How long do you dry/cure before blasting?

I have like a lb+ of nug from my outdoor left to run...and most of the trim from the buds we manicured. Just too lazy to blast it right now.

You want to minimize the presence of water in the extraction or you will pull undesirable stuff like chlorophyll. This is why some people pop their material in a dehydrator before blasting it. This is also why others freeze their material (to keep water in its solid form). You could dehydrate until your starting material is bone dry, but the disadvantage is that you will also be evaporating away a lot of lighter elements (mono/di-terpenes) that impart flavor, taste, and also can enhance potency.

I can see why many people don't like using fresh frozen. The material inside froze to a solid mass after shooting for just a few seconds and began whistling under the back pressure built up inside the tube. Maybe I packed it too tight? Anyway the shit that did come out was a very nice gold color and definitely tastes/smells stronger than BHO made with the same strain premium trimmed/cured bud which is surprising. Wasn't sure I got it all due to the odd shapes of re-vegged mutant bud/sugar leaf growth so I shot it again after breaking it up a bit and collected a little more than half the amount of oil as the first run though the color was darker. I think when I harvest next time I will lay out whatever material I plan to blast for a couple days to dry it out a bit while running the dehumidifier then into the freezer. I did not pull much chlorophyll the first run due to the fast wash and maybe that is the key to using fresh frozen material; 2nd was another story. (no pics) Ended up with a surprising quantity of tasty amber shatter:



That first pic came out off color...interference or something but it was a pretty gold to clear bubbly puddle before scrape. Hard to believe this was from revegged bud that was cut off because it was attracting mold during the start of another flower cycle...literally made something from nothing! thanks everyone for your help and comments. This was a great learning experience and I conserved my bud for a bit longer. Also using just a hand powered mityvac to purge shows me that I need to invest in a powered one at some point...almost got a muffin this time (pic2) but I risk carpal tunnel doing it this way...Wish I learned this stuff earlier, peace

Metasynth said:

I have like a lb+ of nug from my outdoor left to run...and most of the trim from the buds we manicured. Just too lazy to blast it right now.

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One day soon I'll be as cool as you

midnitetoak said:

One day soon I'll be as cool as you

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You don't wanna be like me, bro. I'm a paranoid loser all alone with just my weed and wax.

That's all I ever aspired to be

mrcryce said:

You want to minimize the presence of water in the extraction or you will pull undesirable stuff like chlorophyll. This is why some people pop their material in a dehydrator before blasting it. This is also why others freeze their material (to keep water in its solid form). You could dehydrate until your starting material is bone dry, but the disadvantage is that you will also be evaporating away a lot of lighter elements (mono/di-terpenes) that impart flavor, taste, and also can enhance potency.

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i would think a dehydrator might pull some flavor out... Just dries too fast. I have come to the conclusion that you do need to dry out your material a bit unless you can get it to subzero temps to avoid moisture from binding up in your tube. I think I let it get too warm because I forgot to grab a glove & had to stop to go find it. I will lay it out to dry before freezing & shooting next time to see if it makes any difference but it will be some tone before I have more trims to play around with.

midnitetoak said:

I revegged my ladies because I liked the bud so much. Problem is I'm having mold issues. I was f-ing around in my grow tent when I noticed what I thought was nute burn on some leaves...turns out it was mold starting to form. At harvest this time I left some of the smaller popcornette size budlets on the plants in tiny little clusters because they looked way too small to bother drying out to smoke. That was 5 weeks ago and they are already back to 12/12 in preflower & white pistils beginning to form...all the frosty buds and sugar leaves that were left have now expanded to normal size & and are attracting mold deep under thick canopy. The plants grew back ten times more bushy but I was worried that new bud growth could become infested with this mold if allowed to spread.
So I cut off all the small buds & sugar leaves where visible trichomes were present & ended up with maybe 8g of poor quality trim when it's dry. I do not expect a huge yield or great quality because the material is sub-standard- mostly just frosty sugar leaf. How long should I wait to blast with butane? Until it's dry(4-5 days)? or should I jar cure it?(2-3 weeks min) Do you think the long exposures to light has degraded the thc content?

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We hang the plant in a cool dry area, pull off the fan leaves, and extract them on about the 5 to 7th day, when the small stems snap. That gets the water content down to around 25%. The reason that we extract while there is still a fair amount of moisture left, is that the monoterpenes responsible for most of the smell and flavor, are alcohols, ethers, esters, aldehydes, ketones, and carboxylic acids with high vapor pressures and leave right along with the water.

Because we are concentrating all of the terpenes, not just the diterpene cannabinoids, loss of some monoterpenes getting down to 25% water content is not an issue, because there is still more than enough left for the extract to smell and taste exactly like what it was extracted from, or even strongly more so, in the case of Pinene.

For the absolutely most floral extract, we use a thermos and do a frozen extract from fresh cut and frozen material. It usually smells as potent as sticking your nose in a pine sol bottle and can even be too, too much. Terpenes that smell and taste great, don't always do so in serious concentration and some are expectorants, inducing heavy coughing.

An effective way of dealing with too too much, is just to winterize the extraction to pull out the waxes, and it will also lower the monoterpene content, purging away the alcohol. The absolutely most delightful extractions that I've made, were winterized fresh frozen extractions.

I only do those in small amounts, usually in class, because the yield is low for all the work. A pound of fresh frozen material will take more work than the same amount of material with a 25% water content material and produce only about 25% as much resin. The yields are about the same, just one has a higher water to resin ratio when it comes to computing yield.

Yeah was thinking dry out 4 to 5 days just like I normally would for a standard jar cure then freeze & extract. You mention the thermos method & I've read other posts about it but I'm not sure I understand what you are doing with this.... Am I wrong to assume you are using a thermos instead of a tube to extract the frozen material? Can you explain this process please fade?

Ok found a few threads explaining the thermos method. It interests me because I happen to have an antique thermos circa 1940 that is glass lined & very thick. I think it would be perfect for freezer extractions. I have doubts that using ether to winterize would be safe to use in my house but I would use this for QWISO runs. I plan to freeze my thermos in a vessel to form a solid block of ice around the outside allowing the insulated air around my material to stay cold. Then I could do say a 20 sec wash & filter right back into the freezer. Thermos probably can hold a qp of trim or more.

I was once again looking at my plants & noticed discolored leaves that turned out to be more "elephantitis of the nugs." Some of the popcorn bud I left on the vine at harvest had become huge and sticky attracting yellow mold. It was located on the bottoms of my plants where I could not see before & was a real bitching pain in the ass trimming it off. When I was done I had enough frosty leaf trim to stuff 2 tubes so I shot it. This time I froze the tubes pre-packed & ready to blast right out the freezer along with a frozen can of powerx5. This yielded more oil than the last try & seems to be smoother. Anyway I got something dab able from trash and I can't thank those that were helpful enough. Thanks for your advice guys, you have truly taught a man to fish. Fat dabs peace

Fadedawg said:

A pound of fresh frozen material will take more work than the same amount of material with a 25% water content material and produce only about 25% as much resin. The yields are about the same, just one has a higher water to resin ratio when it comes to computing yield.

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Does that mean the fresh frozen is more diluted then the 25%; even though it has more terps?

BluJayz said:

Does that mean the fresh frozen is more diluted then the 25%; even though it has more terps?

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The resin's makeup changes slightly, in that it contains more monoterpenes, along with the diterpene cannabinoids, but the total cannabinoids are about the same either way.

midnitetoak said:

Yeah was thinking dry out 4 to 5 days just like I normally would for a standard jar cure then freeze & extract. You mention the thermos method & I've read other posts about it but I'm not sure I understand what you are doing with this.... Am I wrong to assume you are using a thermos instead of a tube to extract the frozen material? Can you explain this process please fade?

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Here is how we do it. http://skunkpharmresearch.com/bho-extraction/ We cut the fresh colas up into about 1/4" pieces and pack into a thermos, which we put a lid on to exclude atmosphere, before freezing to 0F. If it gets too much air to it, it will ice over the trichomes, making them more difficult to dissolve. Freeze the butane as well.

Great info thanx fade answered all my questions and then some

Fadedawg said:

Here is how we do it. http://skunkpharmresearch.com/bho-extraction/ We cut the fresh colas up into about 1/4" pieces and pack into a thermos, which we put a lid on to exclude atmosphere, before freezing to 0F. If it gets too much air to it, it will ice over the trichomes, making them more difficult to dissolve. Freeze the butane as well.

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yo fade! i was taking a look at your page again, and noticed a remarkably similar grinder! nice newwww addition to the page!

...

i was the original RIU author ! :]

https://www.rollitup.org/concentrates-extracts/624465-bho-vacuum-oil-wax-tutorial-8.html#post8892965

dunno if i linked that correct, but it was post #284 on my wax tutorial..




(A) sugar leaf trimmings VS (B) busted nugs

good trimmings are beautifully ready to blast out the bag. nugs not so much. so the nug breaker downnerr errr separates a good amount of thick stems, and gets that nice consistency to pack le tubes.

i actually forgot which label goes where, (buds/trimmings) but bottom line, this grinder works FAB!!

I think breaking it up evenly is really important especially if you plan to use fresh frozen. Grinding it to dust just allows more impurities in your oil but leaving it whole makes extracting every trich more difficult. I used scissors for breaking up and got the added benefit of a huge slice of scissor hash as the cherry on top of my bong load at the end of the day. Don't see the need to build one of these as I never plan to process that much material on a regular basis but I thought it looked familiar. Thinking about building a fixture to make blasting easier though...and as soon as I have a decent amount of trims it's gonna be on like donkey kong

i originally made this for big tings, my yields were killing me for what i was putting in, this made life better.

i have found this to be just as nice to break down small runs.. i can thrown in a half oz to couple oz, and just a few slides gets me my consistency. it really is nice, and doesnt need to be so big if doing smaller runs. i gotta say, its not straight cake grinding down bug runs. butttt, i get a consistent grind, and no powder.. and its overall simple compared to hand breaking, or scissors.

an electric grinder is the next best thing, but those arnt as fool proof, and child safe as this

Depends if I'm out or still have some. If I'm running low about 4 to 5 days if I have a stash about 2 weeks...