Homemade oil for my vape pen

Go go n chill

Go go n chill

Well-Known Member
Chris Edward said:
I am glad I can be helpful…

Now I see the method to your process, it makes sense.

If you dilute your oils 50:50 with ethanol you can let gravity do the work for you. It it’s not a quick process but at the same time it doesn’t put unnecessary pressure on the filter so it can washed and reused a few times.

As far as the ethanol goes, that sucks that it is so difficult to buy in your area, but a lot of areas are like this.

You could always file for an ethanol “fuel” license and make it yourself, or you could go the “gray” route and get a water distiller and process some 40% vodka through it a few times until it comes close to the azeotrope (95% alcohol).



This way the taxes are already paid (that seems to be all they care about). But you don’t need the alcohol to be over 80% to dissolve cannabinoids, especially when they have already been isolated like you are doing in your process. You can probably get away with 70%.

You just need the alcohol to disperse the cannabinoids so they can pass through your filters, so it’s not like you need a lot.

A lot of people use Iso because it is cheaper and you can get 91%+ at the local drug store, but it’s toxic to humans, like most of the other solvents used.

At least with ethanol if some of the solvent remains in the oil, it’s not going to cause harm.

You can vape ethanol, if you can stand it.

As far as BHO goes, there’s no telling what impurities were in it (they probably used the cheapest lighter fluid they could find) and the impurities just get concentrated as the solvent evaporates away.

Do you make your own rosin bags or do you buy them?

I haven’t bought a commercial cart in several years, I almost forgot how expensive they are…

The cart costs like $8 max to make and that's factoring in labor, packaging, etc, which all cost much more than the cannabis oil.

It’s like selling concrete.

The bag costs more than the contents.

As far as the hot plate recommendation, a basic coffee warmer will work for small batches. They are supposed to keep coffee about 200F, which is a good, safe temp for cannabis oil.



You can fit a 60mm petri dish on one or up to a 600ml beaker.

If you can find 90mm glass petri dishes those would work as well, but 90mm seems to be mostly plastic these days and the 100mm one are just a bit too big.

What works great are the little 1 cup size Anchor or Pyrex dishes, they are easy to get, decently priced and come with lids so you can close them up if you need to.



If you are doing larger batches, you probably want to get a something with a more stable heat source.
While you are at it, a lab grade magnetic stirrer with heat will be your best bet, but these can go from $50 to $1,000 pretty quickly.
I am designing one myself, but with all the other crap I have going on, it’s a slow process.
If I were to buy one, this would be the one I would buy:



https://www.ika.com/en/Products-Lab-Eq/Magnetic-Stirrers-Hot-Plate-Lab-Mixer-Stirrer-Blender-csp-188/IKA-Plate-Package-cpdt-10003302/

The price seems high, but it comes with a lifetime warranty, so it’s the last stir plate you will ever need to buy.
Click to expand...
Have you used the syringe filters
 
Go go n chill

Go go n chill

Well-Known Member
Chris Edward said:
I am glad I can be helpful…

Now I see the method to your process, it makes sense.

If you dilute your oils 50:50 with ethanol you can let gravity do the work for you. It it’s not a quick process but at the same time it doesn’t put unnecessary pressure on the filter so it can washed and reused a few times.

As far as the ethanol goes, that sucks that it is so difficult to buy in your area, but a lot of areas are like this.

You could always file for an ethanol “fuel” license and make it yourself, or you could go the “gray” route and get a water distiller and process some 40% vodka through it a few times until it comes close to the azeotrope (95% alcohol).



This way the taxes are already paid (that seems to be all they care about). But you don’t need the alcohol to be over 80% to dissolve cannabinoids, especially when they have already been isolated like you are doing in your process. You can probably get away with 70%.

You just need the alcohol to disperse the cannabinoids so they can pass through your filters, so it’s not like you need a lot.

A lot of people use Iso because it is cheaper and you can get 91%+ at the local drug store, but it’s toxic to humans, like most of the other solvents used.

At least with ethanol if some of the solvent remains in the oil, it’s not going to cause harm.

You can vape ethanol, if you can stand it.

As far as BHO goes, there’s no telling what impurities were in it (they probably used the cheapest lighter fluid they could find) and the impurities just get concentrated as the solvent evaporates away.

Do you make your own rosin bags or do you buy them?

I haven’t bought a commercial cart in several years, I almost forgot how expensive they are…

The cart costs like $8 max to make and that's factoring in labor, packaging, etc, which all cost much more than the cannabis oil.

It’s like selling concrete.

The bag costs more than the contents.

As far as the hot plate recommendation, a basic coffee warmer will work for small batches. They are supposed to keep coffee about 200F, which is a good, safe temp for cannabis oil.



You can fit a 60mm petri dish on one or up to a 600ml beaker.

If you can find 90mm glass petri dishes those would work as well, but 90mm seems to be mostly plastic these days and the 100mm one are just a bit too big.

What works great are the little 1 cup size Anchor or Pyrex dishes, they are easy to get, decently priced and come with lids so you can close them up if you need to.



If you are doing larger batches, you probably want to get a something with a more stable heat source.
While you are at it, a lab grade magnetic stirrer with heat will be your best bet, but these can go from $50 to $1,000 pretty quickly.
I am designing one myself, but with all the other crap I have going on, it’s a slow process.
If I were to buy one, this would be the one I would buy:



https://www.ika.com/en/Products-Lab-Eq/Magnetic-Stirrers-Hot-Plate-Lab-Mixer-Stirrer-Blender-csp-188/IKA-Plate-Package-cpdt-10003302/

The price seems high, but it comes with a lifetime warranty, so it’s the last stir plate you will ever need to buy.
Click to expand...
I use an electric hot plate...... about 20$ at your local grocery..... burns off everclear overnight..... doesn’t take much heat! I mean I can touch it when I’m doing it! Not much heat just a F A N... lawd is is smelly
 
Go go n chill

Go go n chill

Well-Known Member
6A4F34AE-A198-40F7-A856-F34D13CFC4CC.jpeg 8138CB85-E968-419A-92E7-A984A7E5C5DF.jpeg I took my used rosin pucks, soaked them for about a minute in everclear then pulled them through a .2 micron filter in a Büchner funnel with a vacuum. I have it evaporating now on a hot plate. About 2 thirds of the rosin dissolved off the pucks. Soooo if I figured correctly once this evaps I should be able to mix with my liquidizer and pop straight into a cart. We will see
 
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710slickxx

710slickxx

Well-Known Member
Go go n chill said:
View attachment 4305848 View attachment 4305849 I took my used rosin pucks, soaked them for about a minute in everclear then pulled them through a .2 micron filter in a Büchner funnel with a vacuum. I have it evaporating now on a hot plate. About 2 thirds of the rosin dissolved off the pucks. Soooo if I figured correctly once this evaps I should be able to mix with my liquidizer and pop straight into a cart. We will see
Click to expand...
Oooooo that looks r kelly golden.
 
Chris Edward

Chris Edward

Well-Known Member
Schmarmpit said:
Yes, thanks for clarifying! Empty carts. Been using cheap ebay carts and i suspect they could be better. I get pull throughs more often than I'd like. Leaky carts.
Click to expand...
When the coil goes the carts will tend to leak.
It is this way on atomizers with replaceable coils as well, also bad coils will leak and sometimes you just end up with a bad coil.

As far as decent disposable carts go, I really can't help you there.
Mostly because most of them are clones of each other and just because they look similar doesn't mean they are anywhere near the same.

The only way to know for certain is to buy from a reputable brand (considerably more expensive and probably the same crap, just with a warranty), or go the RBA, RDA route. This way you will have ultimate control over your vape setup, from the coil build to the wick and once you get over the hurdle of the initial cost of the setup, the cost to rebuild a coil is very cheap.

The hit from a setup like this is very clean. I switched to a simple replaceable wick atomizer and now I can taste the coil on the disposable ones, whereas before I didn't notice it.
The only thing that sucks is the replaceable wicks don't last long and they cost like $2.50 to replace.
They can be rebuilt but it's a dodgy process, they aren't designed to be rebuilt so it puts a lot of stress on the seals when you do.

One of these days I have to put some time into testing an RBA with 1.5 or 18 ohm coils on a regular 510 battery and see how it goes.
What's the worst that can happen?
 
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Chris Edward

Chris Edward

Well-Known Member
Go go n chill said:
You seem to have lots of info thought you might have a better way
Click to expand...
I am just trying to be helpful.
I don't claim to know the best way, all I can do is pass along ideas I have learned along the way that hopefully save others some time and money, because I am sure as you know the processing side of this can sure eat cash and too often the cannabis "friendly" companies gouge people for stuff they can get other places much cheaper.

As far as a better way to process cannabinoids, this depends on your end goal, there is no perfect "one size fits all" way.

If you are looking to increase THC then short path distillation is your best bet.
If you use a 3 way receiver and re-process the shatter you can split the concentrate into the terpenes, CBD, and then the THC, but you have to keep your eye on the temps and be ready to move the flask when extract changes.
Then you can add back what you want when mixing your cartridges and really tweak everything to suit you.

Another option for increasing THC is reverse phase column chromatography. This can be really wasteful unless you want to take the time to wash the silica which is a multi-step process.
However if you filter your oil before running it through the column, then you can save yourself some trouble later on.
Like short path distillation, this will separate out the CBD from the THC, but not the terpenes.
For that you need to use normal phase column chromatography (same basic equipment, different silica) to isolate the terpenes and then the THC and CBD, which flow out at about the same rate. Then you pass the THC:CBD oil through the reverse phase chromatography column and like short path distillation the CBD flows first, then the THC.

But most people don't have thousands of dollars to drop on gear to process a few grams of oil.
So the best bet is to bulk filter, then use quality syringe filters but those can cost $3-$4 each.
But in all honesty this is not what their intended use is. They are designed to filter thin liquid samples prior to testing, to filter medications, or solvents used for nuclear magnetic resonance that are siphoned from ampules.
But people use them to filter all sorts of other things.
We do what we can with what we have...
In the long run it's still cheaper than spending $60 on a cartridge.

Now if you are making tinctures, you can skip most of the filtering steps and do a bulk filtering and then perhaps do an 11 micron filtering to get rid of anything that might clog a dropper, then mix it with some VG (which is safe to eat) or MCT and you're done. You don't even have to worry if the oil has chlorophyll in it because ingesting chlorophyll is actually good for you, so are the waxes and other things that the super fine filters would remove, so there's no point in removing that stuff unless you are going to vape it.

Everyone seems obsessed with increasing the intensity of the THC and frankly this is upsetting because I can see the next progression and if things go the route I am thinking they are, that will surely set cannabis legalization back 100+ years (so far the fear of it has worked for the past 89 years)...
I wish I could be more open about it, but it's probably best I don't mention it by name.
I don't want to give people ideas and I don't need the fuzz kicking down my door.

As always I hope this was helpful.
 
Last edited:
Go go n chill

Go go n chill

Well-Known Member
Chris Edward said:
I am just trying to be helpful.
I don't claim to know the best way, all I can do is pass along ideas I have learned along the way that hopefully save others some time and money, because I am sure as you know the processing side of this can sure eat cash and too often the cannabis "friendly" companies gouge people for stuff they can get other places much cheaper.

As far as a better way to process cannabinoids, this depends on your end goal, there is no perfect "one size fits all" way.

If you are looking to increase THC then short path distillation is your best bet.
If you use a 3 way receiver and re-process the shatter you can split the concentrate into the terpenes, CBD, and then the THC, but you have to keep your eye on the temps and be ready to move the flask when extract changes.
Then you can add back what you want when mixing your cartridges and really tweak everything to suit you.

Another option for increasing THC is reverse phase column chromatography. This can be really wasteful unless you want to take the time to wash the silica which is a multi-step process.
However if you filter your oil before running it through the column, then you can save yourself some trouble later on.
Like short path distillation, this will separate out the CBD from the THC, but not the terpenes.
For that you need to use normal phase column chromatography (same basic equipment, different silica) to isolate the terpenes and then the THC and CBD, which flow out at about the same rate. Then you pass the THC:CBD oil through the reverse phase chromatography column and like short path distillation the CBD flows first, then the THC.

But most people don't have thousands of dollars to drop on gear to process a few grams of oil.
So the best bet is to bulk filter, then use quality syringe filters but those can cost $3-$4 each.
But in all honesty this is not what their intended use is. They are designed to filter thin liquid samples prior to testing, to filter medications, or solvents used for nuclear magnetic resonance that are siphoned from ampules.
But people use them to filter all sorts of other things.
We do what we can with what we have...
In the long run it's still cheaper than spending $60 on a cartridge.

Now if you are making tinctures, you can skip most of the filtering steps and do a bulk filtering and then perhaps do an 11 micron filtering to get rid of anything that might clog a dropper, then mix it with some VG (which is safe to eat) or MCT and you're done. You don't even have to worry if the oil has chlorophyll in it because ingesting chlorophyll is actually good for you, so are the waxes and other things that the super fine filters would remove, so there's no point in removing that stuff unless you are going to vape it.

Everyone seems obsessed with increasing the intensity of the THC and frankly this is upsetting because I can see the next progression and if things go the route I am thinking they are, that will surely set cannabis legalization back 100+ years (so far the fear of it has worked for the past 89 years)...
I wish I could be more open about it, but it's probably best I don't mention it by name.
I don't want to give people ideas and I don't need the fuzz kicking down my door.

As always I hope this was helpful.
Click to expand...
Yes Imo high potency is not needed
 
710slickxx

710slickxx

Well-Known Member
Chris Edward said:
I am just trying to be helpful.
I don't claim to know the best way, all I can do is pass along ideas I have learned along the way that hopefully save others some time and money, because I am sure as you know the processing side of this can sure eat cash and too often the cannabis "friendly" companies gouge people for stuff they can get other places much cheaper.

As far as a better way to process cannabinoids, this depends on your end goal, there is no perfect "one size fits all" way.

If you are looking to increase THC then short path distillation is your best bet.
If you use a 3 way receiver and re-process the shatter you can split the concentrate into the terpenes, CBD, and then the THC, but you have to keep your eye on the temps and be ready to move the flask when extract changes.
Then you can add back what you want when mixing your cartridges and really tweak everything to suit you.

Another option for increasing THC is reverse phase column chromatography. This can be really wasteful unless you want to take the time to wash the silica which is a multi-step process.
However if you filter your oil before running it through the column, then you can save yourself some trouble later on.
Like short path distillation, this will separate out the CBD from the THC, but not the terpenes.
For that you need to use normal phase column chromatography (same basic equipment, different silica) to isolate the terpenes and then the THC and CBD, which flow out at about the same rate. Then you pass the THC:CBD oil through the reverse phase chromatography column and like short path distillation the CBD flows first, then the THC.

But most people don't have thousands of dollars to drop on gear to process a few grams of oil.
So the best bet is to bulk filter, then use quality syringe filters but those can cost $3-$4 each.
But in all honesty this is not what their intended use is. They are designed to filter thin liquid samples prior to testing, to filter medications, or solvents used for nuclear magnetic resonance that are siphoned from ampules.
But people use them to filter all sorts of other things.
We do what we can with what we have...
In the long run it's still cheaper than spending $60 on a cartridge.

Now if you are making tinctures, you can skip most of the filtering steps and do a bulk filtering and then perhaps do an 11 micron filtering to get rid of anything that might clog a dropper, then mix it with some VG (which is safe to eat) or MCT and you're done. You don't even have to worry if the oil has chlorophyll in it because ingesting chlorophyll is actually good for you, so are the waxes and other things that the super fine filters would remove, so there's no point in removing that stuff unless you are going to vape it.

Everyone seems obsessed with increasing the intensity of the THC and frankly this is upsetting because I can see the next progression and if things go the route I am thinking they are, that will surely set cannabis legalization back 100+ years (so far the fear of it has worked for the past 89 years)...
I wish I could be more open about it, but it's probably best I don't mention it by name.
I don't want to give people ideas and I don't need the fuzz kicking down my door.

As always I hope this was helpful.
Click to expand...
Pes or ptfe filters?
 
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