Instructions for making Cannabis Oil/RSO

Someone asked in a PM for me to teach them how to make their own oil, so, I decided to post it here so that everyone may benefit from it. This is just my method, my way of doing it. There are many other ways that work just fine also, or maybe even better. I will humbly add that everyone LOVES my oil.

Sorry there are no pictures. I've never thought to take pictures during the process, but I certainly will next time. When I do, I'll see if I can come back here and add them. But, I decided to post this anyway, without pictures, just in case someone can benefit from it.

Over the years, I've perfected this method according to my own needs. It actually comes out similar to shatter, just not quite as hard. In the old days, the oil used to come out like, well, oil. But I've made adjustments that enable me to handle it at room temperature. Depending on the amount of trichomes in the material, I average around 4 grams of oil per ounce of material.

Materials
Solvent - Extractohol, Everclear, or 90%+ isopropyl alcohol (amount varies depending on the amount of cannabis material you are using, you will need enough to completely cover your cannabis material in a pot 3 times)
Stove/Oven - NO GAS STOVES!!!!! (if you have a gas stove, I have provided alternate instructions below)
Two Metal Pots
Glass Cups/Jars (number varies)
Coffee Filters
Screen Strainer
Pyrex Dish/es (like pie plates, with the edges slanted upwards, number varies)
Oral Syringe/s (number varies)
Razor Blades
Isopropyl alcohol - for cleaning

First of all, I order Extractohol or something similar. It's a food grade ethanol that is almost 100% alcohol. The reason I use this is that you don't have to worry about any lingering residuals in the oil because it's food grade and safe. You can also use Everclear, which is essentially the same thing, but it's more expensive. Both are quite pricey. If you don't want to spend the money on the Extractohol or the Everclear, you can use isopropyl alcohol. But, if you do, make sure it is above 90%.

*** Safety is key here. We've all heard the stories about people blowing themselves up making hash oil. Don't become one of those statistics. Don't skimp on the safety instructions in this method. NEVER SKIMP ON SAFETY!!!***

1. Take the weed that you're going to use and break the buds up. If you are using trim, just use it as is. Buds don't have to be broken up into shake, just into smaller pieces. Just think about the fact that the alcohol needs to be able to penetrate the bud and reach the middle of it, then, with that in mind, break them up. Take the weed and the extractohol and freeze them for at least 24 hours. This step is very important. When they are very cold during the process, the alcohol pulls the THC from the weed without pulling as much of the chlorophyll with it. If they are not cold, more of the chlorophyll (and other things) will be pulled out with the THC, making the oil blacker, less potent, and less solid.

***Typically, I do this in the kitchen. It is preferable to do it outside. Inside, you must have a couple of fans blowing and the windows open. Have one fan blowing across the work area. I do it on the stove top, so, the fan is blowing all the fumes away across the stove top and toward the window. I have the other fan higher up, blowing toward the work area and ultimately the window. The goal is to make sure no fumes can accumulate in the air and create a fire hazard. When people blow themselves up making hash oil, it's usually the fumes in the air that catch on fire, not the liquid. So, stay safe.***

2. Prepare jars or cups with coffee filters in the tops of them. The number will depend on the amount of material you are using to make oil. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I would guess that when using a quarter pound of bud or trim, 10 cups with coffee filters ought to suffice. That's probably overkill, but overkill is better than underkill. Both cone-shaped and basket-shaped filters will work just fine. Put the coffee filters in the cups and then fold the rims of the coffee filters over the rims of the cups so they stay in place. You can use rubber bands to attach the coffee filters to the cups, but I find that if I simply fold them over, they stay just fine. Eventually, you are going to pour the product into these coffee filters, and it's going to filter out undesirables, increasing the THC percentage.

By using the coffee filters, we are diverting away from making actual RSO (Rick Simpson oil). If you want to make real RSO, you would want to extract everything from the plant for whole plant medicine. In that case, you would simply skip this coffee filter step. The reason I use the coffee filter step is because I am trying to isolate THC and make the oil very strong because I make it for the purposes of getting high, not for healing anything in particular. If you skip the coffee filter step, the oil will still be very strong, but it won't be as manageable at room temperature, and it will be slightly less potent. Just taking a wild guess, I would say it might reduce the potency by about 5% or 10%. But don't get me wrong, still, a dose the size of a grain of rice will knock you on your ass for 12 hours.

continued....

3. Once you have frozen the material and the alcohol for at least 24 hours, and you have prepared your cups with coffee filters, take the weed and alcohol out of the freezer, quickly put the weed in a pot, and pour the cold alcohol over it until there's about an inch of alcohol above the top of the weed. Stir it for 120 seconds. You want to do everything quickly so it doesn't get warm. If you stir it for less than 120 seconds, like say 30 seconds, the end product will be purer and stronger, but there will be less of it. I find that 120 seconds is a good compromise. If you are not concerned with quantity, and you simply want to make the strongest oil possible, then stir it for only 30 seconds, and don't repeat the process as outlined below.

4. Pour the alcohol with the weed in it through a screen strainer into another pot. Press the weed material against the screen strainer to squeeze any remaining alcohol out of it .Then use the same weed again and repeat that process twice using fresh alcohol, but on the second and third time you will only stir it for 30 seconds. Now, discard the weed that you used. Make sure to bag it up securely because it will stink very badly in your trash can, and that could cause problems with nosy neighbors walking past your garbage can, or with the garbage men themselves.

5. So, now you have a pot with alcohol in it containing all of the extracted material. Pour that alcohol into the coffee filters in the tops of your cups. You don't want to fill the coffee filter up to the top because the liquid is so sticky that it will clog up the coffee filters very quickly, and it will stop flowing through. So, it's best to have many coffee filters and only fill them up about halfway. Let the alcohol filter through the coffee filters. You may have to manipulate the coffee filters to get it to keep flowing through. When it gets down to the bottom I usually take the coffee filters and gently squeeze the rest of the product through. You have to be very careful with this because they will rip. If the coffee filter gets completely clogged up, and no more liquid will flow through it, you must dump the liquid from that coffee filter into a fresh one. Be prepared to do this because it will happen for sure. Many times during this step I have found that I did not prepare enough coffee filter cups/jars, so I find myself scrambling to grab more cups/jars and put coffee filters in them.

6. Once all of the alcohol has filtered through the coffee filters, pour it into a Pyrex dish. Depending on how much you have you may need to use multiple dishes. Put the Pyrex dishes on the stove top with the stove on low. Make sure the fans are blowing across the alcohol that's in the Pyrex dish/es. Between the low heat and the fans, the alcohol will evaporate away. IF YOU HAVE A GAS STOVE, DO NOT TURN ON THE BURNER!!! Just leave the burner off, and point the fans at the alcohol in the Pyrex dishes. It will take longer but it will evaporate fairly quickly.

7. Once all of the alcohol has evaporated, take the Pyrex dishes off of the burners. Now it's time to decarboxylate the oil. Right now, the oil you have will not get you high if you take it orally. We have to decarboxylate it in order to make it orally active (It may have decarboxylated a little due to the burner being on during the evaporation process, but it won't be enough). If you were not planning on taking the oil orally, and were only planning to smoke it, this step would be unnecessary. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and, once preheated, put the Pyrex dish/es in the oven uncovered for 25-30 minutes.

8. Take it out of the oven and set it on the stovetop to cool. I find that the best place to keep the oil is inside oral syringes. However, in order to get it inside the oral syringes, it's better to do it while the oil is warm and malleable. You can try, while it's hot, to suck it up into the syringes. I haven't had luck with this method, so I let it cool a little bit and then take a razor blade and scrape the oil up from the Pyrex dish. Then, with the plunger out of the oral syringe, and making sure there's a cap on the point end of the syringe, use the razor blade to put the oil in the back end of the syringe. Keep doing this, and once you have the syringe filled up, put the plunger back in the syringe and manipulate the syringe to get any air out of it. Depending on the amount of oil you are making, you may need multiple syringes.

This process can get very messy. The oil is very sticky. It sticks to everything, especially your hands. Keep a bottle of isopropyl alcohol nearby, and it works beautifully to remove the oil from your hands or anything else.

When it's time to take some of the oil orally, all you have to do is squirt a little bit out of the syringe, starting with a dose the size of half a grain of dry rice in order to test the potency. If the oil becomes too hard to squirt out of the syringe, you only have to run the syringe under hot water to make the oil more malleable. I find the best way to take the oil orally is to squirt the amount that I am taking into an empty supplement capsule and then swallow that. It's best if you swallow it on an empty stomach and then wait for at least 20 minutes to eat. If you do this, eating will activate it. This is important information because many people don't like to ingest THC orally, citing the problem of not being able to control when it hits psychoactively. The reason I use the capsules is that the oil tastes very strong, and if you take it without a capsule, it coats your mouth and seems to take hours to go away, making your breath smell like a hash oil factory for a very long time.

The oil will keep in those syringes for years. All you have to do is keep them in a dark cool place like a closet. Refrigeration is not necessary, but it certainly won't hurt. Just make sure that if it's in the refrigerator, it's in some kind of container that blocks out light.

Again, I would start with a dose the size of half a grain of dry rice to test for potency. Be very careful because it is super strong. If you've never overdosed on edible THC like I have, it's important to know that it is EXTREMELY unpleasant. It can't kill you, but you will wish you were dead. It is an absolutely horrible feeling, and if it ever happens to you, you will make damn sure that it never happens again.

Well, I hope this helps somebody. Please feel free to ask any questions or to point out any mistakes that I made.