Autobuddering - an empirical investigation.

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
I have been doing a lot of experimentation with various phenomena I have observed in a test locale, where there are very high relative humidity and temps. RH's in excess of 80% are a regular occurrence. Temps in excess of 105f are also regular stuff.

I am starting to compile information on my results and will not be able to share all of them nor explicate averages due to privacy and security reasons - however, I believe I have already seen consistent enough replication to report back and confirm what many have thought for some time now.

Autobuddering of rosin is definitely correlated with exposure to high relative humidity/ambient moisture.

The starkest example of each of the tests that I have done so far (measuring with the same lab calibrated hygrometer in multiple sites, not too geographically distant from one another with practically identical local barometry, temp and RH) explains just how quickly a humid room will turn your rosin into full blown budder.

In the first location, the rosin (which had been squished a week or so prior and stored at this location from soon after until this experiment a week later) has been consistently stored at around 75f in both locations during testing (to control for variation on the basis of heat - for the same reason, barometry was the same at both locations during all tests) a maximum relative humidity of 65%, with an average RH of 56% and a minimum of 40% RH. It was the most beautiful, pale yellow clear as glass rosin (pics to come of before and after budder).

When taken to the second location, with the same average temp of 75f but a maximum RH of 77%, minimum of 73% and average 76% RH (much more humid location, felt SO MUCH HOTTER despite the same temps!): The rosin was left for 4 or 5 hours in folded up parchment (oil slick slick wrap). At 3 hours 50 mins into the second location test, the rosin had a noticable budderiness to it. After 5 hours, it was complete budder. I will be providing pics later on to illustrate the difference.

I have replicated this result perhaps 13 times now.

Some notes:

- My results were only carried out with the one variety of indoor grown hybrid. These results cannot be extrapolated to all varieties because different terpene profiles will directly influence the polarity and hygroscopy/lack thereof of the resin in a given plant.

- This is not the only possible way to get a budder consistency - many of you who whipped BHO will know this already. In fact, I would hypothesise based on anecdotal observation (not systematic testing!) that lower terpene containing extracts (even rosins) will not budder this way at all, nor will some with different, less hygroscopic terp profiles as described above.

- With this variety, the autobuddered material is noticeably sweeter (in the most literal sense of the word) than the non-buddered version. This has been a consistent finding with the variety in question - sometimes, somehow, autobudder makes dabs better!

Future directions: I think we need to see an investigation of terpene/cannabinoid isolates, as well as existing literature to better understand the hygroscopy of cannabis extracts. With this understanding, we can begin to find out exactly which compounds, or combinations of compounds are required to create the conditions for autobuddering in humid environments like where my test took place. This knowledge will more importantly allow us to tease apart whether it is indeed simply a combination of hygroscopic compounds and ambient moisture that creates autobuddering, or if some other interceding (or perhaps even completely extraneous) variable is required.

Hope you all enjoy reading, happy dabbing!
 

Cuthbert J Twillie

Senior High
Couple questions please: You say"
In the first location, the rosin (which had been squished a week or so prior and stored at this location from soon after until this experiment a week later)
" how was the "rosin" attained?

This is not the only possible way to get a budder consistency - many of you who whipped BHO will know this already.
Does this imply you were not making a BHO, if not what or how do you define your process?
 
Cuthbert J Twillie,
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DieHard

Accessory supplier
Accessory Maker
Couple questions please: You say"
" how was the "rosin" attained?

Does this imply you were not making a BHO, if not what or how do you define your process?
Rosin is typically "squished" with a press or other method using pressure. . My man @herbivore21 typically does QWET AFIK.

This is great info and science. Your efforts are always a pleasure for me to read @herbivore21 . I have noticed with my own BHO, that the fresher material will tend to budder more readily than BHO made from flowers that have cured longer. Fresher material with the more volatile terps still intact seems to budder faster for me as well. This also may be affected by moisture content in the flowers. My anecdotal results are in a high heat and high humidity as well.
 

Joel W.

Deplorable Basement Dweller
Accessory Maker
I have usually connected autobuddering to lower temp presses for some reason. Seeing how you pressed all at the same temp, that kinda shoots my idea down.

Cool observations man.

Edit: I guess my thinking on this was that lower temp presses evaporated less moisture during the press and put more moisture into the rosin. That "sweet" taste from buddering, I assumed was the extra moisture interacting with the terps.
 
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herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Couple questions please: You say"
" how was the "rosin" attained?

Does this imply you were not making a BHO, if not what or how do you define your process?
Actually, I do not make BHO, I do not recommend that most people make BHO. If you are not able to obtain reagent (lab) grade butane, trace impurities mean you should use another solvent or consider solventless teks.

The rosin was squished about .75g at a time (squished at just shy of 2000psi), a full zip was squished at 212f, very slow application of pressure and a somewhat short squish.

Rosin is typically "squished" with a press or other method using pressure. . My man @herbivore21 typically does QWET AFIK.

This is great info and science. Your efforts are always a pleasure for me to read @herbivore21 . I have noticed with my own BHO, that the fresher material will tend to budder more readily than BHO made from flowers that have cured longer. Fresher material with the more volatile terps still intact seems to budder faster for me as well. This also may be affected by moisture content in the flowers. My anecdotal results are in a high heat and high humidity as well.
Hey brother, thanks for the very kind words, I've missed seeing you around here since we've tended to haunt different threads in recent times! Very interesting to hear your anecdotal experiences with BHO here too! :D

Tell me, what is the average annual relative humidity in your region sir (if you have privacy concerns please do PM me rather than posting publicly :) )?

Actually I went to solventless extracts (rosin and full melt bubble hash) only about 6 months ago. I do not use solvent based extracts personally anymore (not to say they can't be great!). I did this experiment with flower rosin :)

Later this year I will start to bring solvents back in I believe, but in a much more advanced, cutting edge way :D

I have usually connected autobuddering to lower temp presses for some reason. Seeing how you pressed all at the same temp, that kinda shoots my idea down.

Cool observations man.

Edit: I guess my thinking on this was that lower temp presses evaporated less moisture during the press and put more moisture into the rosin. That "sweet" taste from buddering, I assumed was the extra moisture interacting with the terps.
Don't be quick to rule your original idea out brother, remember that my findings do not describe the only possible ways of getting autobuddering. I have actually found the same as you suggest as well. If I squish at 180-190f, autobudder is inevitable unless I can keep the hash in a <50% RH environment (but even then I am sure I'm just delaying the inevitable). We always need to be mindful of potential external variables - just because we find one cause for the process we are interested in, does not mean we have exhaustively identified all possible causes :)

The sweet taste I expect to be a function of the terps drawing in ambient moisture through nucleation too :) I do wonder if this may vary with different varieties though, where hygroscopic nucleation may contribute to different taste variations from different material.

Your idea that lower temp presses will put more moisture into the rosin stands to reason. Remember that we are generally squishing just below or just above the boiling point of water, and not for very long at all, seconds, not minutes (not remotely long enough to remove all water from the nug being squished). The lower the temp used, the less water will be boiled out of the bud and into the atmosphere - this heated but not boiled water will (heat facilitates oxidative reactions, water carries extra oxygen) react more readily with the hygroscopic compounds and others in your oil, it will also flow out of the bud and into the oil similarly to the resin itself when squished rosin style. :)
 
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Joel W.

Deplorable Basement Dweller
Accessory Maker
If lower temp presses means less water evaporation, it must also mean less terp evaporation and the sweet flavor might also be the taste of those specific terps that did not boil off at a higher temp press... :drool:

terp talk makes me want to dab. ;)
 

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
If lower temp presses means less water evaporation, it must also mean less terp evaporation and the sweet flavor might also be the taste of those specific terps that did not boil off at a higher temp press... :drool:

terp talk makes me want to dab. ;)
This is quite possible, although the nugs in question were dried out for a good week in a <55% RH room prior to squishing - this room at times rose to about 90f. This would usually be enough time for said volatiles to decompose/boil at such ambient temps.

Still, this does not mean that all such terps might boil at these ambient temps (boiling never happens so evenly as anyone who's tried a solvent purge with an uneven film can attest to!) and this may be a contributor to what we are noticing ;)

Time for me to bring in before and after autobuddering pics apologies for shitty quality, have not set up the microscope again yet since some rearranging in my house:

Before:
ILn2ueV.jpg

After:
kKTh1X6.jpg
 

Monsoon

Well-Known Member
I've managed to eliminate auto-buddering in my alcohol extraction process when I upgraded my tek last fall. I made 3 main changes: switched from scrapping to PTFE sheets, ISO to ethanol and flowers to dry sift. I'm thinking the switch to the PTFE sheets made the most difference since it would have reduced the formation of nucleation points in the oil. All my QWET runs have been either shatter or hard pull-n-snap and I've left them out in room temp for extended periods without any change in consistency. Indoor humidity is usually between 30% and 50% so that's probably a contributing factor as well. It should be closer to 60-70% in the summer so it will be interesting to see if there's much of a difference.
 

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
I've managed to eliminate auto-buddering in my alcohol extraction process when I upgraded my tek last fall. I made 3 main changes: switched from scrapping to PTFE sheets, ISO to ethanol and flowers to dry sift. I'm thinking the switch to the PTFE sheets made the most difference since it would have reduced the formation of nucleation points in the oil. All my QWET runs have been either shatter or hard pull-n-snap and I've left them out in room temp for extended periods without any change in consistency. Indoor humidity is usually between 30% and 50% so that's probably a contributing factor as well. It should be closer to 60-70% in the summer so it will be interesting to see if there's much of a difference.
This is fascinating man, because I never had autobuddering happen with any of my QWISO/QWET extracts, ever, regardless of consistency! Wow that is some epic indoor relative humidity for our purposes, I yearn for this low humidity! :D

I wonder what accounts for the experience of buddering in your scenario versus mine for these solvent based extractions? This is yet another avenue for a budding researcher to explore! ;)
 

Cuthbert J Twillie

Senior High
Thanks for the info.
I'm prepping for a Dabbing video (I wouldn't consider myself a Dab connoisseur) and doing research on the subject.
A few issues I've uncovered (news to me) include the dangers of: low grade butane use, inadequate purging procedures, and the concentrating of pesticides along with the concentrating of THC.

My research tells me that unless you know the process used in the creation of your BHO you can not make an informed decision on the safety of the BHO in question.
Another conclusion I've come to is that a method other than BHO would be my preference.
Lastly if you're contemplating using strictly concentrates you need to understand that any pesticides used in the grow process can become concentrated in the making of your oil, thus ramping up the dangers that pesticides present.

During some recent testing done for the Denver Post an organic grower found pesticides (possible over spray) in his "organically grown" buds.

I'm not trying to be Captain Buzzkill, but let's remember most of us chose vaping as a healthier alternative.
I'm old and I was lucky enough to get that way smoking/vaping flowers, flowers (even modified flowers) grow from the ground, Oil comes from a lab.

Caveat emptor!
 
Cuthbert J Twillie,
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Monsoon

Well-Known Member
This is fascinating man, because I never had autobuddering happen with any of my QWISO/QWET extracts, ever, regardless of consistency! Wow that is some epic indoor relative humidity for our purposes, I yearn for this low humidity! :D

I wonder what accounts for the experience of buddering in your scenario versus mine for these solvent based extractions? This is yet another avenue for a budding researcher to explore! ;)
Right now it's still winter here so if I didn't run a humidifier it would be closer to 10-20% inside which is a bit too low for my tastes but would be great if I was doing manual dry sifting. Summer gets bad though, but my AC does a decent job at keeping it reasonable.

I remember when I used to scrape I'd almost always gets some buddering if there I collected some sappier pools in the corners or the pan. Those pools are now vac purged so I don't have to touch them anymore.
 

Farid

Well-Known Member
Is the process by which QWET and and BHO autobudder the same as when good bubble hash "greases up"?
 
Farid,
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