anyone know about tinctures?

Hey Guys and Girls,
I recently tried to make a tincture using the dark method as descrbed in the Cooking With Cannabis book I got for Christmas... The method is to take about a oz of trim, pour a strong alcohol over it, leave it in an airtight jar in the freezer for 5-6 days shaking the jar once daily. So, I used nice white widow leaf trim (nice and frosty pieces only btw) and poured about 8 fluid onces of grey goose vodka over it and followed the directions. I strained the widow pulp out last night and tried it first thing before work this morning when my heads the clearest... I was dismayed to find that the spoonful I took gave me only a light high... My impression was 5-10 drops and Id be nice... so, my question is should I take my existing weak tincture and try to make it stronger by adding nice sensi star trim? Is the alcohol in it still able to absorb more thc? Or should I just make some butter? thanks CW

With a 40% alcohol, you need to let it sit for much longer that that.
I do my "Green Dragons" in Lemon Extract at 90% alcohol.
There are 2 ways to fool with this. First, you can just put your herb directly into the bottle, wrap it with foil to keep it dark, and just place it in a closet that doesn't get too warm, like around 20 celcius, of 70 F. Let it sit for a good 3 weeks. I just keep the herb in the tincture, not doing any harm. When I pour it out, I just put a small peice of cheescloth around the neck of the bottle to filter out the particles.
The amount of herb used obviously directly correlates to the amount of THC will be in the tincture.
The most important thing, you MUST roast the herb prior to putting it in the alcohol. I do 250 F for 10-15 minuts in the oven loosly wrapped in tinfoil. It stinks the place up, but it is needed to convert the inactive carbon bonded THC into the stuff the body can use.

The other way it can be done is by first roasting as above.

Bring some water up to almost a boil in a small pan. Place a heat safe glass bowl in there and then put you alcohol in the bowl. The water bath prevents the alcohol from heating too quick and boiling over. You will need a thermometer and keep the alcohol at 160 F for a good 20 minuts while the herb is soaking in it. Just adjust the controls on the stove to make it hotter or cooler.

hey thanks a lot Mannurse801... Is there anything that I can do with my existing weak tincture or is it garbage? Like, could I use that white widow infused alcolhol? Im pissed the book didnt say anything about heating the herb up first. That book sucks.. I will follow your instructions for the next one but is there anything I could use my crappy one for? and by the way, I have never had a cannabis tincture, how strong are they? how fast do you feel it?

Hey buddy,
They are as strong as you make them. I make 3-4 doses at a time. I use 2 oz of lemon extract, and it ends up evaporating to about 12-20 ml. That's when I do it on the stove. I use about 2 grams and I get 4 pretty strong doses. It generally takes about 30 min to 1 hr to feel it. It tends to creep up for a good 2 hrs, I peek then, and continues for a couple hours...
What you could do with yours is just let it evaporate until you have a couple oz left of liquid, then it should be concentrated. Just be careful, and test the dose slowly. I once got too much, and it is kinda freaky....
I actually just made some for the weekend. It is great. I mix it in some freska or lemon pop like sprite. The green bottle hides the color. I drink it at curling, nobody knows, I just get a little slower.. haha
Cheers man, and shoot me a pm if you need anything more. Cheers.

Thanks a lot mannurse801! You the mannurse! I will follow your advice. And, for correction, the book that gave me the wrong directions was NOT Cooking With Cannabis, it was a book called Marijuana as Medicine by Bliss Howard I think... Anyway, Happy New Year to ye! I like your signature btw, funny. Thanks for the help!

There is a really good thread over on Cannabis.com. There site is down right now or I would post the link for you. Is about making "Green Dragon" and was started by Masterwo, I believe that was his user name. Do a search and you should be able to find it when they come back on.

You need to get to the newsstand and pick up this months high times. they have a great step by step recipe with photos for an alcohol free tincture. they use a big ass jar of shake or ground buds and vegetable glycerin, they poured the glycerin into the jar of bud and let that shit chill for like 2 months. it turned into the nastiest looking brown mixture which they filtered through a hash bag. They said it was super potent, good luck!

The nice thing about the green dragon is that it is done in one day. But no good if you want no alcohol. I do something like it but cook it down to smoke instead of drinking. I saw this other one on glycerin but haven't read it in a while. I was going to post the links for you but the site is down again.

yeah the glycerin method takes some time, but so does growing weed I think as growers we should be able to appreciate the fact that sometimes you just gotta wait it out...

That's a very good point Nugs. But as humans lots of times we are not very good at that. I was reading a thread about when the plants were ready to harvest and a couple people had some good stories about waiting or the lack of.

yeah it can be really tough, like saving money, or anything else. It kinda makes me feel like a little kid i guess. you just gotta be your own parent to your inner little kid and remind yourself that good things come to those who wait. plus once you have waited monts for the damn thing to grow and ten produce buds it would seem just an awful shame to get over zealous and cut it down a week before it was good and ready!

Here's a thread with some research I did on alcohol and glycerine tinctures.

https://www.rollitup.org/cooking-cannabis/125137-alcohol-tincture.html

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Thanks Hobbs and Mannurse!