Can i get a review of my process? Oil for Caps

[Nok21]

Hey, all!

I've been cooking now for about half a year and have been loving the results, most of the time; but I feel like I should be loving the results all of the time. I'm hoping some master chefs here can give me some pointers so I can make the most potent oil I can for use in capsules.

Typically, I use botanical leftovers for my oil. ABV and ROSIN pressed pucks, to be specific. To be more specific, I either use my vapor genie attached to a water pipe (High temp, I'd guess 400°F) or my PAX on low/medium (370°F, and 390°F) with stirring between sessions.

Before I move onto my questions, let me go over my process so someone can tell me if I am messing up any temperatures/processes or if I have the basics of cooking with botanicals down.

Please let me know if I'm messing something up, be it temperature, time; or the oil to material ratio. I use organic unrefined coconut oil with the highest fat content i could find.

Decarb: I use two methods, and its hard to tell whats best as I neglected to keep a log over the last month or two.
-220F-230F for 20-30 minutes, according to temperature used. This is my most common method.
-240F for 15-20 minutes.

Cooking: I normally use two methods, again, its hard to tell what works best. I need to keep a log book.
-240F for 2-3 hours, this is my normal routine. 2 hours usually cuts it, with a 2nd bake using fresh oil.
-170F for 3-6 hours, if I have the place to myself.

Oil to herb ratio: Enough oil to barely cover the herb with a thin layer. Say, 10ml per gram of strong herb, or about 7.5ml/gram for ROSIN pucks/ABV mixes. I normally do NOT cook with my fresh herb, but if someone has the temps/times for that, I'd give it a whirl. Maybe giving specific measurements is bad, but 99% of the time I use just enough oil to leave a very thin and clear layer above the herbs.

Material: Normally ABV or ROSIN pressed herb, all ground to a slightly coarse powder. Often mixed.

That's my general process: Decarb @ 230°F for 20 minutes, crumble/regrind, cook @ 240°F for 2-3 hours followed by two filtration's through an unbleached coffee filter to remove the icky looking slime/sediment in the oil that the first filter does not get.

This is normally used exclusively for ROSIN pucks or abv.

So my last batch used 2.7g of ROSIN-pucks and was decarbed at 230°F for 30 minutes, cooked in 10-15ml of coconut oil @ 240°F for 3 hours, filtered, and then re-cooked in 7.5-10ml of oil. The first cook I tested 5ml, with little to no effect. Second cook, I tested another 5ml and got a decent buzz, about a 4 or 5, maybe.

So, here are my questions:

1. Are my baking temperatures and times correct? Or am I losing some actives/ not decarbing enough?
2. If I wanted to try out cooking 1g of fresh herb, would the decarb/cooking process I use be the same? (assuming i am using the correct methods and temperatures)
3. If I had some weak oil leftover, and wanted to make it stronger; could I simply re-use the oil in future cooks until its so black i can't see a lightbulb through the vial?
4. If i just picked up soy lecithin granules, and had some weak oil, how would I go about combining the two? Would it make the weak oil stronger?

That's it. Long post, hopefully the questions only need simple answers. Thank you to all who reply with useful advice!

 

[Monsoon]

If you're extracting at 240F for a few hours then there shouldn't be any need to decarb first at a lower temp. Under 212F you should probably decarb first but otherwise I would just skip that step, I personally didn't notice a difference. The process to extract 1g or 28g is the same just it's a lot more effort for the rewards you get. Same goes for using fresh herb instead of pucks or ABV.

One important thing to keep in mind is that you lose about 20% of the cannabinoid containing coconut oil you put due to being absorbed by the weed since you can only squeeze out so much. So re-using weaker oil you may end up with a more potent capsules but at a net loss of cannabinoids. If you're making rosin though, an easy way to increase the potency would be to decarb and then add some rosin to the finished oil solution.

If you want to add lecithin, easiest way would be to get it in liquid form and then add it while the oil is a still hot at the end. I found that to be a hassle so I just took lecithin capsules alongside them which seemed to do the trick. You can also boost the potency by taking ginger, Bioperine, Tylenol or Advil alongside your capsules.

For dealing with the sediment, if you wanted to skip the coffee filters you can put your oil in the freezer for a few minutes and the sediment should stick/stay at the bottom while you fill your caps.

 

[Nok21]

Glad to know I can just decarb while i cook it in oil, that will save me some time and smell!

Also glad to confirm I am cooking properly, as I feared 240F may have been losing some actives- turns out I've just been using a little too much oil.

I want to add lecithin, but I heard some rumors it can be bad for the heart. Can't find any studies on it, so im willing to take a small risk and try it a few times. No heart problems or anything.

I have Solgar brand "Soya Lecithin Granules", vegetarian-approved. If I wanted to add those to a weaker oil, how would I go about doing so? Simply re-heating the oil to about 212-ish, add lecithin for an hour, then re-strain? I assume I'd just add a little bit (25% the weight of the herb probably) to oil when cooking normally.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Monsoon]

Glad to know I can just decarb while i cook it in oil, that will save me some time and smell!

Also glad to confirm I am cooking properly, as I feared 240F may have been losing some actives- turns out I've just been using a little too much oil.

I want to add lecithin, but I heard some rumors it can be bad for the heart. Can't find any studies on it, so im willing to take a small risk and try it a few times. No heart problems or anything.

I have Solgar brand "Soya Lecithin Granules", vegetarian-approved. If I wanted to add those to a weaker oil, how would I go about doing so? Simply re-heating the oil to about 212-ish, add lecithin for an hour, then re-strain? I assume I'd just add a little bit (25% the weight of the herb probably) to oil when cooking normally.

Thanks for the advice!

I probably wouldn't worry too much about lecithin at the dosages we're talking about. You're probably already consuming a fair bit in your diet without knowing about it, check the ingredient label for any processed food product. I think I only tried granules a couple times several years ago and found them to be a pain to work with, maybe someone else here found a way to make them work well. Also keep in mind that while you may be increasing the potency a bit, the lecithin you add will displace cannabinoid containing oil so the net gain would be smaller.

 

[Nok21]

That's my concern- If I am correct, I should have some relatively strong oil but i experience little effect. Perhaps I was expecting too much from rosin/abv capsules, I need about 10-ish to get to a "7" on the 420 chart.

Alright. Tomorrow, I will cook with 1 gram (or .5 even- i have a baking dish small enough for such a micro oil extraction) of fresh flower, no decarb, @ 240F for 3 hours.

Maybe I'll just take that 1 gram and qwiso it fully, filter that, then just not filter the oil. I'm kinda liking that idea.

 

[Monsoon]

Using hash oil greatly simplifies the process. For QWISO, place the oil in a glass container like a shot glass, place in a loaf pan in the oven set to 250F. When preheated, add your QWISO and return to oven for 25 minutes or until bubbling stops. This should also finish fully purging your oil which is important if ISO was used. Then add coconut oil, stir and let cool. For my capsules I use bud-run QWET and have about 0.10g of shatter per capsule which is about 60-80mg of cannabinoids. Usually only need 1-2 capsules to reach a [9] though at my tolerance level these would be too strong for most people.

 

[Nok21]

Using hash oil greatly simplifies the process. For QWISO, place the oil in a glass container like a shot glass, place in a loaf pan in the oven set to 250F. When preheated, add your QWISO and return to oven for 25 minutes or until bubbling stops. This should also finish fully purging your oil which is important if ISO was used. Then add coconut oil, stir and let cool. For my capsules I use bud-run QWET and have about 0.10g of shatter per capsule which is about 60-80mg of cannabinoids. Usually only need 1-2 capsules to reach a [9] though at my tolerance level these would be too strong for most people.

Very specific, precise instructions! I always feared the decarbing of QWISO but you have been so helpful- I wasn't sure if bud/QWISO could be decarbed in the coconut oil (Had a hunch, but i wasn't positive) as it cooks, or if it was mandatory to do a "dry decarb" as i call it.

I ended up doing a boil-down extraction on some Kratom tonight, so I'll have to try the fresh bud/ qwiso oil another day. (I love my extracts!)

I'm looking at more of a "full spectrum" (q)wiso run, as in extracting/running multiple runs until the iso comes through the funnel clean, to ensure that ALL actives have been absorbed. Then, cooking with that. I'd do a QWET, but in my state its far cheaper to buy pure iso+water instead of a bottle of grain alcohol/everclear.. as much as I'd prefer that over iso.

So i guess to sum this thread up nicely- my cooking method of 240F for 3 hours, using enough oil to just cover the material; is sufficient enough for my coconut oil infusions (Using everything from qwiso/shatter to bud), without losing potency, right?

And thank you for all the useful advice!

 

[Monsoon]

The idea behind decarbing the QWISO in the oven in pyrex is to closely match the circumstances of the original decarb graph. And true to form the bubbling usually ceases right around the 30 minute mark.

For decarbing bud and oil in the coconut oil I would maybe even drop the temp from 240F after the first hour or so just to be sure you don't start converting too much THC into CBN (unless you want that). Two to three hours should get most of the active out, cooking for days or weeks will probably result in something stronger but it might just be the last 5% or so.

 

[Nok21]

The idea behind decarbing the QWISO in the oven in pyrex is to closely match the circumstances of the original decarb graph. And true to form the bubbling usually ceases right around the 30 minute mark.

For decarbing bud and oil in the coconut oil I would maybe even drop the temp from 240F after the first hour or so just to be sure you don't start converting too much THC into CBN (unless you want that). Two to three hours should get most of the active out, cooking for days or weeks will probably result in something stronger but it might just be the last 5% or so.

Everything I wanted to confirm/hear, thank you very much!

I do have one question about the first part: You ARE decarbing the qwiso in the coconut oil, right? I imagine if I put some qwiso into my micro-dish it would dry up pretty quick and be a pain in the arse to get off/infuse. Or are you smearing it on a pyrex dish, decarbing it, and scraping up a powder?

To follow your advice, In future cooks I will start the first 1/2 of the cook @ 220°F, then I'll bump it up to 240°F for the other half of the cook. I think totally agree, this might improve potency.

I've also had much better results from my capsules if I take them during the middle of a meal, and eat slowly.

Oh, I decided to give lecithin a shot today! I felt much safer using it after reading the tub's supplement facts, apparently 7.5g (One "Scoop" of the spoon that came with it) is the serving size. I was a little concerned about using it after reading some things on the internet about it being bad for your heart/this/that, but then again the internet also says dried peanut skins can get you high. So I figure making one batch with 1/5th the serving size is no biggie.

I wanted to make a small batch of capsules for tonight or tomorrow, so I threw 1g of abv into 10ml of coconut oil, along with 1.5g of lecithin (.625 of a tsp iirc). Most sources online said 3/4 TSP per 1 TBSP of oil, so i just followed that ratio and did some math.

Came out with a ratio of 1.5g lecithin/1gABV, or 2 teaspoons of Oil to .625 teaspoons of Lecithin. Added in an extra 2.5ml of coconut oil to fully cover everything, for a total of 12.5ml of oil for it to be cooked in. I expect some minor loss during the filtration.

I see exactly what you mean for the lecithin trade off, too. It displaces some of my oil and also requires me to use just a little more oil to make sure the oil covers all the material.

I do a lot of "micro cooking" and all I gotta say is that it's a great way to get into edibles. It allows for experimentation if you keep a log (started mine today!) and really helps you refine the process. Yeah, its more time consuming when your getting into edibles but it also prevents massive waste if you mess up by overheating.

Will report back with what my oil is looking like when its done, will also report how the lecithin-infused oil compares to my old oil without lecithin (Also made from the same grade abv, vaped low-medium on my pax, or what I'd imagine "Medium heat" would be on my vapor genie)
Thanks again, mate!

 

[Monsoon]

I do have one question about the first part: You ARE decarbing the qwiso in the coconut oil, right? I imagine if I put some qwiso into my micro-dish it would dry up pretty quick and be a pain in the arse to get off/infuse. Or are you smearing it on a pyrex dish, decarbing it, and scraping up a powder?

No I decarb the QWISO by itself in the pyrex container then I add the coconut oil to the same container after so I don't lose any pouring it out. By the end of the decarb it should be liquidy so you could pour it out if you wanted to though.

 

[Nok21]

No I decarb the QWISO by itself in the pyrex container then I add the coconut oil to the same container after so I don't lose any pouring it out. By the end of the decarb it should be liquidy so you could pour it out if you wanted to though.

Interesting, doesn't it stick/melt/dry up on the pyrex at all? I thought it would, but I'll take your word for it.

I assume you decarb the qwiso at the same temperatures mentioned before? 220°F-230° for 20-30 minutes, covered in foil?

Thanks mate!

EDIT: Update on the 1g of abv oil, my first time ever including lecithin in any recipie (Thus, a small batch to test it with).

The oil cooked well, it's slightly viscous but it certainly looks more powerful than my usual oil. Very dark with an hint of yellow at the rims of the vial, has a more pungent odor than normal. Very earthy.

I have high hopes for this oil tonight, will have to see what my total yield is before I end up deciding on a dosage. Normally 1g of abv cooked into oil (Vaped at low/medium) will yield 1-2 dosages of capsules/oil. If I consume all of the oil, I get between a "6" and an "8" on the "0-11" chart. If I take half of that oil, I get a strong body buzz at around a "4". I hear the Lecithin increases potency by around 10-20%, so we'll see what happens later today. Will keep updated.

 

[Monsoon]

Interesting, doesn't it stick/melt/dry up on the pyrex at all? I thought it would, but I'll take your word for it.

I assume you decarb the qwiso at the same temperatures mentioned before? 220°F-230° for 20-30 minutes, covered in foil?

Thanks mate!

It's quite your oil may look different after but mine's always liquid after decarb. For decarbing QWISO by itself I follow the decarb graph and do it at 252F for 25-30 minutes.

 

[Nok21]

It's quite your oil may look different after but mine's always liquid after decarb. For decarbing QWISO by itself I follow the decarb graph and do it at 252F for 25-30 minutes.

I always reference the graph, but its always nice to hear from others who have tried it!

Glad it still remains somewhat liquidy, makes it easier to mix!

It may just be easier for me to decarb it IN the oil. Preheat oven with my bowl in it, make sure coconut oil is preheated, then add QWISO is almost what I'm thinking. If its real pure QWISO, I'd be tempted to bypass the filtration part.

EDIT: Any opinions on my recent batch? I think I added enough lecithin for 1g of abv.

2nd EDIT: That batch looks either bunk or very strong, I used 12.5ml of coconut oil, 1g abv, 1.5g Lecithin Granules and ended up with approx 10ml of infused coconut oil. Will re-cook the abv again tomorrow for shits and giggles to see how much was left in it after the first cook.

A little scared to try my first lecithin edible!

 

[Monsoon]

I always reference the graph, but its always nice to hear from others who have tried it!

Glad it still remains somewhat liquidy, makes it easier to mix!

It may just be easier for me to decarb it IN the oil. Preheat oven with my bowl in it, make sure coconut oil is preheated, then add QWISO is almost what I'm thinking. If its real pure QWISO, I'd be tempted to bypass the filtration part.

EDIT: Any opinions on my recent batch? I think I added enough lecithin for 1g of abv.

2nd EDIT: That batch looks either bunk or very strong, I used 12.5ml of coconut oil, 1g abv, 1.5g Lecithin Granules and ended up with approx 10ml of infused coconut oil. Will re-cook the abv again tomorrow for shits and giggles to see how much was left in it after the first cook.

A little scared to try my first lecithin edible!

It sounds good, can't comment too much on adding lecithin directly but your amounts seem right.

 

[NorVape]

I never bother decarbing abv or rosin chips, as they have already been exposed to heat.

 

[Monsoon]

I never bother decarbing abv or rosin chips, as they have already been exposed to heat.

ABV in most cases probably doesn't need it but rosin chips shouldn't get high enough for long enough to get close to fully decarbing. Depends on your particular method too of course but a lot of the tests I've seen still had pretty high THCA values versus THC.

 

[Nok21]

ABV in most cases probably doesn't need it but rosin chips shouldn't get high enough for long enough to get close to fully decarbing. Depends on your particular method too of course but a lot of the tests I've seen still had pretty high THCA values versus THC.

I agree completely, the Rosin chips should still need some decarbing- I always do 1 press, fold, 2nd press, refold, 3rd press. 320F, about 3 seconds or a half second after I hear the sizzling.

Onto the Lecithin Experiment: Noticeable change in capsules potency, just like the hype says, its about 20%. Ended up taking 5ml (.5abv in oil) as a tester and felt more than i expected, got to about a 4. Will have to try this with the whole 10ml.

 

[NorVape]

I should probably mention I press rosin from import hash that is for the most part naturally decarbed due to storage times

 

[Nok21]

I should probably mention I press rosin from import hash that is for the most part naturally decarbed due to storage times

That makes a big difference!

I'm (unfortunate) enough not to get old school dry concentrates, but lucky enough to be able to make the new ones!

I tried 10ml of my 1g abv+lecithin coconut oil extract (Aka, the whole gram)- It was nice, potency improved, for sure. Simply added an extra 2.5ml oil to my normal recipie to compensate for the displacement, and ended up with approx 10ml of oil. Got to about a 6, probably should use my abv for qwiso cooking in the future and not eat the capsules in the middle of a large meal

Repeating this with fresh herbs, 1g and the same amount of lecitihin.

This time doing a first for me: adding an hour, and just decarbing naturally in the oil. I remember monsoon saying I should do this since I'm already cooking at 240F for 2-3 hours, so at worst i end up with a little less of a certain active.. I'll drop the temperature from 240F after an hour, though, as recommended. Will report back later.

I'm hoping to get an easy 5 doses from 1g cooked into oil, as anything else would be a waste. So here's for hoping!

EDIT: Filtering, micro batch almost done. Will report yield and potency.

So far, slightly viscous and very, very, very dark. I used 1g of fresh with 12.5ml oil+ a little lecithin (same amount from last batch). You could say I have high hopes.

I expect to not need to take 10 capsules this time, but rather 2, maybe 3. I normally don't bake with fresh, so one way to find out!