Is reclaim actually worth it?

[-dab8-]

Lazy? I prefer underwhelmingly motivated. Or is that just something lazy people say.

I digress.

Is reclaim worth it? Seems like a B do, and some of the methods seem like they yield questionable purity. Should I just iso my stuff, rinse, and repeat? Or do I actually try to reuse the stuff inside my pieces?

Additionally but not necessary: how do YOU do it, and how does the medicating effect compete to dabs or bud?

Thank you, sorry if this is rambling.

Late night musings.

 

[looney2nz]

somewhere on the forum, there is an article discussing this linked to a study with actual numbers from lab testing. there is a LOT of stuff left over in reclaim oil.

I've got a large ziploc full of organic cotton swabs I used to clean stuff on the fly with 200 proof ethanol, and a bottle of 99% ISO that I use for cleaning and reclaim it. Would love to throw all that in and extract it in that 'Source' ethanol concentrate machine. Too many toys, not enough time.

 

[Squiby]

When I was younger, maybe 40 years ago or so, I used to scrape my warm plugged up pipe with a long needle to clean it and extract the black gooey residue. It was smoked during lean times.

These days, with an abundance of bud all around, the residue from cleaning my vapes is discarded.

Reclaim is worth it if only the material is scarce.

 

[seriousTone]

Eh not to me. I used to save my abv and make tinctures and whatnot. All they ever did to me was make me feel very heavy and sleepy.

Lots of people like reusing their abv on this forum though.

For the most part though I try and vape my botanicals until very dark coffee brown and blow it out and be done with it.

EDIT: yeah you might get to “use” it twice but not really. If you only vaped it halfway then you only used it halfway and you’re only using the rest of it the second time. To me, I don’t want to isolate those higher temp cannibanoids, I might as well just vape an indica instead.

 

[BabyFacedFinster]

I'm in the middle. I don't try to collect all reclaim and most parts just get cleaned. However, the reclaim that collects below glass stems and gongs is just so golden that I can't waste it. I use a piece of organic cotton to wipe up the easily collected reclaim below the screen on my gongs and vape it. It tastes just fine and gets me rocked several times over. If it's really dirty with plant material or hard to collect I just wash it out.

 

[seriousTone]

Oh yeah reclaim from glass stems is kind of another story. I do have a little glass jar of everclear with reclaim in it from my enano mostly. I should evaporate it and try it out as it’s probably a couple years sitting now.

 

[looney2nz]

seeing as most of what I use is concentrate, ALL of my reclaim is quite valuable.
ABV, I'm not as convinced... but it's certainly good for making a night-time concentrate for sleep.

 

[blackstone]

I always thought reclaim was bland and hard to get a feeling from using various direct draw conduction and hybrid vapes, until I tried it in a convection bag vape/my Volcano at full temperature.
A huge bonus is that you can clean any warmed up vapor paths by mopping some cotton around, thus impregnating the cotton with reclaim.
The volcano can use this cotton to make tasty clouds as thick as you can imagine, lovely through water, and without any increased user draw resistance from the cotton. No iso involved at all.
Vapor condensate is what was vaporized and on it's way to your lungs, so I consider reclaiming being like scooping up what lands and putting it back up into the hot air stream.
It somehow manages to get a lot of actives into the cloud at one time though!
And I think it's a far cry from what would land in a combustion pipe, depending on your vapes and temperatures used maybe.

I've done some fun things like putting reclaim and Holy Terp in an ecig and using it at a bar once, or sloshing iso inside a Volcano bag to get the goodies out.
But with the way I've described above, I look forward to mopping out my CUs each week.
The different flavor and strengths come though quite clearly also.
Besides making a serious session it helps me save a bit and make things last longer, expensive here I admit.

I'd like to try it (and rosin) in a proper pen sometime for quick stealth use or maybe get an oil/dab kit for my SSV.
You can filter out snacks by adding iso and passing it through some cotton or even a proper 0.2 micron inline filter. I'm unsure if waxes or lipids are even present.

Convection air pumped bag vape highly recommended for reclaim on cotton though.
I have not done the stem and CU milk/hot chocolate thing much yet either, might be worth a shot?

 

[Ramahs]

I used to save my abv and make tinctures and whatnot. All they ever did to me was make me feel very heavy and sleepy.

That's why I save my ABV. I pull it out and take a big ten or more gram dose if I'm sleep deprived and want to get a lot of sleep, or when I'm sick and just need to stay in bed and sleep.

 

[alittledabwilldoya']

I only use the reclaim from my dropdown.
Light torch to warm it up and pour out; makes for good night-time insomnia dabs.

 

[just_the_flu]

...with the price of cannabis and availability of it these days, i don't think so personally...

 

[-dab8-]

Thanks everyone for the votes and answers so far.

Sounds like people are pretty split.

It sounds like reclaim typically has more sleep inducing properties than the original source? Do those of you that harvest reclaim agree?

 

[ClearBlueLou]

I feel strongly both ways: I’m from the era when doobage was rare and precious...never ate a roach, but I knew folks who did, and my depression-era family was all about never wasting anything...if I were to combine and evaporate all my washes, I’d likely have an ounce. Since I switched to the high-priced spread, I mostly just wash my grinder and containers to get any extra in the sticky bits.

Speaking of which, it’s time to wash the grinder again...

 

[sickmanfraud]

I am in a place where my cannabis license is for 70 grams a month. The last increase I got was over 2 years ago. With that situation in mind, I save everything possible.

I clean out my vape parts in ethanol and then keep the ethanol until I have enough. I also save my AVB and have made the AVB into a tincture for sleep.

Recently I realized that the bowl of my stick blender (where I grind all cannabis for edibles and tinctures) was lined with so much resin that it was really smelly. Put ethanol in the bowl turned on the power and I got a lot of pure cannabinoids.

I use my AVB to make a tincture to help with sleep. To make the tincture I use the freezer method that PsychadelicSam taught on grasscity.

Once I have used cannabis for a tincture I save the leftovers to make a pain cream.

After I have gotten all the usable cannabinoids from my stems, screens and misc vape parts I use PBW to get everything sparkling.

Anyone wanting info on tincture making is invited to PM me.

 

[ClearBlueLou]

Following my post, i did as I said: rinsed everything thoroughly in the same cup of ethanol I’ve been using, then set it to evaporate (left it in wide-mouth mason jar in my hot garage).

Last night, I scraped it all up. Spent the night as one high primate, and have almost all of it left, still. Smokes and tastes and hits like hash. Happy camper!

 

[Gazaam]

Smokes and tastes and hits like hash.

It sure does. Very soothing. After I vape a few bowls of shatter in my titanium cup, I am left with a dark red oil that is quite transparent. It does not seem to vape even at 600 degrees. I am actually very curious about what this is, so I collected it by first melting it right in the vape until it is quite liquid (just power up the vape for a few seconds). Then I quickly turn the vape upside down and pour it onto aluminum foil, then carefully shake the vape a few times to get it all out. Freeze the foil for 5 minutes and the red oil snaps off in little beads.

Next, to keep things pure, I made a simple glass pipe by bending some glass tubing in a propane torch to form a little bowl at one end. Inserted red beads, and gently boiled them using a torch lighter. AMAZING INTENSE peaceful pink buzz.

However, a few questions about this stuff, like, um, what is it actually? It does not evaporate at even 600 deg F. so it does not have any of the cannabinoids listed on the charts (the highest BP cannabinoid is THCV at 428 deg. F.) Any chemists reading this?

 

[invertedisdead]

However, a few questions about this stuff, like, um, what is it actually? It does not evaporate at even 600 deg F. so it does not have any of the cannabinoids listed on the charts (the highest BP cann abinoid is THCV at 428 deg. F.) Any chemists reading this?

It's reclaim - oil that vaporized and condensed before it could get in your body, and the red color indicates CBN. Pretty stony cannabinoid, makes me want to take a nap.

I put it in gel caps for cannacapsules.

 

[Gazaam]

I don't think it could possibly be CBN which boils at 365 degF. I am saying that the dark red oil I observed had been held at 600 degF for over 15 minutes without producing any vapors. I then harvested it and re-vaped it using a torch lighter. Same is true for THCV which boils at 428 degF. I am not complaining, mind you, as the effect is quite enjoyable. However, it does worry me to be consuming an unknown substance.

 

[invertedisdead]

I don't think it could possibly be CBN which boils at 365 degF. I am saying that the dark red oil I observed had been held at 600 degF for over 15 minutes without producing any vapors. I then harvested it and re-vaped it using a torch lighter. Same is true for THCV which boils at 428 degF. I am not complaining, mind you, as the effect is quite enjoyable. However, it does worry me to be consuming an unknown substance.

Oil high in CBN is red, but your experiment sounds like you could be vaporizing plant wax like nonacosane if those numbers are accurate unless you truly feel you have discovered a new cannabinoid?

What vaporizer and device are you using to calculate "15 minutes @ 600F"

Keep in mind those boiling point charts have quite a bit of variance and some of those numbers were produced under vacuum. For example many charts claim THC vaporizes at 315F but the Volcano study they did years back demonstrated numbers closer to 400F/200C.

If you are using high proof ethanol you can try a winterization and then repeat the experiment and see what happens.

 

[Gazaam]

No, I do not think I have discovered a new cannabinoid, LOL. I am using the Vaporesso Armour Pro mod and a Triton OS vaporize using their titanium cup 1702 v3 atty.

Keep in mind those boiling point charts have quite a bit of variance and some of those numbers were produced under vacuum.

I have heard this rumour before - that the boiling point numbers of some cannabinoids were derived under vacuum distillation. I do not believe these numbers are accurate for three reasons.

(1) Typically, vacuum distillation is only used when the boiling point of the substance at normal pressure would cause it to become unstable before it boils. Otherwise, why bother with all the additional apparatus needed to do a vacuum distillation?

(2) The amount of boiling point depression under vacuum is quite significant. For example you can get water to boil at temperatures well below freezing, and you don't even need a particularly good vacuum pump to achieve this. So if these BP temperatures cited for cannabinoids are in fact under vacuum, then the BPs at sea-level would be way above 500 degC or 950 degF. Looking at it the other way around, Skunkpharmresearch has provided a BP of Delta-9 of 315 degF at one atmosphere and 62.4 degF under a 99.99 percent vacuum.

( https://skunkpharmresearch.com/vacuum-equipment-and-process-tips/ )

Since this temperature is way above the range of battery operated, mod-based humidifiers, we should not be receiving the medical benefits we are from mod-based vaping. Also, we would expect that the quantity of concentrate we put in the bowl would never decrease, and we would never run out of medicine. LOL. Wishful thinking perhaps, Alice in Wonderland perhaps, but certainly not earthly reality!

(3) With great respect to all reading this, the interpretation of scientific data by non-scientists can sometimes be fraught with perils, even when the non-scientists are sober!!! When you take even the tiny misinterpretations that result, and echo them around through all kinds of chatrooms and forums for a few months, it is amazing how distorted they can become. Kind of like the old party game "telephone". I've seen this phenomenon first hand on cannabis forums, for example, regarding the health risks of PEG.

Another example closer to home: apparently, PubChem posted some BPs for cannabinoids that were mis-labeled as having been measured under vacuum. Any scientist with a basic knowledge of organic chemistry would know instantly that this must clearly be a clerical error, yet it seems to have been bouncing around canna forums for quite a while, creating confusion and leading to some incorrect articles on the internet.

Well, sorry for the rant here, LOL, but hopefully it will help clear up a little of this confusion. I hope you will feel free to correct my thinking here if I am wrong.

If you are using high proof ethanol you can try a winterization and then repeat the experiment and see what happens.

This is a great idea. I will have to start collecting some more of that red stuff. Also, by using the right temperature probe, I might be able to actually measure its boiling point. Also TLC might be useful, if I only had more time and space in the lab for this shit.

"Oil high in CBN is red, but your experiment sounds like you could be vaporizing plant wax like nonacosane if those numbers are accurate ..... "

Do you think something with a high MW like nonacosane would be present in a good quality shatter?


In the meantime, I am back to my original question: WTF exactly is in this stuff we are smoking?

I am going to see if there are any public forums out there for cannabis extractors. They might have some good thoughts.

 

[Vapeur Rogue]

I would say yes reclaim is worth it. I also save my ABV. Both I find useful and are good "insurance" in case you get close to dry. I have heard of someone, they do not know them personally so I asked after the process- but they were able to use their flower for 11 stages- 10 after vaping fresh.

*I have gotten as far as for including the reclaim-so three stages for my ABV. There are some aspects of both that yes can be slightly more sedative If you don't know how to dial- things in for yourself-that said, I have been able to use my ABV butter blend to make edibles for daytime use-that address my pain and hypervigilance levels, but do not knock me out.

I am part of a cotton ball club, and when I had my firewood 2 I would just tear off part of my cotton ball into the chamber and revape that- and am considering doing that with my Haze soon-but also considering trying to figure out what else I can do with the reclaim that is on the cotton.

 

[howie105]

Thinking back to the bad old days of supply shortages, I realize have no standards.

 

[ClearBlueLou]

For a fine point, I don’t consider bowl scrapings to be reclaimable, if there is any part of the pipe most likely to have been overheated and have combustion byproducts embedded in it, it’s the bowl. I clean a bowl separately from the rest of it, scrape it then wipe it clean with alcohol prep pads, let it dry. Then I either fill it with ETOH or ISO to soak, or I put it into a container to soak. I may or may not heat the container or piece.

I don’t expect this to clean the piece, just extract as much as it can from the condensed vapor stuck inside the glass. If it dissolves all of it, cool, I’ll still wash it.

Because of where it is collected from, I consider it to be fully decarboxylated when I collect it. I just finished washing the pipe of a dear friend...bless him, it looks as if he *never* cleaned it once, the iso it sat in is now opaque black. What I salvage from this will go into my medicated ghee, I find that reclaim is very nice to my tastebuds with butter, tastes like cannabis, but toasted....

 

[Vapeur Rogue]

For a fine point, I don’t consider bowl scrapings to be reclaimable, if there is any part of the pipe most likely to have been overheated and have combustion byproducts embedded in it, it’s the bowl. I clean a bowl separately from the rest of it, scrape it then wipe it clean with alcohol prep pads, let it dry. Then I either fill it with ETOH or ISO to soak, or I put it into a container to soak. I may or may not heat the container or piece.

I don’t expect this to clean the piece, just extract as much as it can from the condensed vapor stuck inside the glass. If it dissolves all of it, cool, I’ll still wash it.

Because of where it is collected from, I consider it to be fully decarboxylated when I collect it. I just finished washing the pipe of a dear friend...bless him, it looks as if he *never* cleaned it once, the iso it sat in is now opaque black. What I salvage from this will go into my medicated ghee, I find that reclaim is very nice to my tastebuds with butter, tastes like cannabis, but toasted....

Medicated Ghee- yes- my final step this last round was a Honeyed butter medicated- Lovely stuff!

 

[looney2nz]

I would say yes reclaim is worth it. I also save my ABV. Both I find useful and are good "insurance" in case you get close to dry. I have heard of someone, they do not know them personally so I asked after the process- but they were able to use their flower for 11 stages- 10 after vaping fresh.

*I have gotten as far as for including the reclaim-so three stages for my ABV. There are some aspects of both that yes can be slightly more sedative If you don't know how to dial- things in for yourself-that said, I have been able to use my ABV butter blend to make edibles for daytime use-that address my pain and hypervigilance levels, but do not knock me out.

I am part of a cotton ball club, and when I had my firewood 2 I would just tear off part of my cotton ball into the chamber and revape that- and am considering doing that with my Haze soon-but also considering trying to figure out what else I can do with the reclaim that is on the cotton.

make sure you're buying organic cotton balls