Winterising - What does this mean?

I feel OLD after ten minutes reading your posts!
The terminology leaves me like Homer Smpson's Pa
"I used to be 'with it' but now I find 'it' strange and frightening....".

So please tell me what WINTERISING is?

Also QWISO...?

And "PM on leaves..."?

All these terms/abbreviations/acronyms are 'strange and frightening'.
So take pity on a middle aged Brit and let him in on the lingo.

Many Thanks

winterizing is the process of removing more of the non polar crap you don't want in the hash, fats, lipids, waxex, etc..

copy and paste from skunkpharm research, one of the leaders in hash production...

Winterizing:

When using non polar solvents like butane and hexane, some non-polar waxes, fats, and lipids are extracted as well. An easy way to get rid of them is to simply re-dissolve the non-polar extraction in 190 proof (~95.5% azeotropic) polar ethanol and stick it in the freezer for about 48 hours at -18C/0F, for the waxes to coagulate.
The waxes will precipitate out of solution as the temperature drops and clump together so that they are easily filtered out with a standard coffee filter, or a Whatman #1 lab filter.
Here is what a winterizing filter cake looks like, while still wet.

link... http://skunkpharmresearch.com/getting-the-green-and-waxes-out-afterwards/

qwiso stands for QuickWashISO.. one uses isopropyl alcohol to extract the thc from buds and evaping the iso off, leaving the wanted thc.. if you soak with qwiso for too long you will also pull out other unwanteds, such as chlorophyl,
from the plant, which is why it's only a wash for about 30 seconds max.

p/m stands for powdery mildew..

what racerboy said

Twitch. said:

what racerboy said

Click to expand...

glad i got that right twitch..

Finding the 95% alcohol will be difficult and, most probably, expensive, in UK.
At some point I may have to try distilling some,
(If inbred Hill Billy's can do it I hope I can...?).

No offence to any members of the inbred Hill Billy community
(I always admired your Kentucky Bluegrass)

NorthofEngland said:

Finding the 95% alcohol will be difficult and, most probably, expensive, in UK.
At some point I may have to try distilling some,
(If inbred Hill Billy's can do it I hope I can...?).

No offence to any members of the inbred Hill Billy community
(I always admired your Kentucky Bluegrass)

Click to expand...

lol, 99iso works aswell, i just prefer using something that is already.... some what safe to ingest... i mean it wont make you blind, but you might wake up next to a fat chick if ingested straight...

"Qwizos take on winterizing... winterizing removes the fats,waxes and other lipophillic (fat loving)compounds. What makes them lipophillic or hydrophillic is based on polarity... butane is non polar (lipophillic) ethanol and iso are relatively polar, meaning they won't allow lipophillic substances...

Solubility is largely based on polarity and temp. so if you heat the polar ethanol or iso it will absorb the extract left from a butane wash. After freezing it the solubility of the waxes and fats decreases. These lipophillic non polar waxes precipitate as a solid out of the solution. It can then be filtered

The waxes and fats removed make up the harshness and congestive properties smoked hash oil can sometimes bring. This process does not remove terpenes and will drastically increase the quality of a butane(non polar) extract... if you start with an iso or etoh wash its not as necessary and shatter can easily be produced using a single polar wash.. iso in the middle of butane and ethanol polarity wise giving the best extract only using a single wash......but for compounds such as thca and precursory cannabinoids to move about the plant (as well as all compounds within the plant) they must be relatively polar. Because of this iso or etoh can extract a dirty product if left in solvent too long....which is why a long soak in butane that's allowed to pull every last cannabinoid and wax/fat. And then winterized to remove the wax/fats will give a better yield of quality product than iso or etoh.

Fats and waxes are highly lipophillic. For a compound to have drug likeness it must be polar to aslight degree(allowing crossing of the blood brain barrier and to be soluble in the blood).. this slight polarity helps keep them in the ethanol as all cannabinoids have a hydroxyl group when the also lipophillic fats get pulled, the fats and waxes are also larger heavier compounds which hinders solubility. winterizing is how commercial perfume/essential oils are made, and if done properly will not harm the flavor, though Ishould mention the waxes and fats pulled often are somewhat fragrant.. It should be noted thc itself is an aromatic terpene, anything affecting flavor effects potency. I do all my extracts in the dark and under 70 degrees even in the purge. 75 degrees or so is when lighter terpenes began to volatize into the air (I also dry/cure at 70 or under for this reason)

polarity is relative, butane does not have a polar hydroxyl group -oh while iso and etoh do . This is responsible for iso's high boiling point, even though its molecular weight is very similar to butane. and why water boils at amuch higher temp, being much lighter than butane or iso. Hydrogen bonding is the strongest intra molecular force. Imfs are what determine solubility. Their is no defining line between polar and non polar. Its how polar or non polar. To find out,the biggest clue is molecular structure. ch bonds are non polar making hexane with more carbon a better non polar solvent. These hydrocarbon solvents lack the polar hydroxyl group that water iso and ever clear have.. but for them to hold cannabinoids in suspension and dissolve them they must also have anon polar side, which is why you can't winterize in water...likewise You can't winterize in a completely non polar solvent either. Iso is actually quite non polar, so is ethanol. Look at a ph index polar water is 9iso somewhere around 4 etoh 6and butane 0.. this is just an estimate off memory.. Etoh is best, iso will work butane will not. This is because of the waxes increasing solubility in the non polar solvents.

Put like 4 posts in one, hopefully its a bit better to read and understand...probly should of just rewrote the whole thing"

A bit long but i feel its one of my better posts

qwiso i think we talked about this before but i never asked you, is it just the dab blindness why we dont use methanol? it would seem the best, i know FD mentioned it but he didn't mention why. I know it's most polar but did it have anything to do with the preservation of terps? I know im tired of my filter smelling better than my oil. I also ask because im winterizing with methanol right now n just wondered about the results i'll find.

Denatured alcohol can be some pretty nasty stuff so make sure you check....methanol is a bit more polar and may make a noticeable difference, I've never tried it...its similar I guess to isopropanol except a lot more poisonous..at some point a solution can be too polar(water) so it may not be better(I doubt it though, its not much different than etoh)
But half a teaspoon will make you go blind and it is absorbed through your skin and all that just like iso or etoh.....I avoid substances of that nature like the plague lol
If your pulling fragrant shit out by winterizing that means its on the insoluble end(heavier and its more non polar) so using a more polar wash to winterize would pull more...but the waxes are fragrant. So your filter will always smell nice



Don't you purge through water? Pretty sure someone was ....I would do that if working with methanol

I purge through water but it's not methanol at that point, the through water part is just the vac outlet stuck in a bucket. A teaspoon will make me go blind? eeee gads man i feel so much safer than I do with ethanol cuzz it's not trying to woof my face off with boozy stink. my 2D is pure 85% ethod 15% methanol no funkyness, it came up when the lab asked me why I buy so much 2D and i said I clean allot of glass and use it as a transport fluid. They said since you have a vacuum oven why not save money with pure methanol as you won't have any purge issues. I said well if it's better at winterizing by "anecdote" I'll go for it as I've used it in my cold trap before.

But getting stuff on my skin is my speacialty, im already half blind don't tell me my beaker side wall slosh is killing me. I'm all for my idea getting slapped down I just don't want to base my thinking on "perception" i mean frequenting a brothel can leave you blind for a different reason. But if were talking "IF" traces are left what would we feel safer getting a trace of. That's when you scare the pants outta me im gunna hurt somebody. Most older people so far seemed to be most concerned with the use of edible alcohol as Im coming across allot of former alcoholics. Hell i been sober 7 years, i had a terrible experience getting wasted on a non alcoholic beer so I know "time" really can make someone sensitive to stuff. So im afraid of trace things too, i once had a dab of dreaded iso headache but that's cuzz i didn't know when to start the first dab test.

After regular application of ethanol on the skin ( in the form of hand disinfectants) relatively low but measurable blood concentrations of ethanol and its metabolite acetaldehyde may occur, which are, however, below acute toxic levels. Only in children, especially through lacerated skin, can percutaneous toxicity occur."
...splashing small quantities of methanol on you while breathing small quantities....quickly absorb that half tsp

WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) re-assessed the carcinogenicity of etoh in '07 and deemed it to be carcinogenic internally as well as topically...so I guess toking on either one over a period isnt so good for you..methanol and water don't like each other too much, running your gas through water like you do will help....
I wouldn't go pure methanol, never ever never..