Extracting stem oil for HAO topical

In an attempt to use all of sweet Maryâ??s charms, I have been experimenting with extracting meds from all of her body parts, and we finally had some nice weather so that I could conclude some of my stem oil extraction experiments.

My previous experiments showed that stem oil was low in euphoric properties, but provided significant analgesic and sedative effects. Prior to my attempts at direct oil extraction, I had only cooked stems in canola oil for use as a topical or in cannacaps.

My first pulverized sample was provided by an associate, that she had prepared in a coffee grinder, which I extracted using hexane extraction, and found it to provid stellar analgesic and sedative properties.

Given the exciting implications of that, I ran a series of experiments involving pulverizing stem material using an electric chipper and a hammer mill and then doing extraction using butane, hexane, ethanol, ISO, and denatured alcohol, looking for a viable production process.

To verify that most of the oils and resins come from the surface of the stems, not from the interior, I sanded some central stalks using steel wool, before grinding them and doing an oil extraction using denatured alcohol.

From that extraction I obtained such a very small quantity of vegetable oil, waxes, and/or resin, that I have not been able to test the properties of it, other than note that it is light green, relatively bland tasting, and slightly aromatic. Not enough material from a gallon sized extraction to even test.

I also did a hexane extraction of both the fines, as well as the coarse ground material and fiber to determine how much material was available and as you can see from the attached picture of the two Pyrex dishes, that there was very little oil from the chunks and fiber in the dish on the right.

I therefore sieved and processed only the fines from the stem material that I had previously ground, using a couple of pasta strainers and did extractions using ISO and denatured alcohol.

After cooking off the alcohol, I re-dissolved the concrete produced into 190 proof ethanol and allowed the flocculent to settle out, before decanting, filtering, and cooking that off as well.

There was minimal precipitant from the ISO, but extensive precipitant from the denatured alcohol, ostensibly because of its methanol content.

Both the ISO and the denatured alcohol produced a stiff clear transparent dark green absolute after processing with ethanol, which I turned into a topical anointing oil, using my standard recipe.

The oil tests as effective as topical made from leaf, providing pain relief within a few minutes. As far as I have been able to determine, there is no commercial product available that works as well as cannabis oil in a HAO topical.

To extract the oil I placed the pulverized and sieved material in a gallon jar and covered it with a couple of inches of alcohol. I shook it periodically for the next 10 minutes, and then decanted the alcohol through a wire strainer and a restaurant sized coffee filter, squeezing the plant material to recover as much alcohol as possible.

After filtration, I made no attempts to recover the alcohol, but put it in a stainless Bain Marie container, which I placed in a 250F oil pot and cooked off the alcohol. When it was bubble free, I added 190 proof Everclear and washed it out of the pot.

I placed that alcohol in a canning jar and allowed to sit overnight, before decanting and filtering it again using a coffee filter. I then cooked it off, to leave the absolute, to which I added the remaining HAO ingredients.

I am again accumulating stems for a confirmation run, but it appears that pulverizing the stems and sieving out the fines for processing is a viable way to cost effectively produce a stellar topical pain reliever from stems.

That is an important issue at the moment, because I currently have more demands for topical than my total monthly leaf supply for all meds. After passing out samples for testing, everyone who tested it wants more.