Grobag's Hash Thread

[grobag]

I get asked questions via PM quite a lot rather than people posting them in the thread for some reason. I have been asked the following question a few times in various different ways so thought I'd post up the latest PM so I could refer people to it if asked again. The reply here on Isomerisation I took from an article by Thomas Valentine as although different to what I have done before, seems a simpler way of doing it and in a few easy steps. This is the question I was asked this morning by Diizy:

hey gro.

one of my good friends (whos majoring chem in uni) is telling me that if i were to add sufuric acid to my oil/mixture whilst im processing it will decaboxilate some of the cannaboids into active THC resulting in a more potent product. Out of concern i asked what about the acid, he told me to simply wash the oil with a salt water mixture to make sure that there was no sulfuric acid left.

Does this seem like a sound idea? I might try it I might not.

-diiz

This was my reply:

It sounds as though you have two different techniques muddled up there; decarboxilation and isomerisation.

You basically describe a rudamentary isomerisation but it would not work with the acid alone. A brief run down - ask if you want to know more but it is really hard to get the necessaries in this country to be able to do it - this is how you make liquid, pure THC :

You make oil with IPA instead of butane. Put the green waste to one side for the moment instead of throwing away. When evaporated you dissolve it again into 5 times the amount of petroleum ether. Shake in a container intil dissolved then let is sit in a cool place. It will form layers in the container, the top layer containing the purified oil, just syphon it off.

Next comes the Isomerisation - rotating the THC to delta nine. vap off what you have until it looks like an oil consistency again. Ok, so this time you want to add 10 times the amount of petroleum ether to oil and weigh the solution. You do need to be quite exact as dealing with acids - add 1 drop of sulphuric acid to every gram of the solution (a high concentration acid is best - 80% or higher). By the way it's best to keep the ether and acid in the freezer before using. Stir the solution without heat for about an hour to let it isomerise.

Separatly take the spent trim and heat/burn it on a skillet to make ash. Add the ash to the solution slowly and stir it in - this avoids clumping. Keep adding until you have a consistency of single cream. If you add too much ash - just add a little water (not ether) to dilute it. This will then have helped neutralise the acid, but not fully. add small amounts of bicarbonate of soda (baking powder) until it stops fizzing and it will then be neutral.

All you do then is pour it through paper coffee filters to remove ash and crap (that's why you keep the solution runny enough). You then have pure THC liquid in ether, just vap off the ether and purge. Voila.

A bit more to it than your mates description but worth it if you can get the ether. Otherwise you'll still have a load of contaminates when you try to isomerise.

Decarboxilation is different. Basically heat and moisture will do this. Take any amount of dried kiff/resin (either dry sift or bubble) and wrap it in organic cellophane (this allows it to breath and lets in small amounts of moisture), wrap again with another layer of damp newspaper, then wrap again with a layer of tin foil. Heat up the little package on the hob, evenly and not too much then press - a good hard press (between two chopping boards and jumping on it for half hour works a treat ), reheat it if it cools before it's pressed up fully so that the blocks temperature is always quite high. This will have both pressed and decarboxilated the resin in one hit.

Much easier than Isomerisation.

Hope this helps mate.

In future though - could you ask on the main boards/ in my thread, questions like this as many other people might want to know the answer and I end up typing the same things all the time in PM's when I could refer people to a certain post.

Great to see other people taking an interest.

Gro

Anyone got anything else to add, expand on, correct me with, whatever? I think it's best to discuss such things openly on the boards rather than via PM as then both everyone can see the answers and everyone can add to/ expand/ correct etc the answers given. I've PM'd Diizy to let him know I've published the PM, but there's no personal info in it so I'm sure he won't mind.

(just for 23 )

Edit: The PM I sent to Diizy:

Hi mate,

Just to let you know that the PM you sent me and the answer I gave I have posted up in my hash thread. I did this because 1) I get asked the same quite a bit and can now refer people to the post. 2) because I may not be 100% right and other people can check my answer and make additions/alterations as need be.

I hope that's cool mate.

Gro.

Edited May 11, 2007 by grobag

[diizy]

...

Great stuff gro! Thanks for everything.

[Guest dr rockster]

Very informative thread Grobag,

much for the old noodle to chew on so to speak but could you tell me have you found isomerisation a technique worth pursuing in order to improve pot or is it not really worth the effort,or is it a little bit special?

Also,when separating the thc oil in ether,does that remove the terpenes along with everything else?

[h4z3]

hey grobag !

it was nice meeting you at the expo ! So you were the one with the killer oils! Found ya ! Remember showing me a paper with oil ( or was it a oil mix kif ) pressed in some paper . You had it in your shoe ! I am pretty sure we also got the chance to smoke some of your oil ! I think we smoked some c99 bubble with oil ? Did we smoke the lot5 ?

Hope to meet again soon!

God I love oil :wink: ( I think this is ssh with african rooi bart mix , made from pure buds)

[Guest FD]

looks yum h4z3

[flowersniffer]

Alright mate, welcome to the boards.

You say you are not near to Pnom Penh but do you have another big town near by? The reason I ask is because I was in Cambodia 10 years ago now and did a bit of oiling. We bought big slabs of butane no problems in Pnom Penh and they also sold IPA although we didn't use that. We got the 20 kilo sacks of weed from a local farmer, made hash with it, then extracted the remains for BHO. Never had any problems getting hold of the stuff needed, but like I say - I was in Pnom Penh.

Don't use cooking butane. They add a 'smell' to it so if it leaks you can detect it. Horrible stuff and will make the oil rank. You'll need loads of lighter refills but they don't mind selling you as much as you want over there.

BHO is both lower yielding and much stronger than ISO oil so it depends what you are after really. I'm sure if you look about you'll have no problems getting IPA and butane refills. Try them both and see what you prefer - it is down to personal preference a lot of the time once you get it right.

Feel free to ask more though if you like. :wink:

Thanx for the advice!.....Lighter refills no problem, I live in Battembang, not exactly a big town, but 2nd only to Phnom Penh...I didn't know that cooking butane was different stuff. So, as long as I cure it properly it doesn't matter that I'm not using pure butane with no impurities? How many refills did you use oiling up 20 kilos???!!!!!

The fact that you made hash interests me...what method did you use? The weed here is good and cheap, but not particularly resiny,making hash from it would be great, I'd never realy considered it before because of the lack of crystals on the buds.

Actually the gear here is a bit strange, not like other Asian weed I've smoked....big fat buds (no crystals) and no seeds...in 8 months of smoking it I only have 2 seeds...the seeds I'm using for my oiling experiment are from lower grade stuff......in fact, I should be back in India towards the end of the year and methinks Bhang would oil up nicely......make a change to all that shit charas thats doing the rounds (Indias own version of soapbar!!) The Bhang shop in Pushkar sells bags the size of a pillowcase! I forget exactly how much we paid but I'm sure it was less than $5!

One more thing....I left the UK in '98 and have been living in places people pretty much think of as smokers paradises....India, S.E.A, Central America etc, but I tell yer, these jellies and bubble hash's are making my mouth water!!! I've never seen the like before.....nice one B)

[dikki]

gro

you mention using organic cellophane

where's the best source for it?

is it the same as florist's cellophane?

cheers bud

t'was just a thought

with florists cellophane £10 for 100metre roll...

Edited May 13, 2007 by dikki

[grobag]

Alright guys, cheers for the comments.

Dikki : I've not really had a chance to experiment with isomerisation as it is really hard to get Petroleum Ether. I'm curious as to White Spirits though as that is mainly Naptha. I've had a go with a Methyl Ethyl Ketone though.

I don't know where to get organic cellophane atm, just look about.

H4z3: Alright mate, nice looking oil mate. You were the bloke with the killer WWxHaze eh? Cracking stuff, top smoke mate. When I saw you I passed a Lot#5 oil spliff one way and a jelly mixture spliff the other way so I would have thought you smoked both of them. EO had rolled up the C99. All great smokes eh.

Flowersniffer: I wrote an article on hashing and oiling in Cambodia. Now it has been published in the latest Weed World I'll open it up here again. I'll post a link to it tonight after work in this post when I put it up. You can read what I did then. Bhang in Pushka is cool and cheap, but in the himalayas there's loads of it and wild plants you can oil. Well worth a trip if you fancy a go. IPA is easy to buy round there aswell.

[dikki]

I don't know where to get organic cellophane atm, just look about.

i think i'll be lazy & ask Joolz if he can source it

[dikki]

done

[Hipgnosis]

Think those aleda skins are made from the stuff dikki..

Great thread Gro.. B)

[EnigmaticOne]

Alot of organic veg in tesco now comes wrapped in it.

[Corleone]

dunno weather to drool or cry , some fine looking hashes in this thread .

[dikki]

just waiting to get sibs's bubblebags back

nerve o the bloke

asking if he could use 'em

[overgrown]

excellent thread, and credit to kafka too for the hash making guide.