# decarboxylation of THCA and you



## gogrow (Apr 14, 2010)

I wont go into too much details on what i am talking about, as if you dont know, you probably cant answer my question, but i'm wondering if anyone has experimented with a fast, heat assisted decarboxylation of uncured pot..... 

reason being; I am out of my last harvest already, and am down to the last plant.... a sativa that refused to finish after 12weeks flowering. She's been dried and in jars for about 12 days, but its definitely still not fully cured yet, and as such, the buzz leaves much to be desired..... 

THCA loses its carboxyl chain very slowly during curing, or in about 15minutes at @220f.... so I put the jar in the oven at 225f for about 23minutes.... its cooling now, so i'll post up my opinion on this theory in a lil bit, but was curious if anyone else has tried it out??? post your experiences or opinions please


----------



## Dirty Harry (Apr 14, 2010)

I made a batch of green dragon. The instructions was to take your ground up buds, trim, stems, etc and put onto a cookie sheet evenly spread and baked at 325F for 4 1/2 min. Any hotter or longer you risk vaporizing your THC. It will do the conversion for you and has an interesting vaporizer smell...if you ever used a vaporizer.


----------



## gogrow (Apr 14, 2010)

Dirty Harry said:


> I made a batch of green dragon. The instructions was to take your ground up buds, trim, stems, etc and put onto a cookie sheet evenly spread and baked at 325F for 4 1/2 min. Any hotter or longer you risk vaporizing your THC. It will do the conversion for you and has an interesting vaporizer smell...if you ever used a vaporizer.



yeah, almost all of the info i could find on this subject involved the "green dragon"..... but looking into it, it seems to be the reason you have to cook with weed to have an effect


----------



## Dirty Harry (Apr 14, 2010)

I save all my vaporizer leavings to make BHO. It has been already heated due to the vaporizer but still have a usable amount of THC in it.

IMHO, the idea behind baking your green seems very sound. In fact, when you smoke it, your doing the same thing if you think about it...your just inhaling it at the same time.

Good luck!


----------



## gogrow (Apr 14, 2010)

out and cooled..... and just finished a joint....
initially, it smelled like lawn fresh out the oven, but it calmed down back to its normal smell after cooling, so thats different than when i've quick dried fresh bud..... 

mellowed out the taste a lil bit, but negligible effect there....

now the buzz.... actually seems to be a bit more "in the head" than before.... could be wishful thinking, but its definitely not any worse than before....

in summation, from my little experience thus far, i think there is something to look into here..... if you can cure your pot for about 2months before smoking, then i'd say it may be a mute point for you, but for others like myself, i think it may be promising...... 

any other ideas?


----------



## Dirty Harry (Apr 14, 2010)

Try taking a small amount and give it the bake again. I read that THC actually vaporizes at around 380F but high time in lower temps "can" vaporize the good stuff. I don't have any trim left to test it myself, but if you do, I would be interested in the results. Also remember, the quality of the product has the biggest effect on this. Low quality would be a little better while in theory, high quality would get magnified.
I know for a fact that my Green Dragon was made from trim and all leaves from male and female plants. It had a very good effect on me but I am not sure if it was the green 100% or a mix of the green and the alcohol. Two small night quill shots made me feel pretty damn good while the same totally wrecked my wife.
I am pretty sure if I didn't preheat my stuff, it would not of been as strong and I used the heating method of extraction meaning I boiled the liquid mix for awhile after heating the green. Heating the mix doesn't have any effect on the material in it, other than it takes 30-45 min compared to weeks for the cold method.


----------



## gogrow (Apr 14, 2010)

Dirty Harry said:


> Try taking a small amount and give it the bake again. I read that THC actually vaporizes at around 380F but high time in lower temps "can" vaporize the good stuff. I don't have any trim left to test it myself, but if you do, I would be interested in the results. Also remember, the quality of the product has the biggest effect on this. Low quality would be a little better while in theory, high quality would get magnified.
> I know for a fact that my Green Dragon was made from trim and all leaves from male and female plants. It had a very good effect on me but I am not sure if it was the green 100% or a mix of the green and the alcohol. Two small night quill shots made me feel pretty damn good while the same totally wrecked my wife.
> I am pretty sure if I didn't preheat my stuff, it would not of been as strong and I used the heating method of extraction meaning I boiled the liquid mix for awhile after heating the green. Heating the mix doesn't have any effect on the material in it, other than it takes 30-45 min compared to weeks for the cold method.



i'm confused.... i did do it... see above.... i baked a 1/2oz at @240f for around 23minutes.....


----------



## pseudo judo (Apr 15, 2010)

Yeah. i think he means vapourize the thc out at 380degreeF and see if it degrades the high.

Because u did it at 240degreeF so you only decarboxylated it.

If it degrades the high at 380 but not at 240 you know your method is comparable to curing.


----------



## RickWhite (Apr 15, 2010)

Decarboxalation makes the THC psychoactive. This happens when it is smoked or vaporized. The only reason to do it ahead of time is if you plan on eating it.

Also, I am not sure that the process does not destabilize the molecule and cause it to degrade faster. At any rate, unless you are cooking with it, there is no reason to do it.


----------



## gogrow (Apr 15, 2010)

RickWhite said:


> Decarboxalation makes the THC psychoactive. This happens when it is smoked or vaporized. The only reason to do it ahead of time is if you plan on eating it.
> 
> Also, I am not sure that the process does not destabilize the molecule and cause it to degrade faster. At any rate, unless you are cooking with it, there is no reason to do it.




the thought behind the theory is much like that of which sells vaporizors.... a lighter flame is around 1100-1400f.... would stand to reason that plenty can be burnt off and destroyed at those temps.


----------



## sensisensai (Apr 15, 2010)

There's no reason to do it really.but I know there's a canadian company that u can buy a capsule from and it comes with a solution the is supposed to do exactly that. I didn't like the capsules but I DO throw all my bho stuff in the oven for a few. The first time I made bho I didn't and though it was due to my noobishness then that the resulting product was crap. Next time I made a few changes among them throwing it in the oven the oils is less black (like first results) and more like a brilliant amber-gold (such as it should) so superstition forces me to pre-warm the oven every time I break out the butane


----------



## gogrow (Apr 15, 2010)

sensisensai said:


> There's no reason to do it really.but I know there's a canadian company that u can buy a capsule from and it comes with a solution the is supposed to do exactly that. I didn't like the capsules but I DO throw all my bho stuff in the oven for a few. The first time I made bho I didn't and though it was due to my noobishness then that the resulting product was crap. Next time I made a few changes among them throwing it in the oven the oils is less black (like first results) and more like a brilliant amber-gold (such as it should) so superstition forces me to pre-warm the oven every time I break out the butane



you're getting black oil with butane extraction??... that's odd.


----------



## RickWhite (Apr 17, 2010)

gogrow said:


> the thought behind the theory is much like that of which sells vaporizors.... a lighter flame is around 1100-1400f.... would stand to reason that plenty can be burnt off and destroyed at those temps.


I see what you are getting at. But, you have it backward.

When you burn pot, the THC decarboxalates and vaporises. This is all done with heat and too much destroys the THC.

If you decarboxalate it ahead of time, you are just making the molecule that much less stable so even more will be destroyed by the excess heat. You want to slow the process, not accelerate it.

The answer is to buy or build a vaporizer or learn ways of gently heating the weed while smoking it. One might even be able to vaporize weed using a vapor pipe (crack pipe) heated from below. I have never done it with weed, but when it comes to oil it will blow your mind.


----------



## sensisensai (Apr 18, 2010)

gogrow said:


> you're getting black oil with butane extraction??... that's odd.


Yeah dude. I know right? It was years ago but I was like wtf? This can't be right. Obviously this had nothing to do with it but it was just one of the changes I made to the process. That and more bud less leaf.


----------

