Tek Best way to refine Bubble Hash into Shatter

[mrbonsai420]

Ok, So I have a lot of experience making my own concentrates. I no longer smoke or even vape flower often, I prefer strictly dabbing and pens now. Being in an area that concentrate was rare until recently I have gotten quite good at extractions. When I can get a better deal on flower I make my own. Sometimes I use a QWISO or QWET, but most of the time I prefer BHO. I have had some bubble, dry sift, and dry ice hash I like a lot, but that's not my forte.
So I get whatever I can get the best deal on. If I need to extract or refine it, I do. I do have a lot of scientific lab equipment and a heated vacuum chamber that make all of this easier, but it's not necessary. It's really quite simple.
This time I had a chance to get what was supposed to be "5 star" sour tangie Full Melt bubble. What I received was 20g of a dabbable but not spectacular 4 star that smelled great but left a lot of residue on the nail. Of course, all of the trichrome stalks were present in this hash, it wasn't actually full melt like I was told it would be. But it is very flavorful and potent, just not great to dab which is all I do. So instead of getting bummed out and tryng to sell it, I wanted to remove the stalks and keep the heads. I started with a 1 gram test batch and this is what I got.
So usually when extracting flower you want to cool things off a lot so the undesirables aren't extracted. Especially when using more aggressive solvents like alcohols. I may try Ethynol next time, but this time I used room temperature 99.9% ISopropyl and let it soak for 2 minutes to make sure everything was out of this hash.

I used a couple of Tbs. of Iso for the gram, dissolved it thoroughly and then pulled it through a 5-15 micron vacuum filter Buchner funnel. What was left behind the golden brown alcohol mixture was .33 grams of white powder that resembled keif. I knew there was nothing in this so I threw it away. Then I evaporated the liquid overnight before putting in in the vac chamber heated to 100 degrees.

I left it in the vac chamber for 2 days and pulled out exactly .67g of beautiful smelling, pungent, smooth shatter. It really is delicious! I was going to play around with ethynol and different temps and times, but this seems just right so I think I will process most of it if not all 20g this way. If I get 13.4g out of the 20g of bubble I will be pretty happy considering it's not what I thought I was buying.

This was my first attempt at this, so if anyone knows of a better way to further refine this hashish let me know. There isn't a lot of wax to winterize out and I don't really need to drop the temps since the hash is so good in the first place, what do you guys think?

Here is a little before and after pic.

 

[elmomuzz]

I use a heated press through a filter to purify hash. That way you avoid the solvents entirely. Check out this recent thread.

http://www.fuckcombustion.com/threads/pressing-rosin-from-nepalese-moroccan-hash.33403/

 

[tepictoton]

Yes, rosin tek with 25 micron filter, low temp and pressure might get you same result? Without solvent...

 

[mrbonsai420]

I use a heated press through a filter to purify hash. That way you avoid the solvents entirely. Check out this recent thread.

http://www.fuckcombustion.com/threads/pressing-rosin-from-nepalese-moroccan-hash.33403/

I did read that, and I have used that process with hash before. I used screens designed for pressing and it worked pretty well. But my pressed puck still had actives in it, and I believe the heat evaporated some of the more volatile terpenes away.
I may try it with this 4 star but I can’t imagine getting all of the actives from a press. Some will be left in the puck and the filter, plus the Terp loss from heat. But your return was very impressive so maybe I should try a high end press and compare the results! I do know that the by product of the iso method left nothing active at all behind.
May I ask what is the reason to stay away from solvents? if you purchase the necessary equipment( a vacuum oven), use pure solvents (99.999% pure lab iso in this case) and acquire the knowledge to completely remove the solvent, I think they are a far superior extraction method. I love solvent extraction so much I never really invested in a high end press, I will have to use my friend’s.
As good as some golden rosin is these days, and it can be delicious, I have never had rosin, even pressed from fire hash that was quite as delicious as Live Resin or the best BHO. But that is my humble opinion.
BUT that being said I am going To give pressing it into rosin a shot. But I don’t mind solvents, I rather enjoy the chemistry.

 

[invertedisdead]

You mention heat killing volatile terpenes, but ethanol is a polar solvent which has a chemical affinity to actually just leave behind those tasty non-polar monoterpenes in the starting material. Unless you're extracting at cryogenic temperatures, the chemical profile of an ethanol extract could not really compare to rosin as far as terpenes go. You could reference any kind of published cannabis lab tests for comparison. A winterized absolute might be a bit more potent in THC %, but with the lack of terpenes the entourage effect may suffer by comparison.

No extraction method is going to retain 100% of the actives, just not possible. If you research a bit more you'll find that those pressing rosin yield the same, if not more than live resin BHO solvent extractions though.

If you don't have your own press I wouldn't weigh too much on past experiences with rosin. I think you'll find a 2 day purge in the Vac oven kills far more terpenes than 2 minutes on the rosin press, even if the temperature of the plates is twice as high as the purge temperature. Sounds counterintuitive, I know, but that's definitely my experience. And by the time you purge an ISO extract into something stable enough to feel comfortable about the solvent being gone, even more terpenes will have been lost. If a material is a shatter consistency that alone would indicate a lack of terpenes. Personally I'm not a big fan of solvent extracts because they tend to leave behind medicinal compounds and terpenes found in the original material - much more than a rosin press ever would, as the extraction is not chemical in nature.

I'm just saying from experience, you could probably make a better dabbable with that bubble hash and a hair straightener with a LOT less effort and a LOT more terpenes.

 

[Monsoon]

If you're just straight evaporating it and making it often I would consider looking into the ExtractCraft unit which allows for safe evaporation inside and reclaiming most of the solvent. I used it for a few washes and it worked okay, I believe they've improved it even more since then too. They're very active on social media too. It can also be used to distall lower grade alcohols into 95% which is useful if you can't buy it easily.

So I basically used the same method as mrbonsai for QWET except with buds and dry sift for a long time mostly out of necessity since rosin was still super new and I had no safe place to do BHO. I only stopped once Mail Order (MOMs) shattter prices dropped below my cost of $40/g and it just wasn't worth the effort anymore. Now I'm mostly into premium diamond sauces, live resin and rosin when I get it from friends. In retrospect I had mixed results in getting flavorful batches, got lucky a few times but usually was on the weak side. I may have overpurged it. I used to aim for shatter and be disappointed when it waxed up but now I'm intentionally waxing up shatters and saps since I find it often improves the flavour and texture. I think it's definitely worth pressing a sample of it if possible if only just for science and so you can compare the results.

So back to the OP, room temp ISO for 2 minutes is pretty aggressive but it sounds like it was pretty clean and you're happy with the result so it may be fine as it is. I guess you could try less time or use ethanol instead. Maybe filter the liquid a second time.

 

[elmomuzz]

It is counter intuitive to me to take a organically grown cannabis plant and dump solvent into it when there are better alternatives.

 

[mrbonsai420]

If you're just straight evaporating it and making it often I would consider looking into the ExtractCraft unit which allows for safe evaporation inside and reclaiming most of the solvent. I used it for a few washes and it worked okay, I believe they've improved it even more since then too. They're very active on social media too. It can also be used to distall lower grade alcohols into 95% which is useful if you can't buy it easily.

So I basically used the same method as mrbonsai for QWET except with buds and dry sift for a long time mostly out of necessity since rosin was still super new and I had no safe place to do BHO. I only stopped once Mail Order (MOMs) shattter prices dropped below my cost of $40/g and it just wasn't worth the effort anymore. Now I'm mostly into premium diamond sauces, live resin and rosin when I get it from friends. In retrospect I had mixed results in getting flavorful batches, got lucky a few times but usually was on the weak side. I may have overpurged it. I used to aim for shatter and be disappointed when it waxed up but now I'm intentionally waxing up shatters and saps since I find it often improves the flavour and texture. I think it's definitely worth pressing a sample of it if possible if only just for science and so you can compare the results.

So back to the OP, room temp ISO for 2 minutes is pretty aggressive but it sounds like it was pretty clean and you're happy with the result so it may be fine as it is. I guess you could try less time or use ethanol instead. Maybe filter the liquid a second time.

Yeah, @Monsoon has made some fire with several different teks! I think I learned QWISO tek from you actually. I have looked at the source, but we can achieve the same thing with a $50 lab glass distillation set-up.
My filter funnel is a nice 5-25 micron porous glass filter and I use 10-micron paper on top of that to keep it cleaner. so nothing small is getting through and double filtering isn't necessary at all.

ok I was going to use much lower temps this time...but it was SO smooth and flavorful last time. Despite the darker color it was amazing. So I didn't lower the temp to be more selective with my extraction, the hash was so clean that I wanted EVERTHING out of it. On lesser hash I would freeze the iso or even use a dry ice/acetone or denatured alcohol bath with this method and I would shorten the soak times.

I don't just straight evaporate, I use a condenser under vacuum to collect my solvents and keep evaporating temps low. I purge as much as necessary, but no more. I don't care about consistency, but it never butters or waxes. It usually shatters or pull and snap for me, although I do have some sugar up on me after curing from time to time. For my ISO I use the 99.9% stuff. It's around $10 a quart but I find it works better and purges easier than store-bought 91% stuff.
I have had fun making my own blends of ethynol and iso though!

For the sake of science, I would urge all of you to try all of the concentrate methods and try to master them before judging any of them superior. You would be surprised at the fire you can make with the right technique with pretty much any method. From Dry ice, ice water, dry sift, heat and pressure, or any of the countless solvents available. I have seen some QWISO that blew my mind, I thought for sure it was high-end BHO. And there are certain strains and harvests that are just perfect for squishing rosin. Others yield much better with a hydrocarbon extraction. If you do play with solvent extractions just get the proper equipment and take the proper precautions and they can be a safe and tasty way to consume as well.

I did take a gram and squished it... Yum, it was really good. I was actually surprised that the rosin tasted and looked like the same thing I had been smoking on that was washed with ISO. It seems neither the low heat press or the iso wash and purge damaged too many of the volatile terpenes. They are both delicious. Flavor was about the same, which is so citrusy and sweet. Unfortunately, my yield was only around 55%-60% out of the rosin, probably because I don't have much invested in a press. so I knew I could do better with solvents so I decided to go with a bigger iso batch.


I did a 7 gram batch this time, I ended up with 5.46 grams of some of the smoothest, best smelling concentrate I have had in a while. That's a 78% yield, not bad. This stuff is a much darker color than anything else I have made or would buy, but the quality is all there. Next, to some super nice professional Dry ice wax and amazing live resin it is at least as good, and both of those are light golden colored, crystally and so terpy. That last pic is the by-product. You can look under a microscope and see that the hairs have all been stripped of their goodies with maximum efficiency. This stuff is SO much better than it looks, I wish I could share with you guys.

 

[arb]

Lab grade acetone.