The Convection Thread

[RxPlorer]

@Farid Sounds like we are on the same page here. And yes, unless I'm using a tiny quantity, it has not really been possible to reach absolute complete extraction. When you have multiple calyx/leaves in the chamber, it's damn near impossible to avoid covering trichomes with plant material.

I think it comes down to physics, and all other factors equal, the real limiter is chamber diameter.

With portables the relatively small chamber diameter doesn't allow you to pack a decent amount of material into the chamber in a shallow single layer... you need to pack it deeper. With a deeper pack, you have more buried trichomes, and trying to selectively heat the trichomes with a quick application of high heat will result in the top layer being overheated while the bottom layers are under-extracted.

With desktops, I think you've got a much better shot at full extraction in a single hit because you can pack a very shallow chamber. So long as the heat is even over the entire diameter of the chamber, you'll get better results compared to using a smaller diameter chamber.

@RustyOldNail and @Stu , I've tried the whole nug method as well, and while it does produce great results on the first hit, I do find that there are so many hidden trichomes inside of the nug that the only way to fully extract them is to break up the nug half way through a session. If you like the experience of whole nug vaping, I'll say that the experience of vaping pulled apart nugs is even better. It's the same great taste, but greater vapor density, and no need to break up the nug mid session.

@KeroZen Oh, yeah! I totally agree with the "sucking on a hair drier" analogy. If the load is so loose that material is able to blow around in the chamber, the vapor density drops off in a drastic way.

I seem to remember you like to tease out your chambers for like....some ungodly amount of hits, hahah. In that case, a denser pack and finer grind are totally viable. And actually, I really do enjoy a session of medium grind, lightly tamped. It's great.

I will note that with the selective trichome vaping technique that I'm experimenting with, I've been getting super dense hits. So I am not just getting wispy-but-tasty hits here. Like you, I don't like wispy hits at all. I'm shooting for as dense as possible.

@cannasoor, HAHA! Dude.... you're not far off.

Taking a large step forward in ideal extraction seems to require a wholistic approach, involving even the plant genetics and lifecycle.

* dense flower may be counterproductive to fast loose-convection extraction. Look for high trichome yields on lower-density flowers

* great hash plants might be great convection flowers, but only to an extent. Look for long trichome stocks, but expect higher trichomes loss on flowers that wash well (glands that separate from stocks very easily).

* perhaps there's some benefit to *slightly* earlier harvests when resin glands are more firmly attached to stocks?

* gentle treatment through harvest and processing is key. Load a stem from flower/leaves pulled directly from a cured branch - bypass all the losses incurred through typical processing for retail.

 

[RustyOldNail]

I always break up my flower into marble size chunks so they fit nicely into my LG BCG grinder. I do this mostly to remove the large stems first, and then the tiny ones, as I dislike vaping anything other then the flower, I find my vapor less harsh. However, I’ve always wondered what percentage of trichomes I may be losing with all my extra “hand/finger” handling?

 

[Farid]

I think gentile treatment of the plant, and maintaining a good storage humidity goes a long way. I store my bud untrimmed because it helps hold on to resin, since trimming shakes the plant so much. This also protects the resin from sticking to the walls of the jar.

I wouldn't pull early though. The taste and effects can be wildly different, so unless you're seeking those characteristics, it's not worth that sacrifice.

 

[Alexis]

Taking a large step forward in ideal extraction seems to require a wholistic approach, involving even the plant genetics and lifecycle.

* dense flower may be counterproductive to fast loose-convection extraction. Look for high trichome yields on lower-density flowers

* great hash plants might be great convection flowers, but only to an extent. Look for long trichome stocks, but expect higher trichomes loss on flowers that wash well (glands that separate from stocks very easily).

* perhaps there's some benefit to *slightly* earlier harvests when resin glands are more firmly attached to stocks?

* gentle treatment through harvest and processing is key. Load a stem from flower/leaves pulled directly from a cured branch - bypass all the losses incurred through typical processing for retail.

Spot on points. It can be such a truly delicate process start to finish. Exactly how I gently remove a fresh 3 month cured Bud from the stem, untrimmed.

See the condition of the nugget though. Well cared for or what? Really good weed.

 

[Dan Morrison]

I found some cool videos showing trichomes melting... and then burning. You can see the moment where the trichomes have completely burned away, but the plant material is still green.... for a split second, right before the flame hits and turns everything to ash.

Here is an IG video showing trichomes melting inside of an MFLB. Not really related to convection... but still cool.

In the above IG video you can see how the trichomes melt and then wick down onto the plant material. This is something @Farid brought up, and I think it's a great point. I wonder, though, if this wicking action happens when the heat is applied too low and slow. Technically these trichomes are on the top side of the leaf, facing away from the heater mesh, and so they would not be receiving direct heat.

@Alexis , That's awesome! I've seen some videos of what happens to uncured trichomes when they touch something. They basically burst and melt. I feel like the best way to preserve the trichomes from harvest to vape is to keep them mostly untrimmed like you've shown. The pointy leaves sticking out seem to act as bumpers, keeping the more frosty inner flowers from touching each other in the jar, ha.

@cannasoor , Those graphics! Amazing. Love your whole breakdown. Super cool. And yes, your technique does seem way out of the ordinary, but I think that's great so long as you're enjoying it.

I actually find it more and more challenging to load a single hits worth in a lot of vaporizers as the cannabinoid density is so high on flower these days. I find a small bowl being more and more desirable for my preferred style of vaporizing.

What diameter chamber would you say works best for you?

 

[Shadooz]

It seems easy to manage the Maillard flavours in a pleasant way.

First time i see someone else mentionning "Maillard".

I like u

What diameter chamber would you say works best for you?

U have to deal with the 14mm or 18mm of your waterpiece anyway, or u will hotspost by laminar flow.
To avoid maillard u can't overpack, so 18mm if u want to spread more than 0.1g..

Even heavy mass desktop can't pull a thermal pressure enough to avoid maillard scaling.

The issue with coarse bud too..
Break those calyx ! Nothing more but nothing less, if u don't want unbalanced experience through the extraction.
Only finest, till kief, work for one hit.
Ristretto !

But there is lot of resin outside of the thichomes, only less canabinoid..

@invertedisdead only kief, or dry sift.., is unbalanced to me !
But has faster extraction, and thc ratio, than with plant fiber.

 

[Farid]

I think it's interesting how similar so many of us look at this topic - especially since it's not something that is discussed too often here. It's almost like it's a natural conclusion from a certain way of consuming. Not for everyone, but for a specific breed of microdoser it seems to work excellently.

@Dan Morrison , you should totally do a photo essay or video where you articulate certain points for the "cannabis ceremony" in a manner inspired by the Japanese tea ceremony. Could double as a promotional video for the Toad. I know there is a sort of "enjoy how you like it" attitude among stoners, and I don't disagree with that at all. But I also think there's something to be said about the fact that so many of us handle, prepare, and consume cannabis in the same way. There's still a lot I could be doing better as well, specifically related to set and setting, and you seem to have a better sense of that than anyone.

This is pretty off topic, but it's something that's been on my mind since reading the past few pages of this thread.

 

[Alexis]

@Alexis , That's awesome! I've seen some videos of what happens to uncured trichomes when they touch something. They basically burst and melt. I feel like the best way to preserve the trichomes from harvest to vape is to keep them mostly untrimmed like you've shown. The pointy leaves sticking out seem to act as bumpers, keeping the more frosty inner flowers from touching each other in the jar, ha.

Hi, thanks for rhe mention and thoughts, fully agree with that too.
each time I want a bud, I can't get to it lol.

it's like Pass the Parcel lol.

Definitely preservative, And I feel it definitely aids the cure as well.

 

[Seantagon]

I found some cool videos showing trichomes melting... and then burning. You can see the moment where the trichomes have completely burned away, but the plant material is still green.... for a split second, right before the flame hits and turns everything to ash.

Here is an IG video showing trichomes melting inside of an MFLB. Not really related to convection... but still cool.

In the above IG video you can see how the trichomes melt and then wick down onto the plant material. This is something @Farid brought up, and I think it's a great point. I wonder, though, if this wicking action happens when the heat is applied too low and slow. Technically these trichomes are on the top side of the leaf, facing away from the heater mesh, and so they would not be receiving direct heat.

@Alexis , That's awesome! I've seen some videos of what happens to uncured trichomes when they touch something. They basically burst and melt. I feel like the best way to preserve the trichomes from harvest to vape is to keep them mostly untrimmed like you've shown. The pointy leaves sticking out seem to act as bumpers, keeping the more frosty inner flowers from touching each other in the jar, ha.

@cannasoor , Those graphics! Amazing. Love your whole breakdown. Super cool. And yes, your technique does seem way out of the ordinary, but I think that's great so long as you're enjoying it.



What diameter chamber would you say works best for you?

That video almost makes me feel bad knowing I’ve done that to so many trichomes lol.

 

[Dan Morrison]

@Alexis That isn't the first time I've heard about the "aiding the cure' thing. I feel like more growers will start to do lighter trimming, once people realize that the super groomed flowers are merely to satisfy some arbitrary market preference for neat looking buds.

@Farid, I'm not sure that I'm the one who should be making a video like that, I feel like I change my mind on all this stuff too often. And sometimes I like the idea of something a lot... but not enough to overcome the friction of actually putting those ideas into practice.

I think I mostly stick to the "enjoy how you like it" approach.

Like you mentioned, eventually that approach leads to some form of consensus anyhow.

 

[GoldenBud]

yeah trimming/trim bag is a massive problem to the trichomes heads.... dunno how much is gone by this process but many people choose this option to save the trimming body-pain...needless to say trimbaged weed is cheaper, a bit
I can feel the trim/radiation unfortuenly because the taste is a bit muted :/ with a convection device you can feel it

somebody once told me that 20% is gone, but dunno exactly..

 

[Alexis]

yeah trimming/trim bag is a massive problem to the trichomes heads.... dunno how much is gone by this process but many people choose this option to save the trimming body-pain...needless to say trimbaged weed is cheaper, a bit
I can feel the trim/radiation unfortuenly because the taste is a bit muted :/ with a convection device you can feel it

somebody once told me that 20% is gone, but dunno exactly..

It's not quantative.

It's medicine meets Chernobyl lol.

If anything is gone, the product is plainly compromised. How I see it.

Generally, irradiation goes a long way to crush the medicinality (is the the word? Don't remember using it before anyway.)

So for health purposes, preventative and curative, non organic, and irradiated provides nothing like 80% of the (medicinalness!?lol sounds better) sorry, nobody would believe me if I said I have taken over 28 mg's purest Dutch LSD since February, true story though. That's like 100 OG 60's microdots to quantify it, rare these days anyway.

And the people who try often become withdrawn, unsociable, unable to articulate language so it's rarely actually reported so accurately.

So I get conjugations muddled sometimes. But zero loss of cognition, personality humour witt or communication in any sign.

On the naturalI've long said, it's more like only a fraction of the full medicinal potential.

the actual cure, is an inportant egg to sit on, but no more than the actual chicken, like non organic steroided antibiotic corn fattened high Omega 6 hens, just isn't healthy food.

Organic free range chickens, it's a different product.

Composition, ration, all round.

It feeds, nourishes, repairs your body.

Dud food only taxes the system, creates imbalabce, weakens metabolism and fails to do what it ultimately could.

Same for supplements and weed too.

@Dan Morrison hi man. Thanks for the mention and your thoughts always interesting, really hope your excellent projects are still a triumphant pleasure.

I would have been a sure customer too but full on Lyme Disease made me ultra allergie 16 years ago, most great vapes I can't use at all due to my misbehaving immune system reacting randomly to the actual vape signature, not any materials, variably between different vapes.

Like the Splinter for example. Was a no go allergenically.

Or I was going to getba Stempod to try next.

G43, Supreme, Evo, deceased Glass Symphony, Verdamper, Ti Herborizer, Flowerpot, all electronic portables to date, intolerable respiratory allergy.

Woodscents, Vapcap and Elev8r manageable.

I really want to try the Vriptech Heat Wand too, just price if I'm allergic to it.

I eat my herb too so vaping I just enjoy, have a love for.

But kava too, great medicinal stuff, as weed is, I used too and that helps a lot.

Anyway, keep at it @Dan Morrison always have found interest and enjoyment in your bright posts and admire your way of innovating and being so close here with people always every step.

You are just of us, but an amazing guru vape designer at same time, full respect for that and what you have already done.

if...I got you as the right person? Lol hope so. Had edibles, vapor kava tonight, and spaced out nicely from Literally 52,5 tabs of pure LSD in 6 days lol to this weekend gone.

so just keeping mentally busy, distracted. Integration is intense at times.

Hope everyone here on FC is alright and in good spirit,

 

[Dan Morrison]

These stations for tying fishing flies look pretty much exactly what I imagine a flower disassembly station to look like.

And on that note... there has got to be a better term for "flower disassembly", any thoughts??

@Alexis Thanks dude! Enjoy your day! Sounds like you're on track, haha.

I'm trying to buy only organic living soil...preferably sun grown. Just seeing if I find a difference in the end, who knows.

 

[invertedisdead]

What diameter chamber would you say works best for you?

I think a half inch ID is a pretty good medium overall.

Small enough that it doesn’t need much herb to produce a thick milkshake, but big enough that ~.25g can be loaded reasonably easy as well, if desired.

IMHO a really killer .1g hit is more than most can handle. I always liked the idea of the Sublimator being kind of designed around a load that size. The ideal rip for me is getting a nice smooth-yet- dense broad spectrum extraction in a short time. As a longer term enthusiast, for the most part I can’t stand long “vape inhales” anymore. I wanna get a nice pull in ten seconds.

 

[Green Kiwi]

These stations for tying fishing flies look pretty much exactly what I imagine a flower disassembly station to look like.

And on that note... there has got to be a better term for "flower disassembly", any thoughts??

@Alexis Thanks dude! Enjoy your day! Sounds like you're on track, haha.

I'm trying to buy only organic living soil...preferably sun grown. Just seeing if I find a difference in the end, who knows.

These stations for tying fishing flies look pretty much exactly what I imagine a flower disassembly station to look like.

And on that note... there has got to be a better term for "flower disassembly", any thoughts??

@Alexis Thanks dude! Enjoy your day! Sounds like you're on track, haha.

I'm trying to buy only organic living soil...preferably sun grown. Just seeing if I find a difference in the end, who knows.

Love that fly fishing station!.

Organic soil, and in the sun,...........yes you will notice a massive difference,.......quality wise......massively improved,.......Yield, well what yield?....it's a lot less than mineral.
I just love my unfertilised grown outside in the bush, very powerful ,and heaps of resin.
Yieldwise though......
But since it's the bush I have enough space...

 

[pretty-chill]

Fantastic thread! I've been noticing that not grinding my flower and just pulling off calyxes worked the best in my wood scents. So it was cool stumbling on this thread with similar thoughts. The coffee analogy got me thinking though, and having recently done a lot of research on the physics of percolation and espresso, I followed a little hunch I had. Oftentimes on the coffee side of things, there is a bell shaped response curve to the physics of extraction. For example, grinding really fine for a pour-over style percolation coffee, would result in a terrible cup as it would take forever to extract. Going up in grind size, the water flows more freely and you now have a great cup of coffee. If however, you plunge into the extremes and go espresso level fine for the pour-over, you'll actually get a decent cup because the extraction time is fairly fast again, likely because you got rid of most channelling. So I thought perhaps we need to do the exact opposite of what we have been doing and go super fine.

Another interesting point that was being made throughout this thread, is the wicking action of the flower. I've noticed this a lot too, and it's always a cause for concern. I've seen how quickly concentrates wick into flower, so perhaps we are underestimating how fast and complete this wicking effect is. Obviously going with dry-sift would circumvent most of this wicking effect, and perhaps that's one of the other reasons dry-sift can taste better. It can more readily vaporize, rather than being sucked into the flower where it is now undergoing high temperatures and degradation. Sure, at some point it will eventually vaporize but not after some degradation has taken place. Ideally, we want to vaporize everything before it has a chance to degrade, and this is yet again another point for dry-sift. But, it's hard to get a hold of and hard to produce in small quantities on demand. Perhaps there is another method to stop the wicking though! Logically, it seems like highly compressed flower would not be good at wicking. Now this seems counterproductive, but what if we squash the absolute life out of a bud and then grate it like parmesan cheese? This is exactly what I ended up doing, and it worked much better than I thought it would. I have some greenhouse-grown blue dream flower that has been thoroughly disappointing in terms of taste, so this is the flower I used. With the squash and grate method, I was blown away by the intense and concentrated taste. It really brought life back to this flower, and I had a thick coating of almost warm feeling terpenes all over my mouth. This feeling actually reminded me a lot of when I first nailed a shot of espresso! Now thinking back to the unground flower, it tasted like a V60 pour-over coffee often does. Very impressive at first because it is all bright top notes, but over time realizing it has no body to back up those top note flavours. I noticed the opposite with the squash and grate, I felt like I could taste all the flavours at once and it was a very robust full-spectrum taste. Almost dab-like actually.

So the short version, perhaps try squashing the life out of your buds and then grating them!

 

[FlyingLow]

I love that fly tying station, nice and simple... got a link?

 

[Dan Morrison]

So the short version, perhaps try squashing the life out of your buds and then grating them!

Amazing, dude! Love all your thoughts. I was in the vape lab the other day and I had a very similar thought! I tried squishing calyx between two sheets of absorbent washi paper with a hot iron. The theory was that the resin would melt into the paper....and then you could vape the paper. Anyhow, that totally didn't work, you could taste the paper. BUT I remember looking at the flattened calyxes and making a mental note to try a cold squish to see if the flat chips would be vapable.

The idea to grate it up like cheese is very neat though! I'm totally going to give that a try.

I think you, and the others in this thread, are right about the wicking action of the leaf. A few posts back I was talking about the idea of "selective vaporization" of the trichomes, leaving the plant material unextracted.

Well... I have since been looking at my ABV under super magnification, and I'm thinking that concept is probably dead. The leafy plant material is much thinner than I realized, so the plant matter actually absorbs heat almost at the same rate as the trichomes. That fact, coupled with the wicking action, seems to make it so that it is indeed unlikely to be able to selectively vaporize to complete extraction with any sort of consistency. I think it's still possible with very small doses, one or two calyx, but once you have overlapping leaf in the chamber, forget about it. And even with small doses, you're likely not getting absolutely full extraction.

_______

Now I am intrigued by this parmesan cheese method. @pretty-chill, Did you squich whole nugs, and use a sort of zest rasp or something? I assume cold squish? I was thinking about starting by hand tearing up flower to get intact calyx/leaf, then arranging them between two a metal plates, as flat as I can.... followed by a squish in a vice. The flattened chips might be easier to load and get good airflow.

But now you've got me thinking about this ultra fine grind, haha! How fine are you going? I have found central hot spotting to be an issue with fine grinds and quick extraction. The air wants to concentrate the flow in the center. The only way to reduce this is to reduce air speed... and with reduced airspeed you need lower temps. Any of that feel right to you?

 

[invertedisdead]

I tried squishing calyx between two sheets of absorbent washi paper with a hot iron.

You’re damn near in rosin territory at that point!

 

[Dan Morrison]

@invertedisdead , Haha! Well... you can see where my inspiration came from for that idea!

 

[pretty-chill]

Yes, I think true selective vaporization is going to be tough, and perhaps this is actually not really what we want anyways. For a pure cannabinoid experience this would be the best way of course, but with their being around 568 different bioactive compounds in Cannabis, only vaporizing the trichomes is only going to give us a small amount of the total bioactives possible. I'm basing this on the fact that most of the cannabinoids and terpenes are biosynthesized within the trichomes, but most of the other compounds, such as flavanoids and alkaloids are likely being biosynthesized in the actual plant matter. Based on how little variety we oftentimes see in cannabinoid and terpene levels in THC and CBD flower, it's probably something else that is producing the auxiliary strain specific effects, and these compounds may be outside of the trichomes. Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but having looked at lots of different certificates of analysis for as many THC and CBD cultivars as I could, the only minor cannabinoids that pop up in very small concentration are usually CBG and CBC. It's likely that the test methods just aren't where they need to be yet (it's impractical to test every sample for 80+ cannabinoids), but we may be getting a little myopic only looking at cannabinoids. For terpenes it's oftentimes a similar scenario, and there don't seem to be enormous differences between strains, although much more variety than I've seen in the cannabinoids. Having tried lots of the minor cannabinoids in isolation, I can't with full confidence say that all of the variety we see between different cultivars, especially between landrace indica and sativa's (arguably the biggest differences), are solely due to cannabinoids and terpenes. So I'm getting a bit off topic here, but I think if we want full-spectrum effects, we need to move in the opposite direction of 'selective vaporization', which this squish and grate method may be achieving.

Allright, back on topic! Yes, I squished whole buds cold. I actually just used a little plastic joint tube and a plastic storage cup from the zam grinder. Looks like photo attachments on FC are down right now, but I can upload some pictures later. Then I take the squished buds and grate it against a small fine mesh strainer. This actually solves a bit of a problem too, the buds pretty much explode into a bunch of coarser chunks at a certain point, so the fine mesh strainer helps contain those chunks. Then I just rub those chunks against the strainer with a metal tool until everything that can turn into a powder has. The rest, small stems and hairs that didn't make it through I just discard. So what I end up with grind wise really is like a powder, it's not as fine as kief but it's certainly getting there.

I wish I could upload some pictures of the AVB right now, but you'll just have to take my word for it at the moment. In the woodscents, one 10-15 second pull pretty much got all the goodies out and there was zero hot-spotting (although this is not an issue I ever have with the woodscents tbh), and to my surprise from top to bottom, it was pretty much the same even perfectly light brown colour. Very little to practically no green left, but also not really excessively browned. A small amount of this squished powder also instantly white walled my sneaky pete mega globe (which I rarely pull off with the woodscents because I prefer lower temperature). The kicker is, I actually think I may have to lower my temperature even further! I'm normally at around 7.5-8 on the stock woodscents dial, but this was way too hot for the powder. I'm testing at 7 now, and getting instant white-wall from the powder like I would at 8.5-9 with coarsely ground or unground flower but with a much more pleasant taste now! I feel like I can probably go down to 6.5, maybe even 6 with good results!

That being said, last night something magical happened with the taste of the blue dream, and I'm sad to say I have not been able to replicate that exactly again. I think I had a mix of some coarser bits in there because at first I was grating it on the outside of the fine mesh strainer and not on the inside, so perhaps it was a little coarser. Will have to experiment with this and see if I can find an accurate way to try out some different mesh sizes for the 'flower powder'. What I can say, is now that I'm focusing on getting the powder as fine and uniform as possible, the effects are even better. So trading taste for effects when going finer, but perhaps I'll find the ideal particle size at some point. For the time being though, I'm liking the extra therapeutic feel of the powder in the woodscents! I do think that perhaps squish + coarse grind (perhaps cut up with a scalpel or something) may be getting closer to selective vaporization of the trichomes, which is why it had such a pronounced taste. So perhaps this method has two permutations, one for best flavour (coarser) and one for best effects (super fine). The super flavourful bowl from last night did feel a little more edgy and unbalanced in effects looking back now and reflecting on the effects I am currently experiencing which are much more balanced, full-bodied, gently uplfiting/energizing and pleasant. Kind of what I would expect from blue dream actually!

 

[invertedisdead]

As vaporizer enthusiasts, we probably (wrongly) assume the full spectrum of compounds is even vaporizable.

There is likely a lot of compounds which boil above combustion temperatures that we aren't getting.

 

[RxPlorer]

As vaporizer enthusiasts, we probably (wrongly) assume the full spectrum of compounds is even vaporizable.

There is likely a lot of compounds which boil above combustion temperatures that we aren't getting.

And those which degrade too quickly. Plenty of medicinal benefits have been documented in the -a compounds. Some advocate for juicing raw leaves (haven't tried it, personally).

Hey while I'm here derailing a convection thread, wouldn't a micronized/powdered flower potentially extract better with conduction? Or at least create less of a mess? The idea of powdered flower falling into heaters like the tinymight's leaves me concerned about combusting that dust. Our typical screens aren't exactly superfine. I'm accustomed to dealing with micronized Kratom which is so fine it will often blow out of the jar and suspend in the air almost like mushroom spores

And what are some good ways to keep that powder out of our convection stems? @pretty-chill are you noticing extra scooby dust in your woodscents stem?

edit - perhaps the micronized / kratom powder comparison is off base. Those particulates might be as small as trichomes themselves. We probably can't go that small with a grater. Perhaps a coffee grinder, though it seems like a good way to waste a lot of trichomes.

 

[arb]

I use a coffee grinder.

 

[RxPlorer]

I use a coffee grinder.

Cool, tell me more! Doesn't a lot get wasted sticking to the grinder surfaces? When did you decide to switch to a powder grind for convection vaping?

my wife is going to wonder if I overmedicated when the rolling pin and coffee grinder start smelling like my stash!