37.5g in and only 2.4g out? Where did I go wrong? (BHO)

Hello, I know this question probably comes up a lot but I was hoping I could get some insight into what I might have done wrong with my method.

I started off with ~38g of purple kush, pulling the large buds apart into small buds, but not trying to ruin the integrity of the buds.
I stuffed my small buds into my glass extraction tube tightly but I didn't try to force the bud to compress more than they should.
I sprayed directly into a pyrex dish which was in a pot of hot tap water, using Ronson butane.

I've looked around on the web and it seems like Ronson is a good brand to use. I know most people prefer Vector, but there isn't many places that carry Vector where I live, the only store that does charges $8.99 per can (compared to $5.99 for Ronson, which is also a half hour closer to home)

It started to bubble away instantly. After about 5-10 minutes of bubbling I took the pot with the pyrex still in it and placed it on my hot plate which was at setting 2.5 out of 6. Sadly I did not have a thermometer to keep track of the temperature.

After about 3 hours sitting on the hotplate, I took it off and started to collect it together. At this point it was very easy to collect. I tossed the collected bho and dropped it onto my oil pad and placed the oil pad onto the hot plate at heat setting 1 (I turned it off and let it cool down before putting it back on) I left it on the hot plate for another hour or two, then collected again, noticing a whitish powder on the layer of bho directly touching the oil pad. I did a bit of research and found that bho can start turning white if it decarboxylates, which means I must've let the temperature get too high.. I don't know if that's true or not though.

Anyways, I put it back on the hotplate after taking a test dab, for about another hour. Then I took it off and allowed it to cool over night. Today I collected it up again and put it on my scale, it weighed out to 2.4g

So now I ask, where could I have gone wrong with this procedure, did my bho just get too hot and evaporate away ? I hope not.. I guess I'll have to see how much the second run gets me.

Thanks !

Grind up the bud!

if youre using the red top ronson.. is fine, ive used it before with good results.

and yes, grind the bud up and go for a second rinse.. if its the real small, dark, stinky PK that I know, youll get a 20% yield.. so like 7 grams total or so

pack the tube tighter make sure after you pack it and put the filters on that you can still freely draw air through your tube, and when i do flower runs i hand grind the nugs

You appear to have left some behind and can tell how much by examining the material with a 100X microscope.

I would repack and rerun the material. I'm guessing that your packing allowed the butane to find an easy way through, so I would focus on even packing. It will be easier if you grind the material to about 10 mesh first.

Thanks for the suggestions everybody, I'll be doing the second run tonight. I'll make sure to grind up the material and pack it tight while still leaving room for airflow.

I will report back

cheers

take some pics of the after product!!!

Here's a pic of the first run nice wax no sizzle. Not very flavorful though. I'll have to lower the heat next time.
Still waiting to do the next run.

For the second run how can I try to get shatter rather than wax? Reading around I read lower heat w/ heat gun to pop bubbles will heighten my chances, I will be trying this for next run.

yeah you could have been too hot, probably were, and might have agitated it too much which caused it to wax up, which is fine I guess. just loses some flavour.

think of hot summer pavement... thats roughly how hot you want it, maybe not even quite that hot, so its very very easy to get an element or a stove too hot.

get some water boiling on stove.

EVAP all the butane off OUTSIDE in a dish of hot water.

bring in the dish with oil in it, and get it in the half boiling dish of water on your stove... double boil. dont put it directly on the element. careful, your hours will reek like BHO! bad in an apartment.

dont get the water violently boiling... just very very hot. leave it like that for 20 mins to half hour.

after that, I used to smoke it with no problems. id say its 2% or less butane at that point and if you wait 24 hours and it turns to 1% or less butane, and will probably shatter up on you, if you throw it in the vacuum chamber it brings it to probably .2% or less.

So I'm working on the second batch right now, I emptied the tube and hand busted it to small bits, packed it into the tube nice and tight. Even though I had packed it completely the first time, this time there was about an inch of space between the material and the end of the tube. I heard coffee filters can be used as a 'filler' for the empty space but I didn't bother because I felt a lot would get stuck in the coffee filters.

I put my cans of butane in the freezer for a bit while I set everything up, then blasted 1 and 1/2 cans of ronson through the tube. Let it sit in hot water for the initial purge then brought it in and set the water onto my hotplate at setting #1, I have a candy thermometer in the water and the temp has been ~100 degrees. It's been about 2 hours since I started the run, about an hour and a half purging on a hotplate.

Should I leave it on the hotplate as is until the bubbles are gone or should I try to agitate it with heat (from my torch or a hair dryer, which is better?)

pic of how its looking coming right away

aand here's the pic of how it's looking

looks pretty good so far. a hair dryer is def better overall. might take a little longer, but it definitely wont overheat it like a torch possibly could.


now scrape it up with a straight window scraping razor and purge a bit more in a vacuum if you got one.

if you dont got a vacuum, I would just let it sit in that SS dish, in a bigger dish of very hot water for 2 or 3 hours, until all the uneven bubbles stop, and the bubbles coming from the oil start to all be the same size and speed. looks like you still got some big bubbles, small bubbles, slow bubbles, fast bubbles etc.. so it needs more time.

vacpurge said:

looks pretty good so far. a hair dryer is def better overall. might take a little longer, but it definitely wont overheat it like a torch possibly could.


now scrape it up with a straight window scraping razor and purge a bit more in a vacuum if you got one.

if you dont got a vacuum, I would just let it sit in that SS dish, in a bigger dish of very hot water for 2 or 3 hours, until all the uneven bubbles stop, and the bubbles coming from the oil start to all be the same size and speed. looks like you still got some big bubbles, small bubbles, slow bubbles, fast bubbles etc.. so it needs more time.

Click to expand...

I don't have a vacuum only a hot plate, so I'll be making due with that.

Here's a pic I took about 15 mins ago


should I wait until the bubbles are completely gone then scrape it up? Or should I scrape it up now, toss it on my oil pad and then back into the dish to bubble more

leave it thin like that for a bit longer still. dont scrape it... the thin layer it has now is perfect and it almost impossible to re create if you scrape it up... so just leave it.

I can see your bubbles are still different sizes, which indicate butane. but from the looks of it, youre getting very close to being done.

if your water temperature isnt extremely hot... keep it on, you cant keep it on too long, providing the water is only warm and not hot.... 24 hours on a nice warm water bath in a thin layer like that and youre basically good to start smoking.

if you want.. you can sneak a test hoot now and see how much it crackles and sizzles... thatll tell you how much butane is left, although id imagine youre almost done.

vacpurge said:

leave it thin like that for a bit longer still. dont scrape it... the thin layer it has now is perfect and it almost impossible to re create if you scrape it up... so just leave it.

I can see your bubbles are still different sizes, which indicate butane. but from the looks of it, youre getting very close to being done.

if your water temperature isnt extremely hot... keep it on, you cant keep it on too long, providing the water is only warm and not hot.... 24 hours on a nice warm water bath in a thin layer like that and youre basically good to start smoking.

if you want.. you can sneak a test hoot now and see how much it crackles and sizzles... thatll tell you how much butane is left, although id imagine youre almost done.

Click to expand...

do you think leaving it at 110 degrees will be fine or should I lower the temp before leaving it sit for 24 hours?

thanks for the help