I’ve not made oil, butter or any other extract before. I have a fair wedge of trim I want to use to create some sort of extract.
The intention is to ingest what ever I produce, probably as a sleep aid but also as a general health improver.
My question here is what method gets the most out of weed, making cannabutter or Rick Simpson Oil?
Essentially, I guess which is the most efficient way of getting the most out of my weed/trim & into a product I can ingest?
Thanks in advance for any input.
Rick Simpson primarily used naphtha for his extractions, and as a mixture of non-polar solvents, it is not prone to extract C-55 polar-chlorophyll, but does pick up the C-40 b-Carotene, and the plant waxes around C-30. It would also extract the C-10 mono-terpenes and the C-15 sesquiterpenes, in addition to our targeted C-22 Terpenoids/Cannabinoids. For that reason it was considered to be "full spectrum". It will also pick up the C-55 Pheophytin if the Chlorophyll has been deprotonated.
Define full spectrum, as polar solvents like ethanol and isopropanol extract the same molecules, though not as much of the plant waxes and b-Carotene, plus it does go after the C-55 Chlorophyll.
QWET and QWISO are techniques for lowering the extraction temperatures and limiting soak time to reduce extraction of the molecules longer than C-22. If the concentrate is to be used for dabbing, orally, or topically, not having the Chlorophyll present in high concentration is a good thing, as it is harsh to dab, gives some folks severe gastric upset taken orally, and stains your clothing when use topically.
Rick's technique purging in a rice cooker, eliminates many of the aromatic C-10 through C-15 mono and sesquiterpenes, and many of them leave with the alcohol when purging after QWET/QWISO, so neither truly delivers a full spectrum of what is in the plant.
As many of you know, naphtha is not a specific hydrocarbon molecule, it is actually just a boiling point range for a mixture of light hydrocarbons, which unfortunately contains Benzene, a known carcinogen. Rick's rice cooker solution also does not remove residual solvents to within FDA residual solvent standards.
What Rick's technique did do, is show that what ever it was worked against cancer and other diseases and saved lives. When I confronted him with the Benzene and residual solvent issues, he noted that however insalubrious it might be, it saved the life of someone that was dying and that residual naphtha ties up the liver processing it and therefore leaves the cannabinoids in the system longer to do their work. Both statements absolutely true.
At SPR we provided HAO or HSO to end of life and seriously ill patients that we made from BHO and QWET, and which gave some miraculous recoveries and saved lives, leading me to believe that we were supplying the critical ingredient, what ever it might be.
According to Dr. Robert Melamede, the entourage effect is important, but it is the phyto cannabinoids effects on our bodies endo cannabinoid system that does the heavy lifting, kick starting the endo cannabinoid system, which controls our bodies immune system. If our immune system was not lagging, it would have already taken care of the problem automatically on its own.
Sooooo to answer your question, you can extract with non-polar vegetable oils, but you are limited to how much they will extract before reaching saturation, so you have to use more of the mixture for the same effects, and you can't evaporate some of it away to concentrate the mixture.
I suggest QWET your first time around, because it requires less equipment and experience to do safely, and residual solvent is less of an issue.
As noted, it will mix at any ratio with vegetable oil, if that is the menstruum you prefer, can be taken in pill form, dabbed, turned into a topical, or mixed with coco butter to make an effective suppository.
Quick Wash Ethanol, also know as QWET is one of the techniques commonly employed to extract oil from cannabis. Here is skunk pharm’s QWET formula to produce an absolute using a 3 minute quick wash.…
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