I'm sure there's some people on here in my situation, and aren't comfortable using something as volatile as butane for extractions. A lot of people think they're sacrificing by using ISO, and you might be, a bit. Time, if nothing else. With trial and error, though, I've learned a few tricks to get high quality qwiso. Want to share them so you guys don't have to be using that black, gooey, nasty stuff. I can't give anything like a recipe, as I haven't got one. I do it a little different every time trying to get better.
First, is to keep everything cold. Chlorophyll and waxes and other impurities are what makes the oil dark and nasty. If these impurities are frozen, they dissolve into the ISO much more slowly. Some guides I've seen recommend freezing everything for 24 hours or something like that. That actually doesn't help a whole lot. It's good, but as soon as that stuff is out of the freezer, it starts warming up.
What you want to do is make a cold water bath. Take a 20oz water bottle, fill it up with very very salty water. As much as you can dissolve into it. This lowers the freezing temperature of the water. Freeze this, a tray of ice cubes, your ISO, and your product inside the mason jar you'll be using to make your qwiso. In my freezer, it takes about 4 hours.
Get some kind of flat, wide container. I use a plastic tupperware type thing that's about 10in. square. Cut open the bottle of frozen salt water and dump it in. Should be hard slush(your freezer probably won't freeze it solid). Break it up with a knife or fork. Add the ice cubes and enough water to cover them and the slush.
Place the mason jar with product in the center of the cold water bath and make your qwiso there. This will keep everything
extremely cold during your extraction. Cover to about double the level of your product. First run, just stir a couple times to make sure there are no dry spots. Just let it sit. This will be so cold, and you're not agitating, so the 10-30 second wash times recommended are way to short. I actually haven't found the max wash time for the first run, yet. Last time I did an entire minute and still ended up with pure white powder qwiso. Not sure how many of you guys have seen this stuff, but I've been told by some pretty experienced people that what I've let them hit is very high quality. Honestly, it's to pure. I can't even really use it. Doesn't stick to anything. You can heat it up to get it on a dabber, but the instant it cools it falls off. It's a pain.
Trying to find the spot where I'll have all of this oil...and just a bit of the waxes, to make it easier to use.
Use a normal wire kitchen strainer on top of a funnel with a coffee filter in it to filter out the material. Some shake and keif will fall through the strainer, but it's not a huge deal if that sits in there. It's not much. Don't ever press out the buds. You might get a little extra oil, but you'll get a TON of all the impurities we just worked so hard to keep out of your oil. As soon as the material is done dripping, get it back in the jar and get that and your ISO back into the freezer for your second run. Do that the same way, but stir the entire time you're washing.
When you're purging, just keep it somewhere cool and dark, and keep a fan blowing on it. Also, make sure to cover it with a screen or cheesecloth to keep dust and anything in the air out of the pan. This part takes a while and varies a lot depending on the pan you use. Can use something nice and big, and it'll be done in a few hours, but you'll be scraping a lot of surface area and it'll take you longer to get your oil off the pan. You can use a small serving dish, and it'll take a long time to purge, but you'll be able to scrape out your oil really easily. Up to you, really. If you use 91% ISO(don't go lower), at a certain point you'll see a milky looking liquid that's formed. That's normal. It's just water and a bit of qwiso. Don't dump it off...there's oil in it. Just let it keep purging until it's COMPLETELY dry. It shouldn't be oily or watery at all. Aside from not keeping the extraction cold, this is peoples biggest issue. If you scrape it while it's still wet, the water gets mixed in and then it takes forever to dry.
From 7gs of shake, I usually get .2-.3 of the high quality first run. .7-1.0 out of the second run. Second run has varied a lot. Couple times I got nice yellow wax, but I've also gotten brown, too. I've been doing a third run, just to see what's left as I'm figuring out wash times. Usually .1-.3 and it's horrible lol. I really want to get as much as I can out in the first run. I've got a theory that the second run get's a lot of impurities from the ISO that's been sitting on it for the time between runs. Just going to keep adding to the first run wash time until I get most of it out there.
Hope this helps a few people...and here's to no more blown up kitchens!
) although it might add a combustion-like taste if not fully removed.
