Concentrates for Noobs - Q&A

invertedisdead

PHASE3
Manufacturer
I've read it a few times but can you really dab cbd isolate? Are they all created equal or only specific types dab? The few things I read people were adding it to other dabables to smooth out thc harshness but can you dab it on its own? I'm interested in cbd concentrate but don't have access to anything legal but I can get grey market isolate. Is there anything I should know about isolate?

Yes you can dab it, it’s a pure vaporizable product.

I prefer broad spectrum CBD rich distillate which contains other cannabinoid goodies over 100% pure CBD isolate though.
 

scy123

Trusted Member Don't Worry
UV may break down chlorophyll, but what is it changed to? One thing's for sure: whatever it is, it has no medicinal value. Preferred method is to use a clay powder. There are commercially available powders designed specifically to clean shit out of solutions. The clay is white, you put it the in the soup after you've filtered it the end of the extraction process. Stir and heat gently and in a few minutes the clay turns quite dark and drops to the bottom of the vessel. Then filter your soup using a buchner funnel, and wash the filtrate in the buchner with some extra alcohol so you don't leave any goodies behind. Then boil off all the alcohol from the filtered solution and winterize the resin. These two steps together (i.e. clay and winterization) will produce a very high quality extract containing very very little of anything but the good stuff.

The problem with chlorophyll is the taste. If it breaks down to something that taste just as bad I can see it being a problem. The point of the post was I was mentioning it was possible to remove chlorophyll from extractions when it was mentioned by another member it was not possible. I just used the simplest method as an example, of course other preferred methods are available.

If you want to preserve the terpenes, I suggest you capture the alcohol vapour, condense it, and feed it back to the boiling alcohol. This is called refluxing. It is easily accomplished by placing a metal top upside down on the pot and keeping it cool by adding ice as required during the cook.

I was actually getting into reflux distillation. This sounds very interesting to see if I can preserve terpenes this way. Maybe even extract just the terpenes.
 
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Gazaam

Well-Known Member
The problem with chlorophyll is the taste.

There are two problems with chlorophyll. Taste is one of them. The other is that it makes the vapour really harsh and cough inducing.

I was actually getting into reflux distillation. This sounds very interesting to see if I can preserve terpenes this way. Maybe even extract just the terpenes.
Reflux and distillation are different. Reflux means that the vapour of the solvent in which you are boiling your plant matter is trapped, cooled off (condensed back into liquid form), and recycled back into the boiling vessel. Whatever terps may vapourize during the boiling will also be condensed and recycled.

Distillation is a bit more complicated. You start with a pure oil with no solvent at all left in it. You put it into a sealed container which is connected at the top using a ground glass joint to a columnar vapour trap that rises vertically up from it. After it gets to be about a foot or so higher than the top of the vessel, the column takes a sudden turn downward at about -45 degrees and travels downward until its opening is just above a second, unsealed container. You then heat the sealed container slowly and carefully monitor the temperature of the liquid.

The temp will rise steadily until it reaches the temperature of the particular cannabinoid or terpene in the oil that has the lowest boiling point. When the liquid starts to boil, the temperature will stabilize because the heat you are applying to the container is now being used to vapourize the cannabinoid rather than to further raise the temperature of the oil. As the cannabinoid vapour ascends, it hits the sudden turn in the column and as it then starts to descend, it condenses back into a liquid form and is collected by the second container. (Sometimes the downward portion of the column is cooled by blowing cold air on it, or somehow bathing it in cold flowing water.) The temperature in the boiling liquid will stay constant until all of that cannabinoid has boiled off.

Then the liquid stops boiling and its temperature starts to rise again. Soon, the cannabinoid in the oil with the second lowest boiling point starts to boil, the liquid temperature stabilizes again, but at the higher boiling point of the second cannabinoid, and the vapour of the second cannabinoid is condensed and flows down into the second container. Usually, you would substitute a new, empty second container and collect the second cannabinoid in it. So when all the cannabinoids have boiled off one by one and are collected in a series of second containers, you have a series of purified cannabinoids. That is why this process is called "fractional distillation" because you have split up the original oil into its various fractions. This is basically the same process as is used to make gasoline from crude oil.

Things might possibly at this point get a bit more complicated (depending on what you are distilling) because the temperature at which a cannabinoid or terp boils may be high enough to cause it to degrade. To avoid this, the open second container is replaced with one with an airtight, ground glass seal where the descending part of the column connects into the second container. Then the atmosphere inside the entire apparatus (now air tight) is evacuated using a vacuum pump. The cannabinoids will boil at a much much lower temp when they are in a vacuum which keeps them from degrading. Also the lack of oxygen inside the evacuated chambers prevents oxidation reactions which are one form of degradation. If you ever get this far with it, be careful because after the last cannabinoid with the highest boiling point has all evaporated, the temperature of whatever gunk remains at the bottom of the first chamber will start to rise quickly. It may catch fire or actually explode.

As you can see, fractional distillation is a lot more complicated than reflux extraction. Unless you are a lab rat or have a background in chemistry and enough money to acquire the glassware and vacuum pump, you might be better off to leave fractional distillation to the experts. Cheaper in the long run and also safer. Good luck!
 
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scy123

Trusted Member Don't Worry
I know with distillation using a reflux column you control the temps of the column to just allow the lowest boiling point component to be collected. You can use this to only remove the solvent and the higher boiling point components will remain in the boiling chamber. Not sure what temps terpenes boil at, but if it was higher than the solvent, you might be able to boil off the alcohol and keep the terpenes? That's what I thought you meant by using reflux to keep terpenes.
 
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Gazaam

Well-Known Member
No, I think you misunderstood me. During the extraction process when you are working with a solvent, the reflux idea (i.e. putting an upside down metal cover on the vessel and cooling it with ice) will prevent the loss of terpenes. Remember that even before they boil, some of the terps molecules will still jump to the vapour phase. It's a random process but the hotter the solution, the more of the terps molecules will become air born. It's the same idea with anything volatile - for example, you can still smell the alcohol at the neck of a whiskey bottle even though the whiskey is a room temp and the boiling point of alcohol is about 70 deg., C. It's also why you can smell the terps in a bag of weed at room temperature which is way below their boiling point.
 

scy123

Trusted Member Don't Worry
Yea, I meant distilling the whole solution, solvents and all. With reflux distillation only the highest boiling point component will be siphoned off, the rest of the stuff will remain in solution. This is how you can distill azeotropic 96% alcohol and leave behind the water. If you do this with whisky the resulting alcohol will have no taste or smell of whisky too.

I just checked and terpenes boil at a higher temp than water too. If you can separate alcohol from water you can separate terpenes better!

Edit: I didn't mean actually distilling the THC or anything, just using it to remove the alcohol and using the reflux column to drip down anything that boils higher. it's the same thing as you mention of "capture the alcohol vapour, condense it, and feed it back to the boiling alcohol. This is called refluxing. It is easily accomplished by placing a metal top upside down on the pot and keeping it cool by adding ice as required during the cook." That is exactly what a reflux column does, except you pump cold water instead of ice and the temp control is more accurate, the system is contained also, so less loss.

You can see why I thought you where talking about reflux distillation.

Also, getting into reflux distillation has nothing to do with weed, but other hobbies like making fuel when the apocalypse comes and I need to prep for it *wink wink*
 
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macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member
Dabs 101: How to Salvage One Last Dab From a Concentrate Container
It’s not a perfect science, but if it gets you one last rip on a tough day, so does it really matter? Diablo is proud to share with you what he does when he is down to his last dab.

Another way is to decarb all your containers, and use a piece of bread to sop up the containers for a snack!
 
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Gazaam

Well-Known Member
I just hit it with a heat gun for a few seconds. FAR easier than the processes described above.
Well, in my experience, doesn't really get it all out. Still a brownish coating left, which is psychoactive. If you heat it up carefully with he heat gun, you can suck off the vapour produced with a straw! I like the bread idea. Another thing I have tried is to heat it up, but instead of using bread, I use a rolling paper as a wipe. Then flatten out the paper and use it to roll a joint, or shred up the rolling paper and smoke it in a pipe.
 
Gazaam,

scy123

Trusted Member Don't Worry
I hit mines with a heat gun, concentrate the oil to one end and scrape it out with a scoop like dab tool. Anything left over I just pour some alcohol in it and save it for later. Get a big enough collection and remove the alcohol and you are good to go.
 

Gazaam

Well-Known Member
Get a big enough collection and remove the alcohol and you are good to go.
Yeah, I rinse with iso, then pour the solution into a bottle with a small vent hole in the neck. Over time, the iso dries out and you have a nice gooey honey-pot. But somehow, I dunno, when it's time to consume it, and you have a nice fresh jar of some concentrate from some place in BC, it's hard to want to vape the old gunj rather than the nice, fresh, new sauce. :))) Some of us have zero discipline in such matters LOL :)
 

scy123

Trusted Member Don't Worry
Yea, I have a rather large collection of random stuff I used alcohol to collect that I probably won't use till I'm desperate or something.
 

Gazaam

Well-Known Member
It is a great idea. Try soaking some iso into a small cotton ball (maybe a cutip?) before cleaning out the conc dish. After it dries, I believe you will get a much more concentrated "sponge".
 
Gazaam,
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Vitolo

Vaporist
Cotton is good.
It does not have to be organic... just pure.
Pure cotton always has this on the package:
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I have even used unwound Q-tips... they fit the Solo stem well!
I have vaped using Cotton for 20 years!
There is an entire thread devoted to it at:

A special cotton trick:
When SSV or DBV wand (or any glass that has used convection Technology) is dirty... before cleaning with Iso..etc,
pass a cotton ball into wand, and pull it out and vape that!
 

baldore1312

Well-Known Member
Morning all!
I’ve been a committed lurker / fan of FuckCombustion for a decade and a longtime fan of DivineTribe, Arizer products. This morning, a brand new Dabpress 10 Ton Mini sets in my desk!! Whoot!

My first question is how many folks are using the drip arms on the Mini?

Thanks!
 

Kins

Well-Known Member
Is dabbing worth it? I mean you get 1 gram of a particular concentrate that costs anywhere between $20 to $100. That's only what I've seen and I've only just been looking into this. Does it really destroy your tolerance?.
 
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