Reclaim THC from bong water?

[OKcomputer]

I have to shudder every time I change out the water in my bubbler because I see so many particulates in it, and figure those particulates must have just as much THC as the resin built up on the glass. Anyone know of a way to isolate these particulates from the water, at which point I could throw them into a batch of ISO hash? If so, is it worth it, or is there actually very few goodies left in the water while most of it is condensed on the glass?

Ordered a dome and nail setup from ALT during the sale, so I want to maximize my reclaim efforts from now on.

 

[thesoloman]

I would say evaporate the water and you'll have the resin that your looking for, however IMO its probably not worth the effort.

 

[Roger D]

Lol, last time I waited like 4 days keepin the same water, I just warmed it up, add a bit of water, and a bag of plants for infusion.

The taste was a bit weedy, but that was a nice hot drink

 

[Tweek]

to the thought of drinking it...goes straight down the drain in my house. Swamp water would probably get you higher.

 

[Roger D]

That's pretty clean, I did it to check out the taste, not that bad seriously. That's just cannabis infused water.
Of course I boiled it to be sure it was safe to drink
I also don't think its worth it, it usually goes down in the sink.

 

[JCat]

That's pretty clean, I did it to check out the taste, not that bad seriously. That's just cannabis infused water.
Of course I boiled it to be sure it was safe to drink
I also don't think its worth it, it usually goes down in the sink.

Boiling it would have evaporated off anything worthwhile anyways ... so you drank bong water for nothing!!!!!

 

[Roger D]

That was refreshing

 

[OKcomputer]

I would say evaporate the water and you'll have the resin that your looking for, however IMO its probably not worth the effort.

That's probably true. I wonder how running it through a coffee filter would work? That way I'd catch all the particulates but lose the water. Since there's no THC molecularly bound to the water, and plenty of it in the visible particulates, this should make for a nice addition to my reclaim ISO hash, no? Guess it shouldn't be too hard to just try...

EDIT: Actually, that worked really smooth. I just cupped an unbleached coffee filter around the mouthpiece joint of my bubbler and poured the water through, took about 10 seconds. Ended up with a nice little bunch of particulates in the coffee filter, along with just enough water to make it easy to pour everything into my reclaim bottle.

Now the question is, do these particulates have enough actives left over to make this worthwhile? They looked slightly brown, but not totally charred by any means. Is this essentially kief that got sucked off the flowers while vapor bonging?

Also, just got my Blazer GB4001 in the mail yesterday, got a 18mm dome and nail set w/ claim catcher on the way from ALT, and the batch of reclaim ISO hash I finished yesterday is mind-blowing potent. Going to be taking my first ever dab in a few days!

 

[ViviDVapE]

anything with the word bong water leaves a horrifying taste in my mouth

 

[smokum]

anything with the word bong water leaves a horrifying taste in my mouth

With regards to 'combustion' YES.... otherwise... NAWWWW

 

[ViviDVapE]

i would think extracting thc from bong water would still taste gross no? its usually rather difficult to filter color, taste, and smell from substances other than the desired chemical.. but i guess it depends on what it is.

 

[smokum]

I would imagine your correct, however if one could reclaim the actives and intermix with 'new' extractions or fresh bud to vape, it should act as an potency enhancer I would imagine.

Myself... I only concern myself with reclaiming accumulated resins on the glass (not the water itself), with ISO in which I'll keep jarred that I clean my utensils and other items in to clean. Then I use that ISO infused with goodies to do a QWISO run.

Never had any complaints in THAT department

 

[ViviDVapE]

I would imagine your correct, however if one could reclaim the actives and intermix with 'new' extractions or fresh bud to vape, it should act as an potency enhancer I would imagine.

i completely agree

 

[Tweek]

I just can't see someone so hard up that they resort to reclaiming bong water...not trying to offend anyone here, but to me it's akin to attempting to make a sandwich out of crumbs.

 

[OKcomputer]

I just can't see someone so hard up that they resort to reclaiming bong water...not trying to offend anyone here, but to me it's akin to attempting to make a sandwich out of crumbs.

Haha, not offended at all. I just figure if I'm going to go through the trouble of reclaiming resin off glass, it's really not any more difficult to get the goodies out of the water too. I just don't see any reason to determine that the particulates in the water are any less valuable than the solid matter built up on the glass. I think there's just a stigma built up around the dreaded "bong water" due to years of "don't drink the bong water" jokes, but that all comes from combustion.

If we're only talking about vapor, I don't really see how reclaiming particulates from bong water is any more gross than reclaiming particulates from the glass, which is in direct contact with the bong water at all times anyway.

 

[Tweek]

The way I look at it, is if you change your bong water every day to keep things sanitary, then there really would not be enough in that water to be worth the hassle. Any water left long enough in there to collect anything of value, would be like swamp water IMO, especially if you share with others.

There are even times when I don't bother reclaiming off my glass, because it looks so raunchy.

 

[Puffers]

The way I look at it, is if you change your bong water every day to keep things sanitary, then there really would not be enough in that water to be worth the hassle. Any water left long enough in there to collect anything of value, would be like swamp water IMO, especially if you share with others.

There are even times when I don't bother reclaiming off my glass, because it looks so raunchy.

Ya i change my water daily and dont see much particulate matter in it. A cpl specks maybe but thats about it. After dabbing though sometimes i get specks of reclaim in the water or like an oil kind of floating on the surace of the water. Never tried to reclaim from it but if its fresh water from one sesh sometimes ill drink it.......tastes like mountain spring water with herbal overtones lol

 

[smokum]

I don't religiously vape thru my bub but do dab often..... I've started using an active charcoal adapter on mine to catch the waxes (although it catches any stray volatiles caught up in it as well), as I have heavy bronchitis.

It certainly has smoothed out my coughing A LOT, but I also lose out on the opportunity of reclaim in the process... however it's not of concern to me as I grow anyways

 

[fake name]

Boiling it would have evaporated off anything worthwhile anyways ... so you drank bong water for nothing!!!!!

Just wanted to point out that most Cannibinoids would not be evaporated off. The boiling point of water being 100°c, which is below the vaporization point of the cannibinoids. This being said, there will be an ABSURDLY small amount of thc in bong water, water being crazy polar and thc being very unpolar. It will absorb some, but the amounts are so small that they are not noticeable in anyway.

I just wanted to clarify, because if someone does a large batch of of oil with 91% Iso and lets it air dry until it was just cannibinoids in water, then boils off the water, the oil will remain.

Or, is there something I'm missing? If so, please explain.

 

[steadyone]

I was under the impression that THC was soluble in oils & alcohol only. Thats the reason waterpipes worked so well, anything you would retrieve from that water would be leftover from combustion.

Now I think about it, never spilling bong water is the second best thing about vapes.

 

[Roger D]

Consider condensation guys, not water solubility

 

[J Bong]

I just can't see someone so hard up that they resort to reclaiming bong water...not trying to offend anyone here, but to me it's akin to attempting to make a sandwich out of crumbs.

If you were a sandwich artisan you might. Think of the situation as a blacksmith sweeping metal shavings and such. I'm am interested in this purely for the scientific manipulation of a substance with a rewarding high.

 

[J Bong]

I would say adding iso or butter and/or fatty oil to the bong water will make it easier to both extract it and boil off the water (and alcohol in the the case of isopropyl.)

 

[MinnBobber]

My experience from "analyzing" my bubbler water and the reclaim on the glass:

both the glass and the water had a lot "herb particles" or tiny tiny bits of herbage that got sucked out of the vape bowl. Vape bowls, even with screens, have a LOT of micro sized particles unless you exclusively vape nugs and never stir/break them up. If you grind your herb or stir up your bowl after partial use, then you have thousands of micro fine particles that go thru a screen and into your bubbler water and onto the glass bubbler walls. This is especially true if you stir the load as it is dry dry dry and stirring pulverizes it into powder--great for extracting all goodies BUT some of the powder gets sucked out.

I looked with magnification and it was herbage in the water and on the glass. After setting up degummed hemp fiber mini-filters, my water and glass are 99% cleaner, with pure resin and almost no herb particles.
Filters can be adapted to just about any "system" with some creative thinking.

IMO, what is in your bong water is likely tiny bits of ABV that are totally not worth harvesting.
Pic of my hemp fiber setup in miniVAP Flexicone basket modules;