First ISO - Think Went Wrong

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
did my first run on an ISO wash. Used 16.1g of light ABV and 1.1g of kief. Used 99% ISO. Soaked my stuff in a jar. Poured into a dish. Let it Evap on its Own for 2 days.

Why is it so liquid and dark? How do I get this from the wax paper into my Vapir rise?
 
ginolicious,

cptchronic

Well-Known Member
Abv will always be dark and runny cuz it's been decarbed somewhat and the material has been charred. Wax paper is not good for concentrates, you'll want parchment in the future. Wax will absorb your concentrate. Try freezing it to get it off.

You also might want to save up a lot more abv next time as you get really negligible returns, usually under 5 percent, probably like 2. I normally save atleast 2 ounces, preferably 4 before I make any and then you atleast get a couple grams.
 
cptchronic,

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
My run looked like this.


Obviously it was my first go and really curious how to get better. This is now on parchment paper. Noob mistake with the wax paper.

Is there any other better ways to perfect my technique?

Anyone have any better suggestions on how to get my concentrate off my razor when I scrape it on the parchment paper on a nice dab? That pic I posted was a fluke and I don't remember how I ended up like that lol. Kinda want to take it off to weight it.
 

cptchronic

Well-Known Member
Haha its all good man we've all been there before. That's usually how it'll look if your using abv. As for scraping, I usually scrape and then freeze the razor, it then can be pulled off with a dab tool pretty easily and then I just repeat for the rest of the batch.

For perfecting your technique, for making abv oil, you don't really need to be careful, I just soak for 30 min, strain, evaporate, and scrape. With fresh material you'll want to be careful in following the proper steps like time of wash and freezing your product beforehand. I'd just keep practicing with abv like it's fresh nugs, so once you get comfortable your first wash will be perfected.
 

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
Are you suggesting to freeze the ABV and ISO before doing the wash? And damn I only soaked for 5 minutes before straining.

Thanks for the tip on freezing the razor blade. Never thought of that one.

I do also toss kief in my wash just to get some extra thc content in that mixture.
 
ginolicious,

cptchronic

Well-Known Member
If you are going to dab it yes freeze both the iso and the abv but if your using for edibles it doesn't really matter. Warm conditions allow for faster extraction but pull out undesirables like chlorophyll. When using fresh buds you always want to freeze in order to get only the goodies. You'll also want to shorten wash times for fresh buds.

I'm pretty sure you only need 30 seconds with ISO. I normally use ethanol so my times will be longer. I also do a longer soak with my abv to make sure I get all of the goodies in one wash as opposed to multiple (which I only do multiples when using fresh).
 
cptchronic,

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
You have been very helpful. I appreciate it. Making concentrates is a lot harder than growing dope.

I'm not going to have issues dabbing the stuff k made without freezing the ISO?
 
ginolicious,

cptchronic

Well-Known Member
Haha anytime man, don't worry with some practice you'll find making high quality concentrates is as easy as baking a cake. The most important part in making quality extracts would be input material, the better in the better out.

And nah you'll be fine, it just makes it less pure of an extract. The freezing of the bud and alcohol just keeps the undesirables from being pulled out. I believe it actually freezes the membranes around the more polar compounds which prevents them from being extracted (some will always be pulled due to iso being a polar solvent)
 
cptchronic,

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
I'll just drop by here to say with those clear pictures at the start, you definitely did not finish the purge.

Leaving a dish out in a room to let the iso evaporate only works for getting rid of most, not all of the solvent. You MUST use heat and/or vacuum to do the final purge. I have highlighted this because every single person using any solvent must know this!

This is because some solvent will remain trapped in the heavier oily solution left on your dish after most of the solvent has evaporated. It will look like there is no solvent left, but there still is going to be. If you do not use heat/vacuum in the final step of the purge, you are very unlikely to ever get enough of the iso out!

Also I have to contradict @cptchronic here and say that avb should never be soaked for half an hour with iso, as it is going to pull out lots of undesirables given the length of the wash, even when frozen first! 5 mins is too long for an iso soak.

Generally, you should soak AVB less than fresh nugs. I would not recommend doing a single wash for longer than 20 seconds for AVB, less is not unreasonable. You can give multiple washes but you'd have to have a pretty shitty/inefficient vaporizer (that leaves a hell of a lot of actives on the AVB!) for that to be justified.

Even what we consider 'lightly vaped' flower is going to have a hell of a lot less oil to extract there than anything else other than AVB we might wash. Remember that with enough time, ISO will pull most of what is in your AVB out into the oil - and most of what is in the AVB is not what we want to be dabbing! Half an hour is more than enough time. Even 5 mins is!

I suggest getting as much of that oil off the parchment as possible, putting it into a glass dish spread as a thin film and apply some heat. A double boiler will do the trick. :)

Good to be practicing with your AVB though as you learn to extract with solvents though ;) If you have any questions, please do drop me a line, don't wanna leave you dabbing anything with ISO in it brother!
 

invertedisdead

PHASE3
Manufacturer
Personally I find ABV a waste of time to make oil with. The actives are substantially reduced, the terps are gone, etc. If you go through a lot of herb to get a lot of AVB in the first place you might as well just work with the raw material. I'd rather try and get some sugar leaf and popcorn instead as it takes as much effort to make good oil from AVB as it does unvaped material but the results will always be less. Just my thoughts after messing with it.
 

cptchronic

Well-Known Member
I'll just drop by here to say with those clear pictures at the start, you definitely did not finish the purge.

Leaving a dish out in a room to let the iso evaporate only works for getting rid of most, not all of the solvent. You MUST use heat and/or vacuum to do the final purge. I have highlighted this because every single person using any solvent must know this!

This is because some solvent will remain trapped in the heavier oily solution left on your dish after most of the solvent has evaporated. It will look like there is no solvent left, but there still is going to be. If you do not use heat/vacuum in the final step of the purge, you are very unlikely to ever get enough of the iso out!

Also I have to contradict @cptchronic here and say that avb should never be soaked for half an hour with iso, as it is going to pull out lots of undesirables given the length of the wash, even when frozen first! 5 mins is too long for an iso soak.

Generally, you should soak AVB less than fresh nugs. I would not recommend doing a single wash for longer than 20 seconds for AVB, less is not unreasonable. You can give multiple washes but you'd have to have a pretty shitty/inefficient vaporizer (that leaves a hell of a lot of actives on the AVB!) for that to be justified.

Even what we consider 'lightly vaped' flower is going to have a hell of a lot less oil to extract there than anything else other than AVB we might wash. Remember that with enough time, ISO will pull most of what is in your AVB out into the oil - and most of what is in the AVB is not what we want to be dabbing! Half an hour is more than enough time. Even 5 mins is!

I suggest getting as much of that oil off the parchment as possible, putting it into a glass dish spread as a thin film and apply some heat. A double boiler will do the trick. :)

Good to be practicing with your AVB though as you learn to extract with solvents though ;) If you have any questions, please do drop me a line, don't wanna leave you dabbing anything with ISO in it brother!

Yeah I agree the 30 minutes would be overkill I didn't clarify that I use ethanol normally. I know both of these will pull out undesirables but whenever I'm doing abv wash i find no difference really in a short or long soak for edible oil so I just leave it out of laziness and to ensure full extraction. But yeah I agree never do that long with iso.
 
cptchronic,

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
I am not making dabs with only AVB. I am using kief as well.

@herbivore21 i do have a lung condition and do not want to dab indescribables. I noticed and do agree a lot of people put a cookie sheet on a burner with water and simmer on low heat and then put a Pyrex dish on it. Are you suggesting after the Evap stage I purge on low heat on the stove? So I should be evading and then purging before I scrape? And how long do you suggest I purge for with low heat?

So I don't kill myself I should take my dab off the parchment back into the Pyrex and simmer?
 
ginolicious,

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Personally I find ABV a waste of time to make oil with. The actives are substantially reduced, the terps are gone, etc. If you go through a lot of herb to get a lot of AVB in the first place you might as well just work with the raw material. I'd rather try and get some sugar leaf and popcorn instead as it takes as much effort to make good oil from AVB as it does unvaped material but the results will always be less. Just my thoughts after messing with it.
Definitely got to agree here, AVB oil IMO is a lot of work for little return and should be reserved for times when our medicine stash is not looking so good. Still in the latter case, AVB oil can be a life saver!


I am not making dabs with only AVB. I am using kief as well.

@herbivore21 i do have a lung condition and do not want to dab indescribables. I noticed and do agree a lot of people put a cookie sheet on a burner with water and simmer on low heat and then put a Pyrex dish on it. Are you suggesting after the Evap stage I purge on low heat on the stove? So I should be evading and then purging before I scrape? And how long do you suggest I purge for with low heat?

So I don't kill myself I should take my dab off the parchment back into the Pyrex and simmer?
Kief is great to make oil :) I would not mix the kief with AVB and wait til you have a lot of kief and run it separately. Especially if you freeze your material and ISO first, you will get a great extract from a 20 second wash of the kief (do second and possibly even third washes!).

I am suggesting lower temperatures for purging than what a stove can achieve, so I suggested a double boiler (still a bit too hot). A double boiler means you take a large vessel, fill it with water and bring it to a boil on the stove, placing another smaller pyrex vessel inside the water (before bringing to a boil) and purge your final product there. The max temp is limited by the vapor pressure of the water due to the heat, which encourages it to boil into the air. This will still be slightly too hot for the boiling point of ISO, but will avoid overdoing the purge with way too much heat.

Yes, I am suggesting always heat purge on pyrex after you evap the most fo the liquid :) The how long question varies depending on how much resin and how much solvent you have in your solution to be purged. Keep a close eye on it, periodically take some material and let it cool down to room temp on parchment. See if it starts to more readily come off of the parchment (which will indicate that you do not have so much residual solvent, and may have completed your purge). There are a number of other ways to see if you have completed your purge, see Skunk Pharm etc ;)

Of course the most accurate way to know about residuals is to get your material tested - this is obviously not cost effective with AVB oil.
 
Last edited:
herbivore21,
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Maitri

Deadhead, Low-Temp Dabber, Mahayana Buddhist
Definitely got to agree here, AVB oil IMO is a lot of work for little return and should be reserved for times when our medicine stash is not looking so good. Still in the latter case, AVB oil can be a life saver!



Kief is great to make oil :) I would not mix the kief with AVB and wait til you have a lot of kief and run it separately. Especially if you freeze your material and ISO first, you will get a great extract from a 20 second wash of the kief (do second and possibly even third washes!).

I am suggesting lower temperatures for purging than what a stove can achieve, so I suggested a double boiler (still a bit too hot). A double boiler means you take a large vessel, fill it with water and bring it to a boil on the stove, placing another smaller pyrex vessel inside the water (before bringing to a boil) and purge your final product there. The max temp is limited by the vapor pressure of the water due to the heat, which encourages it to boil into the air. This will still be slightly too hot for the boiling point of ISO, but will avoid overdoing the purge with way too much heat.

Yes, I am suggesting always heat purge on pyrex after you evap the most fo the liquid :) The how long question varies depending on how much resin and how much solvent you have in your solution to be purged. Keep a close eye on it, periodically take some material and let it cool down to room temp on parchment. See if it starts to more readily come off of the parchment (which will indicate that you do not have so much residual solvent, and may have completed your purge). There are a number of other ways to see if you have completed your purge, see Skunk Pharm etc ;)

Of course the most accurate way to know about residuals is to get your material tested - this is obviously not cost effective with AVB oil.

Super interesting information. Thank you! :)

According to Wikipedia, ISO boils at 180.7℉. With this in mind, would you recommend purging at 180.7°? I ask because I (and really almost anyone who can afford an inexpensive home sous vide kit) can easily achieve and maintain that temperature (± 0.1°) with an immersion circulator.

BTW, that, along with a little PBW, is precisely how I cook, er, um, clean my glass. ;)
 

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Super interesting information. Thank you! :)

According to Wikipedia, ISO boils at 180.7℉. With this in mind, would you recommend purging at 180.7°? I ask because I (and really almost anyone who can afford an inexpensive home sous vide kit) can easily achieve and maintain that temperature (± 0.1°) with an immersion circulator.

BTW, that, along with a little PBW, is precisely how I cook, er, um, clean my glass. ;)
That temp will do nicely my friend! Good making use of the above info :D

Also a great way to clean glass ;)
 

HD Springer

Well-Known Member
Great info @herbivore21. Learning that @ginolicious has a lung condition could mean that you saved him some undesired effects from some could be poorly purged oils.
The way this community steps up with thoughtful,meaningful information at the drop of a hat never gets old to see. And I feel I can never learn enough about everything from this God send of a plant.

Can't wait to see and hear how your kief only batch goes @ginolicious.
 

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
Great info @herbivore21. Learning that @ginolicious has a lung condition could mean that you saved him some undesired effects from some could be poorly purged oils.
The way this community steps up with thoughtful,meaningful information at the drop of a hat never gets old to see. And I feel I can never learn enough about everything from this God send of a plant.

Can't wait to see and hear how your kief only batch goes @ginolicious.

Hit the nail on the head. Why I posted. I know I'm not a pro and know I left a step out. No better way than to ask before I vapes it to better product myself by learning from more educated people.

Kief wash won't happen for a couple days cause work is going to be hectic. Probably a New Year's Eve thing I'll do haha.
 

killick

But I like it!
Look up Winterizing, too. Refreeze your alcohol herb mix and filter it to remove plant waxes and lipids, before your final Evan/purge. There's a nasty thing called Lipid Pneumonia that, while rare, is best avoided imho.
 

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
@killick not sure if I see the point in winterizing if you already freeze the ISO and then the wash is only 20-30 seconds? Or do you mean winterizing is applicable should you soak the material for longr a a few minutes to ensure the ISO doesn't warm up and therefore get the other junk?
 

killick

But I like it!
Once I heard the term and researched it a bit I started adding it as another step before evaporation. For example I usually do a frozen quick wash if making vaping oil, so after the wash and filter I freeze the alcohol again and filter throigh a coffee filter. You may or may not have clumps in the liquid, and this filter will help keep those out of your end product. Here's a link - would have posted one earlier but I suck at phone surfing... https://elixinol.com/blog/winterization-of-cannabis-extracts-pros-and-cons/
 

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
Well I cannot complain in adding another step so my stuff is pure.

Might do a run of keif tonight by freezing ISO then wash it and then refreeze, Evap, and then purge. If I get to it I'll add some pics. I just need to clean my Pyrex dish from my first attempt which still has some goo on it haha
 

zor

Well-Known Member
Hey @ginolicious dude!

Quick question, why do you want to vape/dab this? Would you be open to making edibles? I use ethanol (everclear, 95%) for cleaning my parts and have extracted my abv I to coconut oil many times, and use the extractions for edibles. I don't like the taste of anything abv-related (yes, I'm an abv bigot) and edibles from abv have such a higher ROI in terms of effect so I opt for that I stead of dabbing.

Plus, using a comestible, relatively manageable (toxicity-wise) solvent like ethanol makes.making edibles that much easier, no worries about methanol/isopropanol/formaldehyde related blindness!
 
zor,
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