Some secrets to good Qwiso

I'm sure there's some people on here in my situation, and aren't comfortable using something as volatile as butane for extractions. A lot of people think they're sacrificing by using ISO, and you might be, a bit. Time, if nothing else. With trial and error, though, I've learned a few tricks to get high quality qwiso. Want to share them so you guys don't have to be using that black, gooey, nasty stuff. I can't give anything like a recipe, as I haven't got one. I do it a little different every time trying to get better.

First, is to keep everything cold. Chlorophyll and waxes and other impurities are what makes the oil dark and nasty. If these impurities are frozen, they dissolve into the ISO much more slowly. Some guides I've seen recommend freezing everything for 24 hours or something like that. That actually doesn't help a whole lot. It's good, but as soon as that stuff is out of the freezer, it starts warming up.

What you want to do is make a cold water bath. Take a 20oz water bottle, fill it up with very very salty water. As much as you can dissolve into it. This lowers the freezing temperature of the water. Freeze this, a tray of ice cubes, your ISO, and your product inside the mason jar you'll be using to make your qwiso. In my freezer, it takes about 4 hours.

Get some kind of flat, wide container. I use a plastic tupperware type thing that's about 10in. square. Cut open the bottle of frozen salt water and dump it in. Should be hard slush(your freezer probably won't freeze it solid). Break it up with a knife or fork. Add the ice cubes and enough water to cover them and the slush.

Place the mason jar with product in the center of the cold water bath and make your qwiso there. This will keep everything extremely cold during your extraction. Cover to about double the level of your product. First run, just stir a couple times to make sure there are no dry spots. Just let it sit. This will be so cold, and you're not agitating, so the 10-30 second wash times recommended are way to short. I actually haven't found the max wash time for the first run, yet. Last time I did an entire minute and still ended up with pure white powder qwiso. Not sure how many of you guys have seen this stuff, but I've been told by some pretty experienced people that what I've let them hit is very high quality. Honestly, it's to pure. I can't even really use it. Doesn't stick to anything. You can heat it up to get it on a dabber, but the instant it cools it falls off. It's a pain. Trying to find the spot where I'll have all of this oil...and just a bit of the waxes, to make it easier to use.

Use a normal wire kitchen strainer on top of a funnel with a coffee filter in it to filter out the material. Some shake and keif will fall through the strainer, but it's not a huge deal if that sits in there. It's not much. Don't ever press out the buds. You might get a little extra oil, but you'll get a TON of all the impurities we just worked so hard to keep out of your oil. As soon as the material is done dripping, get it back in the jar and get that and your ISO back into the freezer for your second run. Do that the same way, but stir the entire time you're washing.

When you're purging, just keep it somewhere cool and dark, and keep a fan blowing on it. Also, make sure to cover it with a screen or cheesecloth to keep dust and anything in the air out of the pan. This part takes a while and varies a lot depending on the pan you use. Can use something nice and big, and it'll be done in a few hours, but you'll be scraping a lot of surface area and it'll take you longer to get your oil off the pan. You can use a small serving dish, and it'll take a long time to purge, but you'll be able to scrape out your oil really easily. Up to you, really. If you use 91% ISO(don't go lower), at a certain point you'll see a milky looking liquid that's formed. That's normal. It's just water and a bit of qwiso. Don't dump it off...there's oil in it. Just let it keep purging until it's COMPLETELY dry. It shouldn't be oily or watery at all. Aside from not keeping the extraction cold, this is peoples biggest issue. If you scrape it while it's still wet, the water gets mixed in and then it takes forever to dry.

From 7gs of shake, I usually get .2-.3 of the high quality first run. .7-1.0 out of the second run. Second run has varied a lot. Couple times I got nice yellow wax, but I've also gotten brown, too. I've been doing a third run, just to see what's left as I'm figuring out wash times. Usually .1-.3 and it's horrible lol. I really want to get as much as I can out in the first run. I've got a theory that the second run get's a lot of impurities from the ISO that's been sitting on it for the time between runs. Just going to keep adding to the first run wash time until I get most of it out there.

Hope this helps a few people...and here's to no more blown up kitchens!

*EDIT*

Actually, ISO is nearly as dangerous as Butane. Both flammable, both are heavier than air (about 2-1 ratio, air being a density of one, butane/iso being a density around 2.) meaning that when purging either, you need to be outdoors. Both release vapors that are harmful to breath, and will settle in low spots/corners, and stay there until they are removed, or ignited.

I switched from ISO to BUTANE for SAFETY. Just because you don't hear about it, doesn't mean people don't blow up, etc, working with ISO...butane is just more common, so more propensity for an issue, to be heard about.

I repeat, ISOPROPYL alcohol, is not a safer alternative to BUTANE. They are BOTH DANGEROUS.

That being said, either can be totally safe, if you work with them safely. I never took the proper precautions working with ISO, and got lucky. My hands however, suffered slightly. Skin contact with ISO isn't really recommended.

I do suggest you, and anyone interested in working with ISO/BUTANE/ANY CHEMICALS, read, and have handy when working with, the MSDS for the chemical! Know it's dangers, little tricks, and ways to stay safe around it! BE SAFE!
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When I used to make QWISO, before switching to Tane, I came up with a nice tek, to get great BHO like results, via 3-4 washes, no longer than 5-8 seconds each. Here is what my tech became refined to:

Here are some pics from my QWISO runs.

PM me or keep posting here to chat more, I'd love to help you improve your tek and results!

Great tek! Last batch of qwiso yielded nothing but full melt powder. Tough to use on its own, but
super to top off your veggies with. I always freeze everything before the process, and have learned
to shorten my rinse times. Used to get really dark result, rather nasty in comparison to the last batch.
Be safe regardless of your solvent.......

My first QWISO attempt, I could have sworn I was God himself; I started with 7 grams of Train-Wreck,

and to my then un-trained(in hash) eyes, I could have sworn I turned it into cocaine!


When I scraped up my results, I got this white powder, that flaked back like "fish scale." Sketchy.










Come to find out, water, cause your oil to get that white to it, and then, when it does get out, your left with that white powder...odd.

When I would hold a lighter to this stuff, while inhaling (like how it's packed in that bowl) it would melt, and look identical to hash oil.

If you remelt it with heat and whip it, it's easier to work with.

And, Purple, you're right. Both can definitely be hazardous, but I think ISO is safer because if the space is well ventilated, the amount in the air at any one time is much lower than a butane purge. Butane is purged and all in the air in minutes, while ISO is purged over several hours. I've also never heard of ISO vapors being ignited. If there's a case of it, please point me towards it.

You haven't heard of it, because less people use it, less chance of it happening VS butane. There are stories online (most deleted from forums) of people making QWISO indoors, and causing a small fire/explosion.

Look at the MSDS for both chemicals, they both have very similar risk of ignition, and similar properties when it comes to how they move around a room, etc. Doesn't matter the purge time lol. Butane or ISO will sit for hours, they don't just evaporate, or dissipate, they sit, and either go somewhere else, or get ignited. Either way, your best bet, is to do your initial purge (all liquid) of either butane or iso, OUTSIDE. Use a fan with plastic blades/cage or casing, and use it to BLOW the vapors, not suck them, away from you, to an open area where they will be less concentrated. Only when you have no liquid left, return to the indoors. I've been very lucky, doing all of my QWISO indoors.

I know many people who do butane runs indoors. I don't talk to them anymore, after telling them numerous times, no butane/iso in your house. They haven't blown up. Some use up to 3 cans of vector, in one setting. Just cause it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. This is your life, and others lives. Don't be stupid. They are BOTH DANGEROUS.

So I'm assuming this can be whipped into a more solid state? I'd love to be able to make some QWISO and whip it up into a more malleable form for use with my TV Ultra

Whipping doesn't have much to do with how solid qwiso comes out. If it ends up like a liquid and is black, you washed to long and got a bunch of chlorophyll, water, and other impurities in your oil. I don't know how to fix that. Just need to do better next time, and get the herb out of the ISO before the ISO turns green.

If it's liquid and light brown, amber, or gold, the only mistake you made was scraping to early. There was still some water in the pan, or in parts of the oil, and when you scraped it up, you mixed it into the oil. You can spread it very thin on parchment paper and let it dry. Can take a couple days. If you don't have time, you can also cook out the water in the oven. 20 minutes on it's lowest temp. Whip it as it cools. You whip it just to let out any trapped gas or water...but sometimes you will end up with ear wax, just like if you whip bho.

Winterizing using a more polar solvent like ethanol. It's the difference between a concrete essential oil and an absolute oil.

I know that much. I've read about it a bit, but I've never done it, so I'm not about to try and talk about it.

This thread is awesome. Thanks for all the info, I plan on implementing much of this in future runs.

Has anyone used more extensive filtration than coffee filters? I've been used 2x unbleached, but I'm pretty sure they shed particles.

You can use a metal coffee filter to strain with.

I just ordered a syringe filter from ebay, I plan on using that with my french press and a funnel for future batches.

I just ran 9g of Green Candy last night using the aforementioned salty ice bath (I didn't bother to freeze the bath, just mixed it all together just before). My first wash was 60s lightly jiggling the container. The second wash was the same + 10-15s of pretty vigorous shaking. They both look clearer than my last batch, I hope to have pics once it is done.

so Everclear would be better to winterize w/ than 99% ISO? i didn't realize that ethanol was more polar.. i thought even 91% ISO was fine for winterization

Any QWISO run I have ever done tastes like shit compared to BHO.
Any ideas why?
Don't worry I'm not afraid of butane and can handle it safely but I can get almost unlimited %99 ISO for free.

What is your tek?

Well, one reason is it doesn't pick up the same terpenes and flavors. BHO, lots of times, will smell a lot like the product you used in the first place, but I've never had that happen with QWISO. Not all QWISO runs taste like shit, though. If you do it correctly, it tastes great.

I'm really happy with the my new filtration method I just tried out.

Super easy:

I put ~6 layers of pantyhose wrapped tight around a pyrex dish. I skipped the coffee filter, and just dumped my french pressed liquid onto the middle of my pantyhose covered dish. I wet the pantyhose with iso just before my iso mix got put in. After that, I liberally applied iso to try to wash the filter of THC. I just took a look at my dried dish and it looks amazing (Note: I kept it covered until evapped). No particles at all. I can't imagine I am losing too much in the process compared to coffee filters. Actually, I would guess it is more efficient, plus you aren't wringing out your filter, which could introduce the filter particles I had previously seen.

Genius! Great idea, thank you!

any comments on this last batch I did? I'm assuming the little impurities are results of my filtering tek or my purging outside without a 'lid' of sorts... Anyways, got a lot of tips from this thread, so I thought i'd share

wow, that stuff looks mind bending

for a few dollars and a bit of time one can put together a safe little stove top still using a double boiler, a pressure cooker and an Allihn condenser hooked together with latex surgical tubing (any fishing supply store will have various sizes, but make sure it's latex, safest for Isopropanol)

your Iso goes back in the bottle as liquid instead of into the air as vapor, much safer than butane although I'm sure butane could be made safer as well with a bit of common sense.

BalzOut

I will have some pics of my first few forays in the next few days. I just got my first oil rig today and I'm loving my product.

My 4/20 run from yesterday. Hope you all had a great 'holiday'

MMMMMM, freebase marijuana

BalzOut