How I Make Cannabis Oil

[stu914]

13 minutes ago, NezA said:

dinafem's CBD cultivars

 

I've just grabbed 10 Dinafem Critical Mass CBD from Attitude...far as I know they still have some...

[OldFord]

@NezA   Thank you very much sir 

[Baron von greenback]

Good info @NezA mate i watched a thing on that popcorn sutton the guy was a legend

[Goodbloke]

Cheers for the additional info @NezA, appreciated. 

[thatman]

On 19/10/2016 at 00:11, NezA said:

Hey Everyone, I have seen quite a few posts regarding oil and methodology so I thought I would start my own topic because as you will soon see it is vast and in depth. I can also pop a link in my sig this way so I can point people here when I see someone who needs help.

OK so I have been making oil for my Dad for a few months now. It's been a bit of trial and error up to now but I think I have finally nailed it. IMO my method is safer healthier stealthier and better for the environment than Rick Simpson's method.

I use isopropyl alcohol as my solvent, lesson number 1 is not all ISO is created equal. Make sure you get hold of 99% pure ISO otherwise you're going to have a bad time! Readily available from that great river online bookshop. Buy bulk it's cheaper.

Then buy a rice cooker the current one I'm using cost £15 from the big green supermarket. Lesson number 2 don't buy expensive rice cookers you are going to ruin and break them and cheap ones work prefectly fine. I just went for their cheapest own brand one which has a glass lid. (more on that later)

Now where my method is slightly different from Rick's I use a copper condenser coil to reclaim my ISO and eliminate the highly volatile and toxic fumes ISO is nasty nasty stuff.

I got the idea after watching a documentary about Popcorn Sutton a famous moonshiner in the States.

I bought some 8mm copper pipe (which came very loosely coiled) from a DIY store to make my coil. You want space (approx 1cm gaps) between the coils to allow the water to cool and condense the ISO vapours. About 8 coils should be enough more is better.

This copper coil was made by threading some string through the copper tube and then wrapping the copper around a pringles tube. Then removing the string. The string was used to prevent the tube from kinking. In hind sight sand is probably better as the string can be difficult to remove. So fill the copper pipe entirely with sand plug both ends with gaffa tape and boom! If it does kink you can usually fix it with pliers but take your time and wind very slowly and you should be good. Ensure you leave a nice straight bit at one end (approx 8cm long) this will become the spout your, nice, safe(ish) liquid ISO will drain from. Also leave plenty of extra uncoiled tube at the other end of the coil. This will be used to attach the coil to the rice cooker.

I then used a 5l water bottle (the cheapest one that big blue supermarket has) as a water chamber for the coil but any sealed plastic vessel wide enough should do. Empty the water out the screw the lid back on then very carefully drill an 8mm hole in one side about 1-2" from the bottom then cut the top of the bottle off ensuring that your copper coil fits mostly inside the bottle. Gently feed the coil into the bottle ensuring the spout lines up with the hole this is quite fiddly and you may need a hack saw to trim the spout down a touch so that it fits. This might take a few attempts to get right. Now feed the spout section through the 8mm hole. Now secure the top of the coil to the top of the bottle using wire. Drill a couple of very small holes in the top of the bottle to anchor the wire through and twist the wire round the coil a few times to ensure it is properly secured. Now seal the spout and hole at the bottom I used epoxy resin but bathroom sealant would have been easier but I didn't have any. The top half of the coil gets very hot and will melt plastic or burn anything it comes into contact with. So make sure the top of the coil isn't in direct contact with the bottle. Also be mindful of that when working around it. I've had a couple of minor burns (nothing that left a mark) when I've not been paying attention.

In the lid of the rice cooker is a small vent hole to allow steam to escape. There is a rubber grommet that you need to pull out but it's not very hard to do a pinch and a yank is all you need. I then used a rotary engraving kit with a pink grinding stone to widen the hole to just over 8mm allowing the copper tube to fit with ease. This means when the lid is on the vapor is forced up the tube where it begins to cool and condense back into a liquid as it makes its way down the coil it gets cooler and cooler until at the end it is pure liquid ISO again. This can then be poured back into a container and reused.

When widening the hole you need to ensure the copper tube has a tiny bit of wiggle room. If it doesn't you risk shattering the glass lid. The tube should slide easily into the hole (oi oi! ) so don't try to force it. Or you might need to buy another rice cooker (that was lesson 3! ) To make the seal airtight simply use a small amount of electrical tape about 1cm away from the end of the tube. Then you can shove the tube into the hole and the tape creates a seal. You will need to replace this from time to time but it works well enough.

You should end up with a contraption that looks something like this:

Now you are ready to start making your oil.

Here is a list of things you will need:

-Measuring beakers I use a couple of 250ml pyrex ones and a couple of 500ml pyrex ones

-Unbleached coffee filters

-Funnels (I just cut the tops off a few bottles)

-A glass mixing bowl

-A spare Kilner Jar

-A soft silicon cake spatula

-A stainless steel sieve

-Syringes

-An electric candle warmer

-Rubber gloves (optional)

-Kitchen roll

-An oven mit

-A tipex pen/ permanent marker

-Last but not least some high grade, preferably organic, cannabis!

Stage 1

Take your dried cannabis and chop it up with scissors in the glass mixing bowl. Once chopped into relatively small bits transfer into a kilner jar. Now add your ISO just enough to cover the plant material. shake like a mad man /woman for 1-2 mins. open the kilner jar and shove the scissors in there and start chopping this will remove any residue on the scissors and also breaks up the plant a bit more. Close the jar and shake for another 1-2 mins. Now put your sieve over the glass bowl and empty the contents of the jar into the sieve. Use the spatula to press any excess liquid out of the sieve. you should now have a golden / green liquid in the bowl and all plant material in the sieve. Transfer the plant material back into the jar. Don't forget to wipe the spatula with kitchen roll once finished.

Stage 2

Grab your funnels and coffee filters set the filters inside the funnels and pop both into the 500ml pyrex measuring beakers the more the merrier I find 3 is optimal when processing approx 2oz of plant material. Pour the mixture from the bowl evenly between the filters. Leave these to filter.

Stage 3

Go back to your jar of plant material and fill with fresh ISO once more shake vigorously for 3-4 mins essentially repeating stage 1 pour the mixture back through the sieve etc etc

Stage 4

The beakers should now be filled with filtered solution carefully fold the top of the coffee filters and give them a good squeeze to ensure as much as possible is in the beakers. Now pour the beakers into the rice cooker. Now repeat stage 2 with the second wash. Once the second wash has finished filtering I add this to the rice cooker also.

I find for 2 oz of plant material I need approx 1 - 1.5 liters of ISO (500-750 ml for each wash) this is about perfect for the capacity of the rice cooker.

Stage 5

Pop the lid on the rice cooker and attach the coil to the lid. Fill the water chamber with you guessed it... water! I like to top it off with a couple of handfuls of ice. Monitor the setup and wait for the liquid to start heating up. you will notice the ice around the top of the coil start to melt make sure you have a suitable container ready under the spout to catch the condensed ISO I use 2 250ml Pyrex beakers for this and swap them around. When one is full it is replaced with an empty one and the full one is emptied back into the ISO container. I find at peak full steam a 250 ml container will fill in about 5 mins so make sure you keep an eye on things and check back regularly you could also use a bigger vessel!

I find I manage to reclaim approx 75% of my ISO this way the majority of the loss is soaked into the plant material and you always loss a small amount as vapor and there is always some in the copper tube at the end.

Note: Now the first time you run this setup attaching the coil to the lid is a really fiddly part. You will require some patience to get it right. You will need to spend some time gently bending and adjusting the copper tube so that it fits the lid and the lid fits the rice cooker correctly if there is any play in the lid when you press it down you will have a leak through which vapor will escape. You will know this is happening because everything will smell very strongly of alcohol. If this starts to happen mid way through processing the oil don't panic. Take your oven mit and see if you can make an adjustment to fix the leak. you can also try adjusting the angle of the rice cooker. If it continues to leak you will want to power everything down and move it to a well ventilated area. Don't mess about with ISO it's toxic and you do not want to breathe those fumes in. From here you have 2 options see if you can make adjustments to fix the leak, or finish this stage by boiling off the remainder of the alcohol in a well ventilated area as per Rick's method. But if you are patient and persistent you can get the setup working. Once you have found an arrangement that works, I recommend marking the copper tube and rice cooker lid with a tipex pen or marker so you know how that lines up. Then mark the lid and the rice cooker so you know how that lines up. this will ensure the angles are always correct after you find the sweet spot.

Stage 6

Eventually the rice cooker will flip from "Cook" to "Warm" this is usually around the time the oil has reached a pretty concentrated state you will see there will be hardly anything left and what is left should be black and thick and bubbling. Now here is the part where you need to act pretty quick. Whilst the oil is hot it is relatively easy to handle and will run like a normal liquid as soon as it starts to cool it turns to the consistency of Marmite / Honey it is incredibly stickyand difficult to manipulate. So the key is to act whilst it is still warm. So before it cools you want to prep one of your 250ml beakers and your candle warmer. Set the beaker on the candle warmer and switch it on. Then grab your oven mit and your spatula. (make sure you didn't forget to clean the spatula if you did clean it now) put the oven mit on your weak hand, with the oven mit pull the copper tube out of the lid the tube will be very hot so the mit is very much required. Now remove the lid then remove the hot bowl from the rice cooker (again using the mit.) Now with the spatula in your strong hand tip the contents of the bowl into the beaker on the candle warmer use the spatula to scrape the residue into the beaker also. (Don't panic about leaving a small amount in the bowl and on the spatula just clean this off with a small amount of ISO and add that ISO to your next run.) The aim here is to do the best job you can you will never get it all out.

Stage 7

Now that your oil is in the candle warmer the end is in sight but don't rush this stage. There is a small amount of ISO in your oil still and the candle warmer is here to fix that. Watch the oil closely and you will notice tiny bubbles on the surface this is the last of the ISO evaporating this stage can take a while depending on how much ISO is left in the oil. You will know it is ready when the surface of the oil is perfectly still without any bubbles it will look like black glass and will smell strongly of cannabis. Because it is still warm the oil will still be quite runny now grab a syringe and tilt the beaker so the oil collects in a corner. Pop the tip of the syringe so that it is just in the oil gently draw up the plunger to about half way. Now carefully knock any drops of oil off the tip. Then hold the syringe with the tip pointing directly up pull the plunger down a bit more to clear the oil from the nozzle and now very carefully and very slowly push the plunger up until there is no air left in the syringe. Repeat this process until the syringe is full. Rinse and repeat until you can't get any more oil from the beaker. I now add ISO to the beaker to get the remaining residue dissolved and I add this ISO to the ISO I used to clean the rice cooker and spatula this is then stored in a jar ready for the next run.

Conclusion

Following this method I average approx 7g of finished oil from 2oz of plant material meaning you will need approx 16-17oz of premium bud to get 60g of oil. I know this method doesn't yield more but there are many benefits to doing things this way. But what I will say is this was a method I discovered for myself and I have quite a few runs under my belt now so I think this is maximum efficiency. but there is always room for improvement.

Now if you have made it this far a salute you! that's a whole heap of reading.

This is just my method that I have worked out through much trial and error.

There are some shortcuts you can skip the whole condenser coil its an added bonus that i believe everyone should use but it is agro until you get it right. But it does work! no fumes no risk of explosion which means a reduced risk of losing a batch IMO very worth it from this perspective alone. There are other benefits such as economy etc. But yeah if you have the cash you can invest in a proper copper still you will have to faff monitoring temps to ensure you are not burning off precious cannabinoids.

It's late and I've spent a long time writing this today but if it helps someone it was all worthwhile.

Happy to answer any question and give any advice. Also I'm open to any suggestions on how I can improve my technique

I will continue to add to and update this thread with discoveries and further tips I will get round to another post on dosage and how to measure dosage etc

Until then keep it green

NezA

 

[thatman]

Thanks for taking the time to type it, looking forward to trying it.