Tek Easy to read Skunk Pharm QWET Instructions

[herbivore21]

As with the other thread for QWISO, here are the redacted instructions as per Skunk Pharm

I removed all of the explanatory information from the original Skunk Pharm article and made everything as clear and plainly written as possible.

1. Spread material on a cookie sheet and bake it in a 93c (200f) oven until the buds are easily broken when rolled between your finger and thumb. Leave buds whole.

2. Seal the material in a jar while still warm and place in the freezer. Put alcohol in freezer too.

3. When they have both stabilized at about -32C/0F, pour the alcohol into the jar of plant material, so that it is at least an inch above the material. Shake it gently a few times to make sure everything is wet.

3a. Place the jar filled with buds/ethanol back in the freezer for one minute.

3b. After one minute, remove the jar and shake gently again.

3c. Place the jar back in the freezer for another minute.

3d. After one minute, remove the jar and shake gently one final time.

3e. Place the jar back in the freezer for one final minute.

4. After this final minute, immediately dump the mixture through a wire strainer to drain quickly. I use a pasta strainer to catch the bulk of the material, followed by a fine mesh French Chinoise.

5. We set the buds aside to dry and refreeze for a second extraction.

6. Next, filter the alcohol. Use either vacuum and a #1 lab filter or a simple coffee filter, depending on the quantity being processed.

7. After filtration, place the solution in a large surface area dish, like a Pyrex pie plate, and just blow air over it. That reduces it fast, cover the dish with a cheese cloth in dusty areas.

8. When the alcohol is visually gone, place the dish on a 140F heat mat, or float it in a hot water dish, until the smell and taste of the Isopropyl is gone, usually around 30 minutes to an hour.

 

[hitnrun]

@herbivore21...

Wish I had found this before I ran off, half-cocked (as we Americans say), and tried your QWISO instructions...sorta...for QWET.

Don't get me wrong, 'cause I'm pleased with the end product.

I did remember someone mentioning how ISO is much more aggressive than ethanol, so I shook the frozen ingredients for 30 seconds instead of just 20, then strained/filtered the virtually clear liquid into a Pyrex glass pie pan, and set a desktop fan on low and let it run for 3 hours until all the liquid had evaporated. During the latter part of drying, the liquid took on a semi milky appearance, but dried clear and tacky. I placed it on a barely warm stove top -- seriously, I could put my finger on it without discomfort -- for about 3 minutes just until the extract softened slightly, and then scraped it off with a single-edge razor.

What I got from ~6g of absolute-rock-bottom-non-medical-almost-imitation-flowers -- despite my botched one-wash process -- was a smallish chunk of medium amber goo that hardened as soon as it cooled on the razor. I don't have a scale that weighs that small of an amount, but I'd guess maybe 0.3g to 0.4g, give or take.

The important takeaways, are two I believe. First, I couldn't get as "medicated" vaping those flowers, even though I tried numerous times, as I did from 3 hits of the resulting cotton-wrapped shatter in my e-nano at 7.5. And secondly, the next time I do it, correctly, it's only gonna give more, and be better.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[hishighness]

Plan on doing this soon using 100% kief, is one method (iso vs. ethanol) more effective or otherwise better than the other? And is this considered winterization or would you need to run the oil again to dewax it? Appreciate the write up!

 

[Severmore]

Similar to the QWISO instructions, I would not advise the first step of drying in the oven...unnecessary heat results in unnecessary flavor loss.

I realize that Skunk Pharm Research LLC states to dry your starting material in the oven @ 200f, but that is only intended for decarboxylated oral oils and topicals. If you read the comments following the article, Skunk Pharm researchers (GW) clearly state to freeze your plant material after 5-7 days of drying (no heat) for concentrates intended for vaporization.

 

[herbivore21]

Plan on doing this soon using 100% kief, is one method (iso vs. ethanol) more effective or otherwise better than the other? And is this considered winterization or would you need to run the oil again to dewax it? Appreciate the write up!

@hishighness

Ethanol is more forgiving to begin with, especially with kief, you are pretty much setting yourself up for success. Head on over to my QWISO thread for loads of info and pictures on how to do a QWISO extraction

Greetings my friend, kief is a great idea for starting out with alcohol based extractions. If I may, some important tips:

1. Having 2 strainers is crucial - you need one preferably conical shaped SS fine sieve as well as unbleached coffee filters to ensure that your herb doesn't stay washing while it takes forever to drain through the coffee filter. Place the SS sieve on top of the coffee filter, pour your buds/alcohol into the sieve and let it strain through into pyrex at the bottom

2. Kief needs to be frozen still man, always freeze with alcohol. Even kief has plant materials, albeit a lot less than even the best top colas. You can also wash a bit longer with kief because of this factor. 150% wash time (add half again) is good IME, but experiment - and post your results Also, you don't need to worry about getting waxes into your product too much so long as you freeze and especially using kief.

Also everybody, I will be practicing this method in the near future and posting more details posts with images of results

I like to think of it as my way of giving a little back to FC

Cheers!

Also, I do recognise that drying with the oven (step 1) is not necessary. I do however still practice this, as I find it gives me fantastic results. However, I will be attempting with and without and providing pictures of different results This is optional, hopefully a mod can look into editing this into the original post? Maybe my old friend @pakalolo ??

 

[MikeInMiami]

Awesome write up! As much as I love skunk pharm and all his work, it is nice to have it laid out in simpler terms. Just one question, is this method for QWISO or QWET?

8. When the alcohol is visually gone, place the dish on a 140F heat mat, or float it in a hot water dish, until the smell and taste of the Isopropyl is gone, usually around 30 minutes to an hour.

did you mean when the smell of the ethanol is gone?

 

[herbivore21]

Awesome write up! As much as I love skunk pharm and all his work, it is nice to have it laid out in simpler terms. Just one question, is this method for QWISO or QWET?
did you mean when the smell of the ethanol is gone?

Cheers brother

This is the QWET one, I just accidentally typed ISO Thanks for pointing that out, hopefully mods can assist with the edit

 

[MikeInMiami]

Not a problem dude, teamwork makes the dream work

 

[farscaper]

does no one do this? I know its iso, but Ethenol can be used as well

 

[2clicker]

does no one do this? I know its iso, but Ethenol can be used as well

im not sure ethanol would extract as much as you want due to the short amount of time it has to dissolve the goods. iso would easily be the better option using that method, but i still question if its in contact long enough.

i would love to hear someone w/ firsthand experience on the subject...?

 

[farscaper]

I feel that this would be a warm wash scenario. I know iso is invasive enough, and your going to no doubt run more ethanol or iso through the material than butane.

I was loading a tube fiddling about when I thought of it.

ill be using butane, but maybe in the future I will test this with less precious material.

one of the big pros is that you can pressure pack a tube. which will allow more of a slow contact push because you control the pressure instead of like a can of butane.

this WILL work if someone is willing to dedicate time to the tek.

 

[herbivore21]

im not sure ethanol would extract as much as you want due to the short amount of time it has to dissolve the goods. iso would easily be the better option using that method, but i still question if its in contact long enough.

i would love to hear someone w/ firsthand experience on the subject...?

I agree man, however, I do think this could get great results with ISO.

I have not even touched the litre or two of ethanol I have sitting around for a month or so since I got my QWISO technique down. Getting guaranteed shatter/crumble every single time, even with reclaim

However, ethanol is a much less agressive solvent, squirting it through the herb will probably not get a hell of a lot off the herb, however, if you repeated this process a few times, this could be a very useful trick.

 

[farscaper]

I agree man, however, I do think this could get great results with ISO.

I have not even touched the litre or two of ethanol I have sitting around for a month or so since I got my QWISO technique down. Getting guaranteed shatter/crumble every single time, even with reclaim

However, ethanol is a much less agressive solvent, squirting it through the herb will probably not get a hell of a lot off the herb, however, if you repeated this process a few times, this could be a very useful trick.

again, this would be a WARM tek.

if someone were to do it.

becuase warm ethanol is far quicker at extraction. this I have tested.

using a packed tube would simply be a diffrent way of skinning the same cat I suppose... but guys are always looking for a way to run qwet qwiso like bho and this would be how you could replicate the "technique" of bho.

not that it will do the same to end results.

its really just academic to me

 

[herbivore21]

again, this would be a WARM tek.

if someone were to do it.

becuase warm ethanol is far quicker at extraction. this I have tested.

using a packed tube would simply be a diffrent way of skinning the same cat I suppose... but guys are always looking for a way to run qwet qwiso like bho and this would be how you could replicate the "technique" of bho.

not that it will do the same to end results.

its really just academic to me

This is interesting, how warm are we talking here? I tend to find that exposing my herb to anything equal to or above 100c tends to make it become more waxy/gummy as opposed to shatter/crumble (which is what I'm going for generally).

I would like to try this method though! I just may. I need to find a squirt container that is safe to keep ISO/ethanol in though

 

[2clicker]

interesting idea, but i believe using the smallest amount of solvent is ideal. that is why i would like to do a dry ice extraction followed by a qwet extraction. depending on the dry ice runs return i could be doing a qwet wash with only a shot glass of everclear. pour that onto a slicksheet with a fan.... bingo. wouldnt even need to heat to speed the evap due to the volume of ec. then simply collect from slicksheet by w/ a quick "fold n peel" routine.

i think trying to do an alcohol wash in this bho spraying fashion... you will end up having to evap a lot of alcohol.

 

[farscaper]

then this tek might be ideal if you want to minimize solvent quantities.

im scatter brained right now doing some stuff but im still pouring this over the thinking coals.

seems to me that re-running the alcohol through the material multiple times would be easy with this and getting ALL back out would be easy because you would be using pressure.
I saw cats hooking up bicycle pumps to large bho extraction tubes to get the butane through... same diffrence
@2clicker I think you even mentioned that already didnt you?

@herbivore21 I would not exceed 100°F if you do not winterize. but if you complete a winterization cycle this shouldnt be an issue since all the waxes would be removed.

 

[herbivore21]

then this tek might be ideal if you want to minimize solvent quantities.

im scatter brained right now doing some stuff but im still pouring this over the thinking coals.

seems to me that re-running the alcohol through the material multiple times would be easy with this and getting ALL back out would be easy because you would be using pressure.
I saw cats hooking up bicycle pumps to large bho extraction tubes to get the butane through... same diffrence
@2clicker I think you even mentioned that already didnt you?

@herbivore21 I would not exceed 100°F if you do not winterize. but if you complete a winterization cycle this shouldnt be an issue since all the waxes would be removed.

hahaha dude, with my new induction setup, I'm making rock hard shatter and/or crumble out of QWISO reclaim, let alone flowers. If I have learned anything over the month since I started doing concentrates, it is that it is all in the technique! You can make great extracts with terrible material! Also I always winterize

 

[farscaper]

I have a jar of single run bho remains...
I think ill grab some more iso and give this a whirl just for the sake of trying.

I will report back here if I choose everclear.

 

[AmberAlchemist]

Hey guys - I've been working from the Skunkpharm instructions and been attempting some good old grade school experiments. (I even busted out a composition book). I've been experimenting with testing different techniques against each other and yields / taste / etc.. I started out with super lofty goals, tested 7 different strains, 1g at a time, and quickly realized the err of my ways. 7 strains = WAY too many variables, let alone the fact that creating replicatable results is a lot harder than it seems. I've also found that the less material you use, the lower the yields, at least from anecdotal experience (could also just be that it's hard to measure accurately at that scale of .1g yields).

So far - my tests have shown one absolute truth so far: the instructions seem so stupidly simple, but there's a lot of room to mess up. I still have yet to have done the same steps with the same flowers twice and ended up with the same result.

Here are some pics of my first attempts:

This shows my very first run ever - the top was the first wash at 3 minutes, bottom was 2nd wash after 3 minutes.

This was the yield of another run on a different strain:

And this my friends, this is what I would call "green crack". This stuff was KILLER. Absolutely mind blowing. It's like someone took a totally awesome, fuzzy, happy, warm, nail and punched it right into your forehead between your eyes. This was from a strain called "Red Devil" (a sativa dom). The consistency is something I'm still trying to figure out what caused it - every other run comes out more sappy / shatter like consistency, but this came out flakey / crystally / powdery. From what I've read, some people seem to think it has to do with getting water in the dish just prior to final evaporation, which caused the THC to crystallize better. I don't know what it was, but if I could have huge jars filled with this stuff, I would be a happy man. I'm going to be jumping back on the bandwagon here sooner than later to try and reproduce these results, I'll post here if I find anything useful.

I should also note: I've been on a quick wash hiatus as of late - partly since my last run I was trying to run a full OZ of prime flowers to make some prime shatter for a friends b-day, and made the rookie mistake of decarb'ing too hot in the oven and lost all my THC to the oven and ended up with a terrible, metal tasting product afterwards. I'm also trying to find a cheap / easy way to reclaim the everclear, as doing the number of small runs I've been doing has been costing quite a bit in everclear. Anyone had any luck with stupid simple alcohol reclaim techniques? (aside from the obvious of buying a $200 distiller). I have some new pyrex dishes that come with an "exhaust" hole (for microwaving food inside) - i might try throwing that lid on, attach a funnel with some tubing, run it through a bucket of ice water, and put the end in an empty bottle.

 

[2clicker]

nice work @AmberAlchemist! i never decarb flowers before running them. isnt that only needed for edibles? if you are vaping the oil then it does not need to be decarb'd... no?

i know that heating flowers before a run can help remove odor from the oil, of which is useful for oil being turned into eliquid for stealth purposes.

as for everclear and its costs... have you considered doing a dry ice run and then a qwet wash? this will allow you to use much less EC for the wash. and should produce a cleaner prod that wouldnt likely need to be filtered as much.

keep it up!

 

[farscaper]

you should be able to do a vast portion of your inital everclear purge inside a still. this will allow you to collect alcohol... it will come at the cost of most likely tainting said alcohol for future use with some terpenes from the material though.

 

[AmberAlchemist]

Oh yah, I forgot to mention: I never discard the left over plant material after my runs, I always drop them back in a mason jar with some more everclear and let it soak for a few weeks to pull the remaining oil, CBD's, and other material into tinctures. So this is partly why I decarb sometimes so that I have it in useable form for the tinctures.

However, with that said, I'm also going to be running some other experiments specifically around the decarb'ing and the final consistency of the product. I've read / heard from some places that decarb'ing results in a harder shatter in the end, so I want to test and see what gets me the best results. Initial tests (again not very conclusive due to inconsistency / lack of experience) show that decarb yields a darker product with more plant material, so while it may give a better consistency, it's also opening the plant to give off more stuff than I want.

In terms of reclaiming the alcohol - I really don't see any downsides to having terps in the material. The terps are what add flavor, and there's actually a lot of science showing that the terps may provide a lot of therapeutic effects and work together with the THC and CBDs in interesting ways. I'd actually say that's what made the flakey stuff so awesome too, it tasted like little drops of sweet, spicy heaven!

 

[AmberAlchemist]

@2clicker - what do you mean specifically when you say "dry ice run"? Do you mean throwing some dry ice in a bucket with some bubble bags and dry sifting the kief off? Seems like yields would be much lower than what I could get by putting the entire plant in the solvent. Unless I'm missing something.

I HAVE been considering other ways to use dry ice though. Like for example, what if you put a chunk of dry ice in with the initial wash? It almost seems like the dry ice would be beneficial for a few reasons: helps keep the medium as cold as possible, to keep the trichs nice and crispy, and also seems like it could be an interesting way to "agitate" the material without the need for human intervention since the dry ice will be rocketing around inside the medium.

Another thought would be to potential create a cold water bath with the dry ice, simply to have a cold medium sitting out instead of having to put it in the freezer.

A third thought all-together: use enough dry ice after the wash to completely vaporize *all* of the alcohol, would it theoretically possible to do a "cold purge" of the alcohol?

 

[2clicker]

@2clicker - what do you mean specifically when you say "dry ice run"? Do you mean throwing some dry ice in a bucket with some bubble bags and dry sifting the kief off? Seems like yields would be much lower than what I could get by putting the entire plant in the solvent. Unless I'm missing something.

I HAVE been considering other ways to use dry ice though. Like for example, what if you put a chunk of dry ice in with the initial wash? It almost seems like the dry ice would be beneficial for a few reasons: helps keep the medium as cold as possible, to keep the trichs nice and crispy, and also seems like it could be an interesting way to "agitate" the material without the need for human intervention since the dry ice will be rocketing around inside the medium.

Another thought would be to potential create a cold water bath with the dry ice, simply to have a cold medium sitting out instead of having to put it in the freezer.

A third thought all-together: use enough dry ice after the wash to completely vaporize *all* of the alcohol, would it theoretically possible to do a "cold purge" of the alcohol?

yes. i meant a dry ice sifting before the wash. sure it may decrease the yield a bit, but if done correctly will allow you to use a very minimal amount of EC. as well as make a cleaner prod. take as much plant matter out of the equation as possible before the wash.

if you are worried about a reduced yield then just keep sifting until the kief starts to turn green. after that just dump the remaining herb into your tincure jar.

i have been planning on doing two runs to test. im going to do a full flower qwet run and a dry ice sifted/qwet run, both of the same strain and quantity. that way i can measure the amount that is reduced. my guess is that its going to be minimal. and that the weight lost is likely mostly made up of unwanted stuff that i wouldnt want in my oil anyway.

its going to be a week or so before i can do this experiment, but i am going to do it.

 

[AmberAlchemist]

I'm interested to hear how this turns out. I also happen to live in a wonderful, sunny, mountainous state where I can drive down the street and buy kief at $15/g from my friendly neighborhood dispensary - so if the kief route pans out, I may start just stocking up on bags and bags of kief.

So for kief, you can obviously use less solvent to start. Are you even doing an initial strain with kief? Almost seems trivial - seems like you could almost just dissolve the frozen kief in frozen alcohol, let it sit overnight to winterize, filter, and evap.

The other thing that's driving me crazy that I'm tinkering with is "drying apparatus". I know there's the "throw down a sticky pad" option, but I don't like the idea of worn silicone sloughing off / leeching into the product, at any PPM. The scraping route is tedious, and i know i'm losing a lot on the edges. I bought a ceramic sushi plate that was long and flat in hopes it would help keep the liquid away from the edges and easy to scrape, but the dish wasn't perfectly flat and the liquid pooled at the edges. I just found a 5"X5" square ceramic plate on a science supply site, so I may order one and give it a try. I'm also considering trying a solution where I dry the product on [any plate, dish, pyrex, etc..] but on top of unbleached hemp paper - instead of trying to fight the chemistry of "what's going to leech into it", I almost wonder if giving in and saying "ok what's the least harmful thing that i don't mind leeching in?" and hemp paper was the natural first thought. Is there such thing as "hemp parchment paper"?

Does anyone have any other solutions / tricks / ideas for easily getting the product out after evaporation?