Alcohol Tincture

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"would you recommend putting the mixture in a hot water bath?"

Do you mean putting the alcohol and bud mixture in ... a measuring cup ... and the set the cup in a pot of hot water; or pour the alcohol and bud mixture into the pot of hot water? Sorry for over thinking that, early in the morning.

I heat my oil, butter and glycerin mixes by putting them in a Pyrex measuring cup, covering with tin foil, and setting the cup in a bath of hot water in my slow cooker. Like a double boiler except it doesn't boil. I'm going to pick up and electric pressure cooker to speed the heating.

We can't do this with alcohol tinctures because the alcohol will start to boil off at 79C (172F). If you do use a hot water bath with alcohol be sure to use a thermometer to keep the temperature below boiling or you'll end up with a cup of hot water and bud with a little resin extracted from the bud. The resin will come out of solution and turn into sediment at the bottom of your cup of water as the alcohol boils off and the proof of the mixture goes down. You could literally start with a liter of Everclear, put the cup in a hot bath, and come back and have 50 ml of water and the bud. So ... be careful with alcohol mixes and hot water - thermometer and monitor close.

If you want to get the resin from your tincture - bad taste, not potent enough, want to use a different solvent, etc - you can boil off the alcohol and the resin will settle as sediment at the bottom of your container. Pour off the water (containing the chlorophyll and terpins) and you have honey oil. There are more efficient ways of making Honey Oil, but this is a good way to salvage resin from a poor alcohol tincture.

Pouring the mix into a bath of hot water you obviously don't want to do. This is probably not worth mentioning but I haven't had my first Volcano bag yet so ...

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The C-clamp herb press works great, but obviously it's not going to be as easy to use as a professionally made model. The efficiency will be close but you've really got to work the clamp hard to get all of the tincture from the bud ball - this can be tricky after you've heated the clamp in the oven to liquefy the butter. With a cold alcohol mixture this wouldn't be a problem but the C-press (good name) has to be held upright or the liquid will pour out of the cup - when twisting hard it's easy to forget . Fashioning a larger handle out of pipe would help, something that can be put on and taken off the clamp for ease of use. A stand (large vise) to attached the C-clamp to when it comes out of the oven would help.

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this a awesome new of this till recently. just a question is the bud ball your sqeazin the left over stuff from the tincture that youve strained off and now your sqeezin it off to get more resin? out or is it from makin butters n the like. sorry for the dumb question. so much good stuff to look up, sick of smokin found a new hobby it looks like lol. also if its not from the tincture does it become compost for the garden. cheers

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"is the bud ball your sqeazin the left over stuff from the tincture that youve strained off and now your sqeezin it off to get more resin? out or is it from makin butters n the like."

From Both. Whenever you do an extraction the most concentrated solvent (alcohol, oil, butter,etc) will be what's left in the bud ball after we squeeze it. Getting the last of this solvent (for me 25% of total butter recovered, alcohol will be less) will give you more tincture and more concentrated tincture. For example, with the butter I may get 25% more recovered with the C-press but there may be 40% of the extracted cannaboids in that butter.

"so much good stuff to look up, sick of smokin found a new hobby it looks like lol. also if its not from the tincture does it become compost for the garden."

There is so much, that's the idea of this thread - gather it all here for easy reading.

Making tinctures and concentrates is a great hobby, I ordered a test tube/holders set over the net but I find it easier to use Pyrex canning jars - tougher and screw on lids. The test tubes are great of experimenting, makes me feel like a mad scientist.

Speaking of making gold from compost - for years I threw out my dregs from my Volcano, garbage. A couple of months ago I started making Lava Butter from the dregs and can get a potent tray of brownies from a weeks worth of dregs (2 cups). With a simple refining or two the butter tastes like it was made from Honey Oil. Gold from Garbage.

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The Grinch posted this link to a video of an oil/alcohol spray tincture that is absorbed sublingually (under the tounge). I'm working on a simple grape seed oil tincture and using that with Everclear in a spray bottle. I can't buy Everclear around here, the best I can get is 151 proof rum (Everclear is 190 proof - 95% alcohol). But I have been making grape seed oil tincture and refined a small batch in a canning jar, the taste improvement is phenomenal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqje5StAhCI&feature=related

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Here's the procedure for refining. Works great for butter and oil, obviously not so good for alcohol or glycerin. You loose butter and oil every time it touches a surface.

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Refine your Cannabutter. (Cannaoil)

After you make your Cannabutter (by whatever method):

1. Bring a pot of water to a good boil and reduce heat to simmer.
2. Put all of your butter in the water, as soon as it's melted turn off the heat.
3. Stir for 15 minutes, taking the floating butter to the bottom of the water, stirring in a top to bottom circular motion.
4. Put the pot in the fridge (on a pad so the fridge doesn't melt) until the butter hardens, then put the pot into the freezer for a few minutes to make it more solid. (for ease of extraction)
5. Use a sharp knife tip to cut the butter from around the outside of the pot. Lift out the Cannabutter disk, let the water drip off.

Your butter, or oil, will have bonded with the cannaboids so when you put the butter in hot water the water soluble terpenes, chlorophyll and plant matter will go into solution with the water and the Cannabutter will float above the foul mix. You will have fantastic butter, like you made it from honey oil.

I started refining all of my butter after making Lava Butter from Volcano dregs, simple and makes eating canna-foods a whole new experience.

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THANKS your thread has given me a bunch of help i'm going to be enjoying this later tonight

that looks awesome

for the freezer method: are we looking for a temp thats well below freezing or will cold enough to freeze water be sufficient? i'm thinking that i will throw my jar outside into the winter environment for a month or so.... i figure that it'll be cold enough but that i'll leave it for the extra time just in case. its below freezing here everyday now so i suppose that i have a natural fridge/freezer. is a month outside in the cold overkill?

is it recommended that i heat in the oven to decarboxylize regardless of the method that i plan on doing? or will the time be enough to break down the THCA?

if the highest quality material remains in the leftovers, couldn't i just grind it more beforehand and then not strain it? i'm just throwing around some ideas and i can see how this might be an issue if taken under the tongue. do you think it might irritate my tongue or cause any problems (i'm thinking salivitory glands etc)? i'd prefer to take this under the tongue but i'm apprehensive about the straining process.

i'm going to be making a small batch at first and i just want to ensure that i'm not wasting anything.

how many success stories are there with the quick method? or should i just wait the time for full effectiveness?

does the glyderine need to be refridgerated once made? i don't see why it would need to be but i'm just curious. if it will last six months unrefridgerated then i don't have any worries. i will just make small batches more often. this is no problem once the ball gets rolling as i can just stagger the process.

i think thats all i have to say right now....

Hobbes: you've been an amazing help and inspiration. thanks for the plethora of great information and links etc.

ok did the hot method but i messed with the concentration a little bit. i used a gram instead of an 8th and i may have used a bit more alcohol than was necessary. i tried several sprays sublingually and got a little high. it was very subtle and made me a little giddy so i probably needed more. i decided i'd evaporate some of the alcohol later and hit a waterfall instead . I'll try and see how it goes if i cut half the alc out.

@thechurchman i keep mine on my window sill inbetween the screen and the window. living in illinois right now keeps her cold enough and i dont want to have the chance of some one finding it also your going to have to stain it. No matter how small you grind them up the particles are still there and you really dont want to be consuming them, one of my friends got sick from eating straight bud. Unless perhaps your using a small amount of kief then it might be fine. and yes the glycerine will need to be refrigerated. When the grinch said use by 6 months. That means unopened the glycerine can be used up to six months after purchase. Also if your looking for an alternative to using vodka and such. I recently tried making a tincture using pure lemon extract, it's working very well and the liquid is turning a nice green color already. And since the lemon extract is basically alcohol and lemons it will last a very long time. You can find it at most grocery stores, if not all (found it at the one i work at), and there is no age limit to buy it. It's decently expensive tho a 32 oz bottle would have cost me 20 dollars, since i work there i snagged it for free. I'm sure at other stores you can find it in a smaller bottle as 32ozs is a little overkill.

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grunt try evaporating off all of the alcohol (heat to 90C for a while). All of the resin will fall to the bottom of the remaining water as sediment. You can add cold water to keep all of the chlorophyll and terpins in solution, so little settle out of solution with the resin. Put the container in the freezer until it's cold, to take everything out of solution. Don't freeze. Pour out the water, and add the amount of alcohol that you want. You'll get better potency and all of the chlorophyll and terpins will be poured out with the water. You'll basically have a honey oil tincture. It's a great way to save your cannaboids and work on another tincture - there's no need to suffer through a weak foul tasting swill.

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TCM I'm going to have to research the answers for a few of your questions, I'll post tonight.

***edit: potka and I were posting at the same time, I didn't see his. He has experience with using nature for the cold method, I would (and will) go by his advice.

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there's so much info on this thread!!!!

so amazing...

ok... i'm going to be making three or four small batches using two solvents (glycerine and citrus extract). for sure i will try the cold extraction with both of them. i am also going to try the quick method for consumption on that day using the extract.

can i get away with eyeballing the temps or should i go invest in a thermometer?

note: i just found a bag of dank in my winter jacket. i haven't used the jacket since last november so the weed has essentially been curing for over a year. it look so nice and crystally!!! into the tinc it goes!!

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"can i get away with eyeballing the temps or should i go invest in a thermometer?"

For cold and warm alcohol extractions eyeballing is fine but for all hot extractions we have to be accurate with temperature. For alcohol tinctures if we heat above 79C we'll start to boil off the alcohol and the tincture will have a lower percentage of alcohol, less resin will stay in solution. For Glycerin and grape oil tinctures we have to keep the temperature below the cannaboids boiling point, which isn't hard for cooking tincture but if you're taking your tincture to high temperature be mindful of temp. I use a candy thermometer when I'm making canna maple syrup candies.

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I will add, if they ask you what you're buying glycerin for you can tell them you're making homemade bubble solution for your niece/nephew/child etc.

homemade bubble solutions

I looked all over for glycerin and all I could find was the skin moisterizing type. It is not completely pure and apparently it has some type of sudsing agent, similiar to those found in soaps or toothpaste. It is not intended for ingestion. So now I have to find a place that sells food grade glycerin. Where did anyone else find theirs? I wanna get this show on the road. Everyday that I gotta wait is another day I gotta wait, ya know?

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I get the pharmaceutical grade from the pharmacy, should be of equal or better quality than food grade. The brands I have may be local brands that are from the same manufacturers as the bottles on your pharmacy's shelves, just a different label. My bottles looks like this except one brand is Pharmasave Glycerin and the other is Exact Glycerin, bought from different stores but exactly the same bottle as this - from somewhere they speak an exotic language beyond my kin.

Look for "USP" and you've got what you need.

http://www.cleaning101.com/oleo/USPGlycerin.pdf





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i found some at a health food store. its called "now" and is 100% pure vegetable extract glycerine. came in a purple 4 oz bottle for five bucks. i mixed it with a bit more than three grams of the dankest weed i could find (amazing )

so around 1.3 fl oz's of glycerin per gram of weed. think this will be ok?

i don't think that i could have used any less as this was just enough to saturate the grindings.

how do you mix the weed evenly? every time i mix it up the green stuff just floats right to the top. i figure i'll mix twice a day.

i plan on doing my first taste test in mid to late january...


can the glycerin tincure be concentrated in the same way that the alcohol tincure can? can i supersaturate the solution with water and have the resin precipitate out of solution? that'd be awesome!!

once again thanks for all the help!

Amazing thread, I have read through it several times already. Another group of questions for ya though. First off the glycerine tincture methods don't mention heating the weed first for the thca-thc transformation, is it still necessary in these methods (subcools method heated the solution afterward to evaporate water, maybe this works for two reasons?)? Also there are 3 relatively similar glycerine methods, the first of which takes days, and the final two take up to 2 months, is there a difference in either flavor or strength in the methods used? Lastly my concern with the 2 month glycerin method, is that if your glycerin has a 6 month (or so) expiration date on it to begin with, if you spend 2 months creating the solution you have burned off a good deal of time that the glycerine is good for and you are also introducing additives to the glycerine that are probably further degrading the substance and thus shortening the expiration date of the glycerine even further. Is my logic flawed somehow, or is the glycerine good for much longer than I am thinking?

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"the glycerine tincture methods don't mention heating the weed first for the thca-thc transformation, is it still necessary in these methods (subcools method heated the solution afterward to evaporate water, maybe this works for two reasons?)?"

It depends on the process. If you're using the hot method the THC will decarboxylize while heated. If you are using the warm method the THC will cure over a month or two. If we heat the bud to decarboxylize before making the tincture the second heat or time will degrade the THC into CBN. A water cure takes only 7 days, glycerin should give a similar cure.

Hot alcohol and glycerin process are different because alcohol cannot be heated above 78C and even then will evaporate alcohol. Most hot glycerin tincture recipes use a crock pot at close to 100C.

Dr Jay had a strong view on decarboxylizing THCA but from what I've read he was talking about the cold and warm methods of extraction for alcohol, not a hot extraction with glycerin. His glycerin recipes were posted after his alcohol recipes.

My take on it is that we can decarboxylize while making tincture during hot and warm techniques but with the warm technique Doc would cure first. Heating afterwards as Subcool suggests would cure the THCA but might degrade some of the existing THC to CBN. I've haven't experimented with the warm method enough to give a valid opinion.

I wish I were more knowledgeable about this so I could give a shorter answer.

"In whole-plant cannabis, THC content is expressed as THCA (tetrahydrocannabolic acid) prior to decarboxylation into THC, which takes place when cannabis is heated during cooking, and smoked or vaporized ingestion. THCA is a mild analgesic and anti-inflammatory but does not have good affinity with our CB1 receptors, so in order to make a THC-rich tincture that has many of the same therapeutic effects as smoked ingestion (including rapid absorption, quick relief and ease of self-titration), we must convert the THCA in the plant matter into THC prior to extracting it through an alcohol soak. (from Vancouver Island Compassion Society http://thevics.com/cannamist.htm)

THC vaporizes at about 380°F. We want to heat the cannabis to convert THCA to THC, but keep the temperature under 380°F. That is why 325°F is used. Between four and five minutes your oven (and house) will start to smell very strong. This is the time to remove the cannabis from the oven."

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Dr Jay: "Notice also that there is considerable misinformation regarding heating the cannabis. It is true that you don't have to heat it to extract both THC and THCA, but the amount of THC in whole plant preparations is relatively small compared to after decarboxylation of the THCA. So if you want to maximize the strength of your tincture you must heat the cannabis prior to extraction."

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"Also there are 3 relatively similar glycerine methods, the first of which takes days, and the final two take up to 2 months, is there a difference in either flavor or strength in the methods used?"

All methods should make equally potent tincture if made by a person with experinced with the method. The terpins and chlorophyll will leach out over time or with heat, unless you refine them neither are going to be palitable. I find glycerin tinctures much easier to stomach than alcohol.

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"Lastly my concern with the 2 month glycerin method, is that if your glycerin has a 6 month (or so) expiration date on it to begin with, if you spend 2 months creating the solution you have burned off a good deal of time that the glycerine is good for and you are also introducing additives to the glycerine that are probably further degrading the substance and thus shortening the expiration date of the glycerine even further. Is my logic flawed somehow, or is the glycerine good for much longer than I am thinking?"

Your logic is good, it does spoil over time. If you make enough tincture to worry about spoiling it should be in the fridge or freezer to prolong life.

***edit: As well as storing in a cool place, a dark container will slow THC degradation by light.

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I imagine bringing a vacuum sealer into the mix might help a bit

I was thinking about using the cold extraction ethanol method with everclear and kief. Anyone have good suggestions for how to heat kief before starting the extraction?