weed is love weed is life
Active Member
I'm gonna make some oil. Could I use wet bud? I don't want to dry and cure it if I don't have to. Thanks
Can you make oil from wet bud?
- Thread starter weed is love weed is life
- Start date
canadian1969
Well-Known Member
if you mean wet as in just harvested, and not wet like it was trampled in a mud puddle then yes. Actually, yes period, you can make oil out of anything, which is usually the point. Your problem is going to be water.
Some guys freeze both their "wet" product and the solvent to well below 0c , then do their extractions to minimize water getting into the solution. Some dry weed right out in the oven (no curing) (also decarboxylating in the process) driving all the water out before doing a room temp extraction (as you mentioned). I have done this just chopped up the weed and put it on a baking sheet with parchment paper (never wax paper), set it to 110f and stuck a wood spoon in the oven door, but it stinks and takes hours.
If you try to do anything other than a 99% pure QWET/QWISO at room temp, like soaking your wet weed in the solvent for long periods of time, you will have lots of water and green colour in the end product. The water will really screw up the consistency of the concentrate. Freezing it is prolly your best option if time is a factor. Freeze everything and do quick washes I would say.
Some guys freeze both their "wet" product and the solvent to well below 0c , then do their extractions to minimize water getting into the solution. Some dry weed right out in the oven (no curing) (also decarboxylating in the process) driving all the water out before doing a room temp extraction (as you mentioned). I have done this just chopped up the weed and put it on a baking sheet with parchment paper (never wax paper), set it to 110f and stuck a wood spoon in the oven door, but it stinks and takes hours.
If you try to do anything other than a 99% pure QWET/QWISO at room temp, like soaking your wet weed in the solvent for long periods of time, you will have lots of water and green colour in the end product. The water will really screw up the consistency of the concentrate. Freezing it is prolly your best option if time is a factor. Freeze everything and do quick washes I would say.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Or use a pure hydrocarbon solvent like naphtha. Only the oils and some waxes will dissolve in the solvent and the water will get all the sugars and chlorophyll etc. Then you can evap or recover the solvent, dissolve the oil in ISO and winterize it to clean up any waxes and make tastier oil.
To separate the water from the solvent I put mine in a plastic booze bottle then freeze it. Then you just pour the solvent/oil mix off the top and toss the bottle with the ice in it. East-peasy.
Lots of ways.
Good luck.
To separate the water from the solvent I put mine in a plastic booze bottle then freeze it. Then you just pour the solvent/oil mix off the top and toss the bottle with the ice in it. East-peasy.
Lots of ways.
Good luck.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
There's a bit of a problem with this method.
The second the alcohol touches ice crystals they melt right into it. Keep some pure alcohol in the freezer for a day then pour some into a shot glass full of snow or finely crushed ice. It's gone and now the alcohol is diluted with the water and extraction is non-optimal.
Like I said above you need a pure hydrocarbon solvent that is immiscible with water.
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
The miscibility of ethanol drops with subzero temperature, as does its dielectric constant, but it truly is far easier to extract fresh material with a non polar solvent.
Even Alkane chains up to about 7 carbons long are still slightly miscible, but longer than C-5 requires some effort to remove and maintain the monoterpenes.
Even Alkane chains up to about 7 carbons long are still slightly miscible, but longer than C-5 requires some effort to remove and maintain the monoterpenes.
canadian1969
Well-Known Member
Almost agree with you,
1. The freezing is to keep the ice crystals locked up inside the plants cell structure, as we know our oils are on the outside of the plant matter, so this should be done with whole frozen material, just cut it into manageable pieces. Grind it and you would experience the issue you mention. Although how you would grind fresh bud is beyond me, definitely dont put it in a blender i guess lol , and you freeze your solvent as well, (well as cold as you can get it) you need a decent freezer too ; and/or you need to leave it in there for days. Winterization would be a second freezing of the extract solution (tincture) to try and freeze out some remaining water. Just in case someone confused freezing wet bud versus winterization of extracts.
2. You are referring to the polarity of the solvent not its purity as a hydrocarbon, they are all hydrocarbons unless you are using liquid gases (CO2) as the solvent (or water or heavy water, which are solvents too). Almost all solvents are hydrocarbons.
https://sites.google.com/site/miller00828/in/solvent-polarity-table
above chart shows polarity and miscibility
One should also note that when you mix two substances into a homogeneous solution, (ie miscible) the properties of that solution are different from the component. A good example of this is why a beer will freeze in your freezer but not a bottle of vodka. The more alcohol in the water mixture the lower the freezing point of the mixture. Scientifically speaking we are talking about breaking an azeotrope once 95% ABV is achieved in a alcohol/water mixture. So to get that last 5% of water out by freezing you would need a freezer that could get to down to -120 C. Anyway, you need to identify if your solvent is miscible AND what its polarity is. unfortunately most people only have access to ethanol and iso, which are both miscible and fairly polar. Thus the freezing as it wouldn't be required with say hexane.
Purity should be reagent or at least laboratory grade (99%+) when talking about these more expensive, difficult to acquire and dangerous solvents. Buying paint thinner at your hardware store is retarded, just saying, cause we all know some dipshits out there are doing it. Naptha btw is a mixture of hydrocarbons and almost garuanteed to have unwanted nasty shit in it. Go directly to the MSDS info for anything you are going to use as a food grade solvent.
Also as you mention just because the solvent you choose may not be as as polar or miscible with water as others, doesn't mean that there isn't a bunch of stuff that it will pick up; as every solvent is a bit different.
Last edited:
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
You're totally correct. I double distill Coleman's Camp Stove fuel to get my naphtha taking only the portion that boils off between 72-85C. That gets me about 3L from a 3.8L can. It's not something that I encourage your average stoner to do tho as it is fraught with danger but I have the training and experience to do it safely. Getting hold of reagent grade solvents isn't an easy task either. I prefer using something like the 9X refined butane and have 5 cans of that on hand for a project. Even that isn't totally pure but the level of contaminants is so low that you'll breath lots worse stuff on a short trip to the store in any city.
I'm mostly doing cannabis infused coconut oils these days and eating my medicine. It's so much more effective and longer term than smoking or vaping it. No worries about contaminants as it's my own pot and I know how it was grown and what was used on it. Nothing but love!
I've known people that used gasoline to make oil then sold it. That's f'n criminal.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
I meant to comment on this in my previous post.
When fresh plant material is frozen the ice crystals that form in the cells ruptures them and exposes lots to the alcohol. For Qwiso or any alcohol extraction you're best off using bone dry pot. Doesn't have to be cured and is probably going to yield better if it isn't. Curing doesn't really do much more for the trichomes other than age them and allow terpenes to evaporate. It's the changes in the plant material from a good cure that improves the flavour and smokeabilty of your pot.
canadian1969
Well-Known Member
yep, was waiting for this , when cells are frozen the ice crystals do rupture the cell wall, but we are not exposing all cells to the solvent. Think of it as a water precaution, its not perfect but helps. If you have an industrial freezer as some peeps round here do, then the results can be very good. Using bone dry pot is completely contrary to the OPs original question man, yeah thats better, we know it.
Decomposition is curing. Curing reduces potency but also improves smokability, or smoothness. The elimination of nitrogen being of primary importance. Totally irrelevant to this conversation.
You dont age trichomes, you do that and lose potency, and terps, heat it , freeze it etc you are always going to lose something, We are not talking about ways to make herb smokable via combustion. relax man, this isn't a competition.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Believe when I say I'm not competing with anyone. Not in my makeup.
I'll just drop out.
Merry Xmas!
weed is love weed is life
Active Member
Haha I forgot I asked this and never logged back on. Thanks for the help when my girls are ready I'll give it a try.
SweetestCheeba
Well-Known Member
How long would you folks recommend freezing the fresh bud for. Does anyone have a recipe for making oil using fresh/wet bud?
Kid Kannabi5
Well-Known Member
I have been curious about trying a naptha extraction, but heard it pulls a ton of chlorophyll and end result is a dark oil even if chlorophyll is removed. Is this true? Color is a big factor in my area. People think if If it is any darker than honey, it is low quality. Which just isn't the case. Some strains make a darker or lighter oil. 3 of my strains come out normal blonde/golden color. My Kali Mist comes back amber almost red tinted...(beautiful!) And another comes back amber/orange. So strain plays a role definately. A concentrate could be 90% thc, but around here if it looks black or similar darkness nobody wants it. I love experimenting though. If you say it is worth it I'll try a map the pull. Let soak or qwiso style?
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
The term Naphtha doesn't refer to a specific hydrocarbon alkane or alkene, but to as boiling point range which also includes Benzene, a known carcinogen.
Alkanes or alkenes are non polar, so not prone to extract polar chlorophyll, but once green chlorophyll has deprotonated into brown non polar pheophytin, it is extracted. One of the reason extracts from older material is darker.
Kid Kannabi5
Well-Known Member
Turn your freezer up as high as it will allow. If you have a deep freezer, even better. Freeze for a good 24 hours. If using butane get as cold as possible. Deep freezer/dry ice ect. Keep the extraction as cold as possible to keep water out
Kid Kannabi5
Well-Known Member
My response to the naptha thing got included in the bubble in the above post. Sorry
SweetestCheeba
Well-Known Member
Ok, and once frozen I add the frozen buds to the hot oil?
Kid Kannabi5
Well-Known Member
Once frozen I would fill extraction column (keeping everything frozen is the key) and preform an N-butane extraction as usual. Collecting the resulting oil. Purge off remaining solvent.
Kid Kannabi5
Well-Known Member
What hot oil?
