidly on exposure to heat. Decarboxylation does occur upon smoking but it has been hypothesized that some THCA may vaporise before decarboxylation occurs. The boiling point of THC is 200°C but it will begin to vaporize at much lower temperatures of about 150°C, or less. THCA that is exposed to such temperatures for a few seconds, or less may become vaporized without having decarboxylated. I have read that holding the temperature at 120°C or less, for an extended period of time will fully decarboxylize the THCA and other cannabinoids, without the risk of loss of cannabinoids in the form of vapour.

It will fully decarboxylize at room temperature, if one gives it enough time. This isn't curing in itself but it is one of the processes that takes place during curing. As for your question regarding the best mannor of keeping the oil, the answer would be in an oxygen free environment but that's not very practical and overkill if you ask me. Keeping hash or oil in solid clumps rather than spread out will decrease oxygen exposure. Cling film will also decrease oxygen exposure and cold temperatures will decrease oxidative reactions.

If the fresh oil or solvent solution hasn't been heated for an extended period of time then it will continue to decarboxylate upon storage, so storage temperatures won't be too important, atleast for a while. If, however the fresh oil or solvent solution has been heated for an extended period, then the resulting oil should then be kept in a cool place, to slow the conversion of THC to CBN. Regardless of whether the oil or solvent solution has been heated for an extended period or not, the oil (and hash/buds) will store best in a sealed environment, with little to no air.



I've been using a thermos flask for extraction, for over two years now. Nirex has also recently started using the same method. I use it for doing long soaks in butane because the vacuum between the inner and outer wall of a thermos flask insulates the butane, keeping it in liquid phase for hours. However, don't kid yourself about butane being perfectly selective. If you leave dried buds soaking in butane long enough, they will pick up things that aren't desirable, like lipids and waxes. Using fresh plant material will stop alot of that being extracted because of the fresh plant cells freezing solid; but the butane is bound to still pick up small amounts of unwanted substances from the surface of the material. Here are mine and Nirex's threads envolving the use of thermos flasks.

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?show...23&hl=chill
http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=155748

As you can see with my thread back in 2006, even after such a long soak the oil never picked up any chlorophyll or tar but the opaque creaminess does suggest that it picked up some plant waxes. So as you can see, butane isn't perfectly selective. Give butane enough time and it will extract unwanted non polar substances like wax.
Using fresh plant material in a thermos may allow one to soak it for the same extended period of time, without much unwanted non polar substances like wax being extracted. However, it doesn't really matter whether or not wax is extracted into the oil because it can be removed from the oil afterwards, if you know how.

I'll let you in on a little secrete. Wax dissolves very poorly in alcohol. After extraction with a non polar solvent like butane, the resulting oil can be redissolved in a little alcohol. The wax within the oil does not freely dissolve and the majority of it get's left behind upon filtering the alcohol solution. Next, put the alcohol in the freezer overnight, until it reaches -18 or less. The remaining wax preciptates out of the alcohol because of it's low solubility and can then be filtered out.



I agree with not hanging around to breath in the fumes. On the up side, if your oil contained any wax to start with, you would have actually improved the quality of your oil. Without you knowing it, by redissolving it in ethanol you would have been removing some of the unwanted wax that might be present. If you wish to remove all traces of wax that might be present in your oil, then chill the oil/alcohol solution in your freezer overnight, before filtering a last time. This actually takes me onto another subject that I wish to discuss. I think I'll start a new thread to discuss that, within the next day or two. You should find it very interesting.

Gunna