Need Help With Tincture

[MajesticArcade]

Hello ALL!
I hope this is the appropriate place to post this - If not just let me know.

I'm trying to make a tincture to help me dose quickly and effectively without needing to sneak out to vape and then come back only to have others notice the smell.

Side Note:
I realize there are oil based vape pens that would largely eliminate the issue of smell, but I live in a prohibition state so staying in-stock of such things can be difficult. Also, as stealth is important to me being able to just take a few quick drops would be a big win.

Working with a friend we attempted to make two batches of tincture. The first used an alcohol base. The second did as well, but we then tried to do a solvent transfer to fractionated MTC Oil.

NEITHER batch worked sublingually. However BOTH worked as an edible if you swallowed it.
So Good News: the THC was in there and the material was apparently successfully decarboxylated.
Bad News: They ONLY worked as an edible. It took hours to take effect.
If you're trying to dose for pain/anxiety that doesn't leave you many options. You pretty much have to do preemptive dosing, and take enough to deal with any issues that haven't come up yet.

So I need to figure out tinctures.
But I can't afford to fail again and waste a lot of material.

Here's the process we went through. Can someone point to where we might have gone wrong?

Step 1) Decarbed the material in a nova machine

Step 2) Put the decarbed material into a Levo machine with the alcohol.
(the Levo is similar to the magic butter machine)

Step 3) Set the Levo at 190 for about 2.5 hours.
When we noticed it wasn't working as we'd hoped also tried some runs at lower temps, for longer, and even did a batch at 190 for at least 5 hours. (all the results were the same)

For the Second batch we did the same process but then did a solvent transfer by adding the MTC oil and boiling away the alcohol. In one run of the second batch we boiled some alcohol away before adding the MTC oil, and in another we added the MTC oil before we boiled any alcohol away. (all the results were the same)

Sadly ... none of the runs, in either of the batches, worked sublingually. All of them were fairly effective as an edible.

I would REALLY like to get this working with the tech toys listed above because I'm not in a position to be able to covertly deal with something that either needs to sit for days, or cook for nearly as long.

IDEALLY in my next attempt I'd like to end up with a VG based tincture, that started off with an alcohol base. my hope there is to extract as much as possible through the alcohol since VG won't be as good at that.

 

[Madri-Gal]

Hello ALL!
I hope this is the appropriate place to post this - If not just let me know.

I'm trying to make a tincture to help me dose quickly and effectively without needing to sneak out to vape and then come back only to have others notice the smell.

Side Note:
I realize there are oil based vape pens that would largely eliminate the issue of smell, but I live in a prohibition state so staying in-stock of such things can be difficult. Also, as stealth is important to me being able to just take a few quick drops would be a big win.

Working with a friend we attempted to make two batches of tincture. The first used an alcohol base. The second did as well, but we then tried to do a solvent transfer to fractionated MTC Oil.

NEITHER batch worked sublingually. However BOTH worked as an edible if you swallowed it.
So Good News: the THC was in there and the material was apparently successfully decarboxylated.
Bad News: They ONLY worked as an edible. It took hours to take effect.
If you're trying to dose for pain/anxiety that doesn't leave you many options. You pretty much have to do preemptive dosing, and take enough to deal with any issues that haven't come up yet.

So I need to figure out tinctures.
But I can't afford to fail again and waste a lot of material.

Here's the process we went through. Can someone point to where we might have gone wrong?

Step 1) Decarbed the material in a nova machine

Step 2) Put the decarbed material into a Levo machine with the alcohol.
(the Levo is similar to the magic butter machine)

Step 3) Set the Levo at 190 for about 2.5 hours.
When we noticed it wasn't working as we'd hoped also tried some runs at lower temps, for longer, and even did a batch at 190 for at least 5 hours. (all the results were the same)

For the Second batch we did the same process but then did a solvent transfer by adding the MTC oil and boiling away the alcohol. In one run of the second batch we boiled some alcohol away before adding the MTC oil, and in another we added the MTC oil before we boiled any alcohol away. (all the results were the same)

Sadly ... none of the runs, in either of the batches, worked sublingually. All of them were fairly effective as an edible.

I would REALLY like to get this working with the tech toys listed above because I'm not in a position to be able to covertly deal with something that either needs to sit for days, or cook for nearly as long.

IDEALLY in my next attempt I'd like to end up with a VG based tincture, that started off with an alcohol base. my hope there is to extract as much as possible through the alcohol since VG won't be as good at that.

Decarb cannabis. Put in jar. Cover with booze of choice ( I like hemp vodka, but can't get everclear where I live). Put lid on jar. Put in freezer. Take out and shake occasionally, if you remember. Eventually, strain and use. I like to leave 24 hours or more. Works with ABV as well, and you can skip the decarb.

 

[Hackerman]

Why put it in the freezer? Does it infuse better at lower temps than higher? Thanks

 

[Madri-Gal]

Why put it in the freezer? Does it infuse better at lower temps than higher? Thanks

Because cold causes trichomes to break off sooner. You can do it at room temperature if you prefer. I've let some sit at room temp for weeks. If I check the closet, there might even be some there yet. Sometimes I come across some in the freezer that's been there quite awhile. Many ways to do it.

 

[Hackerman]

Cool. Thanks. I have done this a few times with Everclear but that stuff is so nasty tasting I can't stand drinking it no matter how much I dilute it. I do occasionally drink Skyy vodka so I am going to try it with that.

Thanks again

 

[sickmanfraud]

Hello ALL!
I hope this is the appropriate place to post this - If not just let me know.

I'm trying to make a tincture to help me dose quickly and effectively without needing to sneak out to vape and then come back only to have others notice the smell.

Side Note:
I realize there are oil based vape pens that would largely eliminate the issue of smell, but I live in a prohibition state so staying in-stock of such things can be difficult. Also, as stealth is important to me being able to just take a few quick drops would be a big win.

Working with a friend we attempted to make two batches of tincture. The first used an alcohol base. The second did as well, but we then tried to do a solvent transfer to fractionated MTC Oil.

NEITHER batch worked sublingually. However BOTH worked as an edible if you swallowed it.
So Good News: the THC was in there and the material was apparently successfully decarboxylated.
Bad News: They ONLY worked as an edible. It took hours to take effect.
If you're trying to dose for pain/anxiety that doesn't leave you many options. You pretty much have to do preemptive dosing, and take enough to deal with any issues that haven't come up yet.

So I need to figure out tinctures.
But I can't afford to fail again and waste a lot of material.

Here's the process we went through. Can someone point to where we might have gone wrong?

Step 1) Decarbed the material in a nova machine

Step 2) Put the decarbed material into a Levo machine with the alcohol.
(the Levo is similar to the magic butter machine)

Step 3) Set the Levo at 190 for about 2.5 hours.
When we noticed it wasn't working as we'd hoped also tried some runs at lower temps, for longer, and even did a batch at 190 for at least 5 hours. (all the results were the same)

For the Second batch we did the same process but then did a solvent transfer by adding the MTC oil and boiling away the alcohol. In one run of the second batch we boiled some alcohol away before adding the MTC oil, and in another we added the MTC oil before we boiled any alcohol away. (all the results were the same)

Sadly ... none of the runs, in either of the batches, worked sublingually. All of them were fairly effective as an edible.

I would REALLY like to get this working with the tech toys listed above because I'm not in a position to be able to covertly deal with something that either needs to sit for days, or cook for nearly as long.

IDEALLY in my next attempt I'd like to end up with a VG based tincture, that started off with an alcohol base. my hope there is to extract as much as possible through the alcohol since VG won't be as good at that.

I am sorry I could not get back to you sooner.

I have a lot of experience with tinctures having made between 2 and four batches per month for over 6 years.

Here are the instructions for a strong, pleasant tasting (at least not nasty) Green Dragon Tincture.

Step one : Decarb cannabis (in oven or Ardent device) 240F for 40 minutes.

Once the cannabis cools transfer it to a Mason or other glass jar.

Now you take your decarbed cannabis and your everclear or other 95% ethanol and put them in the freezer (SEPARATELY) for about 24 hours.

After the 24 hours apart you combine the cannabis and the ethanol close it securely and shake the jar for 5 minutes,

Put the jar back in the freezer for an hour or two, Then the jar is shaken a second time for five minutes.

Now you filter the cannabis out of the solution (I use a permanent gold coffee filter inside a paper coffee filter and that whole filtering apparatus inside a funnel.

Take the cannabis out of the filter and then add the cannabis and fresh, freezing cold ethanol to the jar and shake for a 3rd 5-minute shake.

Once the shaking is done and the cannabis in the filter appears dry put another bit of fresh ethanol over the cannabis to wash away your GD from the plant matter. You should then squeeze the cannabis to get out almost all of the potency. You can filter with cheesecloth or a potato ricer. Just keep in mind that you should put on rubber gloves before squeezing by hand.

Regarding how much ethanol to cannabis in the extraction mode would depend on how much everclear you can get and at what price? The ethanol should cover the cannabis by 1/2 inch minimum.

Now comes the reduction. The mixture of ethanol and cannabinoids needs to be redued to the desired concentration.

A noobie should probably shoot for a ratio of 3-3.5 grams per ounce. You can always reduce more to get a stronger concentration.

The reduction can be accomplished in several ways. You could run a fan over the bowl / pie plate containing the GD for a "natural decarb". Personally, I reduce using a double boiler.

NEVER PUT THE ETHANOL NEAR ANY OPEN FLAME. When using a heated reduction we heat the pot on the stove. We turn OFF all burners and then put the reducing GD (in a bowl or jar) into the water.

I personally use a Stainless bowl inside a pot, but the bowl could be of any material, just make sure it floats if it supposed to and if using a jar there is a point when the contents of the jar are not enough weight to prevent the jar from flipping.

You can/should reduce the GD to a point where the dose is 10 drops or less.

If you don't want to reduce-test, reduce-test you could make the GD to a higher concentration (4-5 grams per ounce and then just titrate how many drops is a dose at that concentration.

To further help the taste you could take the finished, reduced GD and put it in the freezer for 24-48 hours. After that time you should filter using a premoistened (with ethanol) paper coffee filter and this will remove some of the plant waxes.

If this GD is still hard for you to swallow you could make a solvent transfer to coconut oil (if you like coconut oil).

To do the solvent transfer you reduce your GD to almost the point of oil. Then take an amount of coconut oil appropriate to the concentration you are working with.

Keep heating the double boiler and then turning it off until you are left with the cannabinoids transferred from the ethanol to the coconut oil.

 

[justcametomind]

Hi all,
I followed the recipe above twice, just letting the alcohol evaporate by itself. It was 90+90ml (second wash) and reduced to 45ml. But I feel that my tincture isn’t potent at all. I tried up to 10 drops but it isn’t working (7 decarbed grams of a strong Sativa as starting material).
I will try to further reduce the tincture because I can’t really stand the burn of 10 drops of 96% alcohol under my tongue, and if I got everything right the tincture is probably effective at 20/30 drops atm.
Is 90ml of alcohol (plus another 90ml for the second wash) the minimum required to completely extract 7 grams?

 

[shredder]

Hi all,
I followed the recipe above twice, just letting the alcohol evaporate by i. It was 90+90ml (second wash) and reduced to 45ml. But I feel that my tincture isn’t potent at all. I tried up to 10 drops but it isn’t working (7 decarbed grams of a strong Sativa as starting material).
I will try to further reduce the tincture because I can’t really stand the burn of 10 drops of 96% alcohol under my tongue, and if I got everything right the tincture is probably effective at 20/30 drops atm.
Is 90ml of alcohol (plus another 90ml for the second wash) the minimum required to completely extract 7 grams?

This thread is a couple years old. I'll tag @sickmanfraud maybe he will chime in. You did decarb the herb first, right?

If it were me, I'd reduce it to cannabis oil, then add it to mct oil and a little lecithin. You can roughly calculate the dose by the rso/feco weight. I'm not big on alcohol tinctures, and instead make mct oil infusions with feco or even rosin. I flavor the infusion with a few drops of sweet orange oil. Along with hiding the weed taste it adds limonene, A terpene found in sativas I like and found in orange oil made from pressing orange peels. (something id press myself if I could find organic oranges.)

 

[WalkOfLight]

I use ardent also. And I have the magic butter machine.
(The mgb machine cooks a tincture at 130 degrees for 4 hours)
I’m having trouble achieving consistent results too.

I think I’m missing a proper lecithin.
I’ve been using the supplemental cold press thus far and it worked at first but I think I’ve ruined this path of absorption.
Can you peeps recommend a good one that’s made for emulsification?
can I achieve extra bakeage using sunflower/soy separately?

- I just found out today it’s possible to decarb with everclear and citric acid. This seems worth looking into.
does anybody know if the citric acid is just for decarb? I heard it changes the ph.
Is there a reason one would add it to a tincture that’s already decarbed?
—- also maybe consider a high power candy/gummy If your looking for fast absorption.
I assume vegan options over gelatin would absorb faster?

 

[WalkOfLight]

Citric Acid Extraction - CANNAPEDIA

This will provide you with the strongest, easiest extraction yet. Less (or even no) heat involved, meaning less possible damage vaporization and loss of cannabinoids, and it performs an incredibly efficient extraction and break-down of glandular material. It is much more reliable than oil. And...

cannapedia.me

HERBAL EXTRACTS VIA CITRIC ACID

1/4 once of dried oregano extracted in citric acid in 4 days. It's still powerful even if it has lost its green color. Its loaded wit...

maryhelentestkitchen.blogspot.com

Boom. This is the only information ive found about citrus extraction.
my next experiment!
Seems like a really cool way to blend hash with kief and such...

 

[justcametomind]

Citric Acid Extraction - CANNAPEDIA

This will provide you with the strongest, easiest extraction yet. Less (or even no) heat involved, meaning less possible damage vaporization and loss of cannabinoids, and it performs an incredibly efficient extraction and break-down of glandular material. It is much more reliable than oil. And...

cannapedia.me

HERBAL EXTRACTS VIA CITRIC ACID

1/4 once of dried oregano extracted in citric acid in 4 days. It's still powerful even if it has lost its green color. Its loaded wit...

maryhelentestkitchen.blogspot.com

Boom. This is the only information ive found about citrus extraction.
my next experiment!
Seems like a really cool way to blend hash with kief and such...

fascinating. It's curious how the citric acid+cannabis mixture can get you burns if touched but all of a sudden the mixture becomes safe to touch and eat.

 

[shredder]

fascinating. It's curious how the citric acid+cannabis mixture can get you burns if touched but all of a sudden the mixture becomes safe to touch eat.

Been there, done that and it sux. Lol.

Mine turned into a rock that would not dissolve and tasted terrible. I would not recommend.

 

[WalkOfLight]

is it strong at least

Been there, done that and it sux. Lol.

Mine turned into a rock that would not dissolve and tasted terrible. I would not recommend.

Is it strong at least? lol
I guess I have my hopes up that it will fix the bioavailable issue, preserve some terps, and make it edible all on its own.

 

[WalkOfLight]

Step 3) Set the Levo at 190 for about 2.5 hours.
When we noticed it wasn't working as we'd hoped also tried some runs at lower temps, for longer, and even did a batch at 190 for at least 5 hours. (all the results were the same)

The mgb cooks for 4 hours at 130.

 

[shredder]

Is it strong at least? lol
I guess I have my hopes up that it will fix the bioavailable issue, preserve some terps, and make it edible all on its own.

The starting material that I used was sift hash. You can get high after eating it, but eating it is not pleasant. And it's less strong and tastes worse imho than decarbed hash by itself. If you lived close id give the rest to you, but I won't make it again.

To preserve as many terpenes as possible I like to use rosin or sift hash. I decarb in my nova fx, but the actual materials are in glass and I cover the top with foil. Ive read on another forum that the highest tested terpenes from decarbed materials was things decarbed in a nova.

Another option is to add terpenes, although the terpenes ive tasted were pretty nasty. Sometimes I add sweet orange oil to edibles. Sweet orange oil helps hide the weed taste and has limonene, a terpene found in sativa that I happen to like, and it tastes like oranges.

Bioavailability can be helped by using lecithin. Most recommend sunflower lecithin over soy lecithin. For us making edibles it comes in powder form or liquid. I use both. The powder is pretty much tasteless and has to be dissolved in warm oil, the liquid is easy to work with since it just needs to be mixed but it has a little taste that some might find off putting. I don't mind it since it's weak and in chocolate, where I don't use a lot of oil when making chocolates so the liquid is easier to use than powdered, I can't taste it at all.

 

[WalkOfLight]

The starting material that I used was sift hash. You can get high after eating it, but eating it is not pleasant. And it's less strong and tastes worse imho than decarbed hash by itself. If you lived close id give the rest to you, but I won't make it again.

To preserve as many terpenes as possible I like to use rosin or sift hash. I decarb in my nova fx, but the actual materials are in glass and I cover the top with foil. Ive read on another forum that the highest tested terpenes from decarbed materials was things decarbed in a nova.

Another option is to add terpenes, although the terpenes ive tasted were pretty nasty. Sometimes I add sweet orange oil to edibles. Sweet orange oil helps hide the weed taste and has limonene, a terpene found in sativa that I happen to like, and it tastes like oranges.

Bioavailability can be helped by using lecithin. Most recommend sunflower lecithin over soy lecithin. For us making edibles it comes in powder form or liquid. I use both. The powder is pretty much tasteless and has to be dissolved in warm oil, the liquid is easy to work with since it just needs to be mixed but it has a little taste that some might find off putting. I don't mind it since it's weak and in chocolate, where I don't use a lot of oil when making chocolates so the liquid is easier to use than powdered, I can't taste it at all.

Alright I understand. Im going to scale back the experiment to maybe 1 gram of cec hash w a little kief from shake. I hear you though its probably not what I expect it to be.
I just ordered liquid lecithin, and "de-oiled" powder. It should make a bigger impact then my supplemental lecithin.

 

[sapetoku]

I used a very quick and easy recipe for this: 4g of decarbed bud in 1/2 cup of overproof (63% alc.) white rum, which is the strongest thing you can find here, similar to Bacardi 151. Threw the just-decarbed bud in the booze, shook vigorously for 20-30 mins, filtered through a coffee filter and that's it.

I have a high tolerance and 6 drops sublingual give me a super nice glowy buzz 30 mins later! Shit burns a bit but it doesn't bother me. Evaporated it a bit and added a couple drops of vanilla extract and it's actually not too bad tasting and quite potent despite having used my homegrown ditch weed. Can't wait to try with CBD and better THC bud.

 

[Ramahs]

fascinating. It's curious how the citric acid+cannabis mixture can get you burns if touched but all of a sudden the mixture becomes safe to touch and eat.

Yeah, I agree. Chemistry is fascinating. It's interesting how you can blend otherwise poisonous chemicals together, and end up with perfectly healthy to consume chemicals after combining. Chemistry is cool!

 

[hoptimum]

Decarb cannabis. Put in jar. Cover with booze of choice ( I like hemp vodka, but can't get everclear where I live). Put lid on jar. Put in freezer. Take out and shake occasionally, if you remember. Eventually, strain and use. I like to leave 24 hours or more. Works with ABV as well, and you can skip the decarb.

Exactly this. I like to water cure first to eliminate the “dank” flavor, but otherwise Ive done this successfully many times. Squirt a few droppers full under my tongue for a minute or 2 and enjoy a nice buzz

 

[hoptimum]

Cool. Thanks. I have done this a few times with Everclear but that stuff is so nasty tasting I can't stand drinking it no matter how much I dilute it. I do occasionally drink Skyy vodka so I am going to try it with that.

Thanks again

a couple drops of lemon extract helps. Also, water curing