Adventures in Making honey oil for vaping

[JJtheJJman]

Hello, I am new to these forums but have been reading a lot of excellent threads here and thought it would be fun to chronicle my attempts to make some honey oil for vaping. I will post about the whole process here, and in doing so, am hoping to see some good discussion and ideas to help me perfect the process.

I am a big fan of the o.pen vape pen and buy these cartridges that have CO2 honey oil, VG based. It's great stuff and so convenient. But the 250mg cartridges are $25-30 and last me only about 4 days. Expensive stuff, but what if I could find a way to make my own? After getting curious, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I ordered the Magical Butter 2 machine online, which has a nice thread on these forums with some cool helpful people who seemed to have pretty good success with making oils. The machine basically grinds/blends the buds and oils in intervals and heats throughout the process. There are temperature controls and timers and fancy LED lights and good reviews. The machine is on its way now, hopefully will be here early next week.

So I did some more research and have read that VG(vegetable glycerin) doesn't work as well as some other options for the actual extraction of the goodies from the weed. I saw some suggestions involving using a high-proof alcohol to help extract, then reduce the alcohol down and mixing with VG/PG.

So I came up with the idea of doing both: soak the weed in everclear(190 proof) in mason jars for at least a few days, then run it in the MB2 machine with my VG, which should reduce it and mix it very well while finishing up the extraction and, after being strained, leave me with my own homemade honey oil, which I will load into the o.pen cartridges myself and hopefully save a bundle of money.

I will note here that I will be very careful to control the temperature of MB2(will ensure calibration by running it without the alcohol for an hour and then temp-check the oil) to make sure that alcohol doesn't get hotter than 165F. The MB2 will be run outside on my deck and have a fan trained on it to make very sure the alcohol fumes are well-dispersed. Safety first!

For my first experiment, I bought myself an ounce of trim from my local dispensary, as well as an ounce of the "Jilly Bean" strain, which is indica-dominant. I also have about 40 grams of ABV from various strains. After I smoked about 8-10 grams of the Jilly Bean, all this is going into my first batch- I want it to be as potent as possible.

Unfortunately, I may have made a critical mistake in the potency department. In my excitement to start the process, I started the alcohol soak without without first "decarbing" the herb. Too late now, I'll just have to hope that the MB2 run helps. At least the ABV is decarbed, haha!

So now I'm letting my everclear/bud mix work its magic, and will keep posting here and updating. Next big post will probably be when I get the MB2.

Thoughts? Comments? Think my forgetting to decarb the weed is gonna really hurt the potency, or will the process of extraction and the eventual vaping of the oil render that point moot?

Some pics:

An o.pen vape cartridge kit I found at my dispensary

The beautiful jilly bean buds I'm extracting from

The base for my honey oil

The jars of everclear and herb. Left to right: Jilly Bean, trim, ABV

More soon!

 

[CarolKing]

If you are soaking your cannabis in alcohol you don't need to decarb from my research. I'm still in the learning phase myself.

I have the Magical B Maker too. I haven't been successful yet with it. My 3 batches weren't strong enough. I wasted a lot of herb and ABV.

I think I would need about 3 ounces and that is too expensive for me. I don't have s garden. I wanted my oil for cooking.

 

[MinnBobber]

Unfortunately, I may have made a critical mistake in the potency department. In my excitement to start the process, I started the alcohol soak without without first "decarbing" the herb. Too late now, I'll just have to hope that the MB2 run helps. At least the ABV is decarbed, ha

..........................................................................

Everything I read says to decarb, even for alcohol extraction.
Some with the MB decarbed in the unit by running a couple 220 F cycles.
Your problem is that with the explosive alcohol mix, you were not going to go over
160 F.
At that temp I would do 5? cycles to try to decarb it.
At 160 it will decarb faster than room temp but I have not seen a table.
At 240, most decarb for 90 minutes. At 160, ???

But I was thinking tincture---- so are you really going to vape this extract.
Vaping it should decarb it at that point.

Thoughts of others??

 

[JJtheJJman]

Thanks for the replies

I do intend only to vape this. The only way it would be used as a tincture is if I find it's too weak to vape. Then I'll probably use it to sweeten ice teas or something. But my hope is to just have my own vaping oil. I don't expect it to be as strong as the professionally-made stuff, but I'm hoping it will be potent enough to feel about the same as smoking a joint once used in the pen. Right now I need to hit the pen slower than I would a joint because it's stronger.

I was kinda thinking that after running a couple 2-hour cycles at 160, the alcohol would surely all be evaporated and I could up the temp for one more run.

 

[killick]

I usually decarb before using the MB machine, but I've been reading in the MB thread that each run is ~= to 1/4 decarb, so running a batch of EC 4 times should do it.

But having said that what is your elevation? My first (outdoor) run was a chilly -3c, and most of the alcohol evaporated out of the mix. I checked with the company and they recommended that I add 1/8 cup of distilled water due to my 1150 ft above sea level elevation. I added that to a bottle of EC last time (and ran it indoors, minimal smell!) and it turned out great. I still need to evap some water off, but not a biggie.

The first time I was really twitchy about hot alcohol fumes indoors. I didn't need to be. It's quite a great machine for containing smells, but it does get loud every now and then when the immersion blender kicks in... Otherwise it's well worth the price of admission...

Edit - as far as 'professionally made' goes, they are likely using the MB machine as well. I rarely get medibles from anywhere as mine are usually a lot better. Plus I know what is going in them, and I like that...

 

[JJtheJJman]

I usually decarb before using the MB machine, but I've been reading in the MB thread that each run is ~= to 1/4 decarb, so running a batch of EC 4 times should do it.

But having said that what is your elevation? My first (outdoor) run was a chilly -3c, and most of the alcohol evaporated out of the mix. I checked with the company and they recommended that I add 1/8 cup of distilled water due to my 1150 ft above sea level elevation. I added that to a bottle of EC last time (and ran it indoors, minimal smell!) and it turned out great. I still need to evap some water off, but not a biggie.

The first time I was really twitchy about hot alcohol fumes indoors. I didn't need to be. It's quite a great machine for containing smells, but it does get loud every now and then when the immersion blender kicks in... Otherwise it's well worth the price of admission...

Edit - as far as 'professionally made' goes, they are likely using the MB machine as well. I rarely get medibles from anywhere as mine are usually a lot better. Plus I know what is going in them, and I like that...

Well, thanks for the tip on the elevation thing! I'm actually pretty high and dry up here in Colorado, about 5000 ft... I'll consider adding a little distilled water.

I keep changing my mind on how much VG/PG I want to add to it. Right now I'm thinking 1 1/2 cups VG, 1/2 cup PG. I'm planning to put just the PG and VG in the MB machine first, maybe with some mint leaves, and run it for an hour at 160. I'll then immediately take the temp to make sure it's 160, then dump all three of my EC extraction jars in with that base, plant matter and all, and run it for at least three 1-hour runs at 160, keeping a close eye on it and checking the oil between each run. Finally, I'll then give it one last hour run, but at 220, since by that time all the alcohol should be evaporated. Hopefully this gets enough decarbing in.

I hope I'm one of the lucky ones that doesn't have to go through a lot of plant matter before this process gets the end result I want...

 

[HomeFree]

Don't use VG as your base (to mix the extract/concentrate with), the good stuff will want to separate out.

Also soaking it that long and at that temp is going to give you some green/black extract. If it were me I would have put everything into the freezer and done a quick wash ethanol extraction, winterize, decarb (optional), then mix at 1:1 into something like ejmix. It will decarb on it's own when you vape it, but I guess when decarbed first it will go into suspension better in your carrier liquid.

The VG soak stuff you made will probably not be concentrated enough to have much of an effect when vaporized.

You only need a few minutes of swirling around a flask with ethanol at freezing temps to get a good extraction. Warm temps would need even less. For vaping in a pen/tank for instance you don't want a lot of the chlorophyll and the likes. Hence, a Quick Wash.

Check out skunkpharm and look up QWET and QWISO, on the skunkpharm site there is other info that will help too. Also check out the concentrates section here, chances are people have not been commenting because this is in the wrong area of the forum and is here in edibles.

You ARE making this stuff to vaporize, correct?

Good luck!

 

[herbivore21]

Don't use VG as your base (to mix the extract/concentrate with), the good stuff will want to separate out.

Also soaking it that long and at that temp is going to give you some green/black extract. If it were me I would have put everything into the freezer and done a quick wash ethanol extraction, winterize, decarb (optional), then mix at 1:1 into something like ejmix. It will decarb on it's own when you vape it, but I guess when decarbed first it will go into suspension better in your carrier liquid.

The VG soak stuff you made will probably not be concentrated enough to have much of an effect when vaporized.

You only need a few minutes of swirling around a flask with ethanol at freezing temps to get a good extraction. Warm temps would need even less. For vaping in a pen/tank for instance you don't want a lot of the chlorophyll and the likes. Hence, a Quick Wash.

Check out skunkpharm and look up QWET and QWISO, on the skunkpharm site there is other info that will help too. Also check out the concentrates section here, chances are people have not been commenting because this is in the wrong area of the forum and is here in edibles.

You ARE making this stuff to vaporize, correct?

Good luck!

If this is being made to vaporize, go over to the concentrates section and see some of the various threads on making BHO, QWISO or preferably QWET as described above.

There is no need to use VG or especially PG/PEG as each of these create nasty thermal degradation products (polyaromatic hydrocarbons, carbonyls etc in much lesser concentrations than smoking of course) which may create clouds, but ruin the taste and are not good for you.

There are so many pens out there you can use with good shatter (which you will get with some perseverance) without spoiling an good relatively pure extract. The w9 Kiss Carts/Globes with Ti coil/s and SiC wicks are as tasty as a great enail (I know, I own both!)

Also, do not decarb material you are vaping unless you want a sleepy (which obviously has its uses!), body effect with inferior taste. For that heady delicious terp filled experience, no decarb gets best results