How to clean reclaim oil from oil/concentrate rigs!

VladFromOG

Active Member
If you're like me, you consider one of the benefits of vaping oil to be the ease of reclaiming the condensate in your bowl. I primarily use a wand and concentrate bowl, and so usually theres no scorching and the oil I reclaim from the bowl is quite pure, but when I go to clean my bongs, which are occasionally used with nails as well as the concentrate bowl, the condensate is often a little scorched. Moreover, since my bongs sit out for long periods of time, the condensate within often has dust and hair particles embedded in it. All of that makes for an oil that always scorches and tastes like ass. Now, since I hate to see such high potency oil go to waste, this is what I do to clean it: A water purge.

Luckily dust, carbon soot, and other combustion products are all water soluble, while cannabinoids are not. I simply take my reclaimed oil, either scraped from inside the bowl or washed out with a solvent then dried, and get a wide mouth mason jar filled to within an inch of the top of boiling purified water (brita is fine, just not tap). The oil/wax quickly melts and forms a film on the top of the jar. While the oil floats, all the other gunk will not. I like to stir it quickly with a unbent paperclip; the thin metal heats up and keeps the oil from sticking to it. After a quick stir you may notice some dust particles and fine hairs in the water, or even a slight darkening if your oil was badly scorched. You can briefly microwave the jar to keep the water hot enough to keep the oil liquid and floating, but do not allow it to boil over. Once you are satisfied that it is sufficiently cleaned, place the jar in the freezer to cool. As the water cools, the oil will migrate to a ring around the jar at the top of the water level. Let the water become very cold, but do not let it freeze. Once it is cold and the oil is hard and brittle, pour out the water (and the contaminants), rinse the jar with some cool clean water, then scrape the oil off of the inner rim of the jar (this is why the water level is 1 inch below rim and it has to be a wide mouth jar. You can then spread this oil out under a fan to dry out the water bubbles, or just vape as is (if you vape wet it will crackle but there is no danger as its pure water, kinda feels soothing), and you will be rewarded with a vape as smooth as the original.

Enjoy! There is some loss of course with this process, but who cares, its just reclaim, right? Besides, out of a foot bong, in a concentrate bowl, I get about 3 grams of condensate for every 10 grams of oil that goes in - thats pulling an additional 30 percent of pure cannabinoids that would just be condensed on the bong otherwise!
 
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