well today i made the salve. i learned a lot of things not to do, lol.
i did this in my garage and that was mistake number 1. this should be done in a climate controlled area. the reason is simple, once the bees wax is added and removed from the heat it starts to solidify. the race is on at that point.
next mistake, filtering through coffee filter without first filtering through a stainless mesh strainer first. the websites i read did not suggest this, but i would like to suggest it. the result here with just the coffee filter was too slow on the filtering before wax started to solidify. i learned it was better to filter the big stuff out through the strainer first.
i also started filtering into jars that were in pans of a inch or two of water, almost boiling to keep things warm enough to filter. when filtering straight on to a jar sitting on the cabinet, the salve was solidifying in the jar and the coffee filter.
also, use rubber bands to hold your coffee filters in place.
long story short, i lost at least 6 ounces worth of salve through the mess and learning. because of losing almost half, i reduced the oils to half before putting into little 2 ounce jars.
so far, i will be honest, i am not that impressed with the warming properties of this mix. for one thing, the 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper really did not do much from what i could tell. at the point of making it where it was only coconut oil, cayenne pepper and olive oil, i rubbed some on my skin, no warming at all. so i will leave the cayenne pepper out next time i make it, which will change the color from the reddish color to something more white or light green.
it does smell pretty nice. you can smell a little weed
, and the camphor and mentol oils pretty well. the peppermint and eucalyptus are noticeable slightly, but don't notice the other oils in the aroma that much.
recipe needs a little more tweaking and i need some a sore muscles or joint pain to see how the THC/CBD's affect it. usually happens later at night i will try it and see if it loosens things up. i used about 10 grams of Sour D, decarb'd at 225 for 30 mins.
while the weed was decarbing, i filled a pan with an inch of water and put a 2 cup measuring cup in it, like a double boiler. i put 1 cup of Coconut oil (recipe called for 1.5 cups, but i didn't have it), 1/3 cup of oilve oil and 2 T of cayenne pepper in measuing cup and heated it, stirring every 5 mins or so.
i added the decarb'd weed and continued the double boiler cooking for another 25 mins.
next i added 1/3 cup of bees wax and fully melted it in. next time i will filter out the weed before adding the bees wax.
at this point, take my word, you need another pan with an inch of water and 2 jars. one needs a coffee filter and rubber band. quickly take your 2 cup measuring cup out of the pan and pour the mixture through a mesh strainer into jar #1. dump contents of strainer and pour jar #1 into jar#2 through coffee filter.
that is the cleanest and quickest way to do it. i made a mess, having to reheat, re-pour, etc...
any way, once coffee filter is mostly drained, i pulled the coffee filter and poured the contents back into my measuring cup (for its ability to pour cleanly), after i had cleaned the measuring cup and returned it to the double boiler. it is at this point i added all my oils, mixed well and poured into little containers.
i really don't see the need to thin this anymore unless it gets really hard. the consistency is fine for applying topically.
here are a few pics. oops, and i just touched the corner of my eye with a finger i had just cleaned up a jar with and there are some warming properties
probably the mentol and campor.
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