I make cannabis oil. Would I follow these times/temps without the flower for decarboxylating and infusion ?
thank you
Props to medical militia for putting together that great video. I hope he doesn't feel like I'm stepping on his thread.
There is a table in the link below that shows lab test results in an experiment decarbing weed using sous vide. The article is short, well written and not a difficult read:
http://marijuanagrowershq.com/decarboxylation-marijuana-alchemy/
Cannabinoids___________#1 (no decarb)_________#2 (1 hour decarb)____________#3 (1:40 decarb)
THCA__________________12.2%_______________1.44% _____________________0%
THC____________________3.37% ______________8.9%______________________9.37%
Total THC* _____________14.07%______________10.16%_____________________9.37%
Total THC Adjusted** ____14.14%______________10.31% ____________________9.78%
CBD ___________________0% _________________0% _______________________0%
CBN ___________________0% _________________0.09% _____________________0.11%
CBG ___________________0.47% ______________0.49% _____________________0.38%
CBC ___________________0% _________________0.06% ____________________0.06%
Moisture Content _______10.48% ______________11.45% ___________________14.47%
(copy and paste of the table in the article)
He used dried, ground weed in small sample sizes. As you can see, at 1 hour, conversion was 98% complete and at 1:40, 100% complete with no signs of degradation to CBD.
His results were confirmed in other technical documents that I found while perusing the web for more information.
With oil, the decarb rates should be similar but (and there is always a but) the reaction rate is diffusion rate limited. Possibly diffusion of oxygen might take longer to reach all THCA in an oil than on ground flowers depending on the depth of the oil in your flask, IDK. I saw a video produced by somebody else in RIU where he showed oil bubbling during conversion due to CO2 that is evolved during decarb and his end point was reached when the bubbling stopped, so you have a visual guide with oil that we don't have with flowers. You can always do a test batch using med militia's procedure and verify end point was reached by visually verifying CO2 is no longer produced. Once you've verified the time, no longer need to do a visual on future batches.