best way to keep your buds is away from contact in a dark cool dry place. but who wants their pretties outta the sunshine? green dragon sounds like it has questionable results but only one way to find out... :thumbsup:
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best way to keep your buds is away from contact in a dark cool dry place. but who wants their pretties outta the sunshine? green dragon sounds like it has questionable results but only one way to find out... :thumbsup:
ok thnx for the advise.
Ok, I just finished boiling down my GD. Started with 11-12 grams of plant material, I boiled it down to about 2.5 ounces of ethanol and I added another 1.5 oz of ethanol so I could average about 2.5-3.0 g/oz.
It's sitting in the freezer - just waiting for shortie to get off work and hopefully bring some friends over so we can see if this time is as good as last time. I've always had good results thus far, so cheers!
p.s. I found the coolest bottles @ World Market that are great for the process I use. They have metal bands which hold plastic/rubber stoppers in place, one of them holds about 24 ounces - which I use to soak the plants in ethanol in the freezer for 2-3 weeks and the other is the same type of bottle but holds 5 ounces which is great for after boiling it down. They look cool as hell too :)
All hail Master Wu! Here's to your health, three times three. And huge thanks to everyone else who posted their experiences & knowledge.
I've made 4 batches so far; 3 turned out stunningly well, the 4th only very good (& I know what bonehead mistake I made that time & am very unlikely to ever make it again).
Each time I have used an 8th of good bud, ground in a coffee grinder & toasted on heavy foil on the upper-middle rack in my oven, 5 minutes @ 325f.
First wash in 3 oz 151 everclear, 20 minutes @ ~170f; strain, press.
Second wash in a fresh oz of alc, 10 minutes @ ~170f. The extractions are done in a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup placed in a water bath. For the straining I use a 3.5" fine metal strainer with a 2" disk of nylon hose placed in it. You can pick up all the plant material in the piece of stocking, put that in the garlic press & get medieval on it.
I wind up with ~2 oz of the Drache. Empty-stomach results, with the doses taken in an oz or two of wine (usually), are: 0.5 ml = a nice little glaze on things for a couple of hours; 1 ml = a solid medium-strength effect, 4-5 hours; 2 ml = a pretty strong dose, 6-8 hours; 3 ml & up = careful now.
I've tested the stuff on a fair number of lucky bastards & their results are pretty consistent with mine.
I have no chemistry background but I am a very experienced (home) cook.
Some notes & thoughts on the process:
* The first thing I do is measure out the 3 oz of alc. I use it to wash out the coffee grinder, the foil after the herb's decarbed, & any other utensils that might have something interesting on them.
* I grind the bud to the consistency of coarse sand - not powdered. I put it on the foil in a layer about 3-4 mm thick - not spread out in a very thin layer.
This may be the culprit in some folks' vaping out their bud - ground too fine/spread too thin. Anyone have any thoughts about that?
* Temperature control seems to be another issue - ovens spiking. I always leave my pizza stone on the floor of my (gas) oven even when I'm not cooking directly on it. It takes longer to heat up the oven with the stone in it (duh), but it stabilizes the heat quite a bit. A very cheap way to get this effect is to line the floor (or lowest rack) of your oven with unglazed quarry tiles. And you can cook killer pizza on them. And you're gonna want some pizza...
* Surface area: This has been touched on, but not very specifically: the diameter of the glass vessel you do the extraction in has a huge effect on the rate of evaporation, &, apparently, the temperature the alc reaches in the water bath.
When I do it in the 2 cup pyrex measuring cup (~2.5" diameter @ the bottom), the mixture is visibly convecting, the surface looks like the surface of soda pop - little tiny bubbles sort of effervescing, & the temp cruises right about 165-170f.
I did it once in a half-pint mason jar (~2" diameter), & it boiled very rapidly, rolling very fast, & the temperature kept climbing up towards 175f, which puzzled the hell out of me until I remembered that my 151 was 24.5% water. It also didn't reduce as much. The wider vessel gives me the 50% reduction I'm looking for.
NB: I'm sorry if some of this stuff seems obvious - it is to me - but I"m trying to stick to issues that I haven't seen addressed previously which might be problem points.
* Couple of kitchen thangs: proper mason jars (Bell, Kern), are made for repeated pressure-canning (~250f) & are perfectly safe for this process. The guy whose jar broke - had a cracked jar. Recycled pickle jars & whatever are another matter - probably ok but much more likely to break.
Also, a tablespoon or two of white vinegar in the boiling water will help cut down on mineral deposits from the evaporating water (on the outside of the glass & the inside of the pan/pot holding the water).
* I watch it pretty closely & stir & wash the inside of the glass right above the level of the liquid frequently. The stuff we're after is just sticky as hell - try to keep it in the alc. I wonder if that little bit of oily film you'll see on the surface really is pure cannabinols... (pure-ish at least). Anyroad, try to keep the good stuff in the solution.
* The same goes for the finished GD in the dropper bottle - like so many other medicines, shake well before using.
* The nylon strainer seems to work a treat, as does the garlic press trick. If you're doing a large batch, look into a potato ricer. It's a garlic press on steroids.
Oh that's enough for now. I adore this stuff. I want to make a commercial for it.
Seriously.
I'm trying to convince my roommates that we should try this because I'm unable to smoke marijuana, but they're concerned about stinking up the apartment. Basically what I'm wondering is:
a) Can I bake the marijuana enclosed in tin/aluminum foil? Will this prevent our apartment wreaking of pot?
b) When simmering the mason jar in water, will the fumes produced smell like marijuana or simply alcohol?
c) Do you have any other advice for us to keep our little operation on the down-lo?
My 2 cents: If you're doing this with an 8th & using the 325f/5 minutes method, you will get a pretty good whiff of the weed, but it's not going to "stink up the whole house" like somebody said, and it doesn't last long at all. It's not smoke, it's vapor (hopefully not thc vapor), & it dissipates very quickly. I'd very surprised if the strongish weed smell window is more than 5 minutes. Tell your roommates to quit being such old ladies. Even if they are old ladies. Especially if they're old ladies.
(& nothing against old ladies. Some of my favorite people. Just a little too risk-averse sometimes).
Now, if you have specific reasons to be extra cautious, like an ill-natured cop living upstairs, well, use your judgment.
a: Decarboxylation is vaping out the carboxy group (someone who knows what they're talking about better please correct any errors) which comes off as CO2 & H2O. Doing it covered seems to be at cross purposes with the intent, but I don't really know. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that they do it in a foil packet to reduce the smell.
(not to bust your chops on spelling too much, but I would love to have an apartment that "wreaked pot." ;))
b: I don't notice much smell at all in the simmering part.
c: My main problem is keeping from walking up to strangers on the street & going, "hey, do you get high? you gotta try this!!! here, have a dose!!" I've actually only dosed one stranger. He worked in the dispensary where I was picking up some bud for my next batch.
So if it turns out really really well - I hope it does - try to be discreet.
a:
I made green dragon before, following master wu's recipe, and it didn't really work. I used hash, but I think I messed up the potency levels. I knew I messed up and that green dragon was capable of more.
I made it again today. I combined a few methods I've read about, and added my own. Let me know what you guys think. I'll fully admit this experiment sucks, because I didn't try the other alternatives, but my supply is fairly limited.
I used perhaps a gram of Jack Herer kief. I'm estimating here, I didn't weigh anything. That would be too reproducible...
This herer, when smoked (the bud, anyway) was the strongest thing I've ever had. It destroyed me. Unlike some of the descriptions I've read, when I smoked the herer, it hit me very much like an Indica; I was slow, heavy, etc. Personally, I love that high, so I didn't complain. Interestingly enough, when vaporized (volcano, if you wanna get serious) was much more of a heady high.
I also used approximately a gram and a half of random kief from my grinder. Some of this kief is very old (2+ years...I never empty it) so I don't know how potent it is at all. I also threw in about half a gram of Herer bud, ground with the volcano grinder.
I put this in the toaster oven, in a tiny stainless steel bowl, with aluminum foil covering it, for 5 minutes at 325f. At the fourth minute I started to smell pot, but I let it finish the time. At the 5 minute mark I turned the heat off, but let it sit in the oven for a few minutes to make sure it was thoroughly warm. (I put the stainless steel bowl on the baking sheet for the toaster, and the baking sheet I had in the toaster for the entire preheat, so it was nice and warm, and able to conduct heat into the bowl.) All in all, I'd say it was in the toaster for 8 minutes, 5 of which the toaster was running for.
Afterwards I put the bowl, still covered with foil, in a frying pan full of boiling salt water. I added the salt to the saturation point, and then some, because I figured the water would boil a little hotter (ethanol still limits it to 172f, but stick with me on this), but also because it made the water boil with smaller, more even bubbles, that didn't knock and kick the bowl around. At this point I used a toothpick to poke 3 holes in the aluminum foil to relieve built up vapor pressure. I checked the bowl after 20 minutes and noticed the alcohol had boiled off completely. I added more alcohol, and stirred and scraped the edged of the bowl to try to redissolve as much as possible. I then put the bowl, again covered with foil (with the three holes) back into the salt water to boil. At ten minutes I checked it, and it was very low on alcohol.
At this point, I deviated from master wu's recipe, and brought in some ideas I had. One of these (I believe Coelho and dragonrider are to thank here, sorry if I forgot others...) was isomerization. One thing I always thought weird when they did their isomerization, is they did it after the extraction. I wanted to do it during the extraction. They used lemon juice as an acid, but I wanted to try something different. I used distilled white vinegar. I poured a little into the bowl and it instantly became cloudy, and I covered the bowl and put it back in the salt water to boil.
I used distilled white vinegar because I read it had a pH of 2.2-2.4, and because it is a product of alcohol decomposition. I knew THC is alcohol soluble, so I figured maybe vinegar would work better than lemon juice (acetic acid vs. citric acid).
I noticed that while in the salt water bath, the vinegar wouldn't boil. After being in the salt water bath for about 20 minutes, I took some tongs and held the bowl above the flames. (gas stove) I figured direct contact (flame to bowl) would damage the THC, so I held it about 4-6 inches above the flame, varying as it boiled. When it got down to a small amount (slightly more than a paste consistency, maybe runny paste) I added the alcohol back, and stirred to get all the stuff off the sides. I then covered it again and boiled for another ten minutes. I then put this in my eye dropper (a big 2 ouncer) and it filled it maybe 1/5. I filled the rest with alcohol. I left all the kief in it, and the little bit of bud too. I figure it won't hurt it much, if at all, and maybe I'll get more out of it.
Also to note, in the eye dropper there was left over glycerin tincture that semi worked. I turned it upside down and let it drip out, but I didn't want to rinse it out. I figured it too wouldn't hurt much.
To try it out, I took two dropperfulls in a glass with some orange juice and Cointreau (master wu said additional alcohol may help come up). I never drink, so that was unusual for me too. I actually kind of enjoyed the Cointreau and orange juice (highly unusual for me) so I had another, without the green dragon.
As of now, 45 minutes after ingestion, I do not feel too high, but I am high. In the beginning, within the first 15 minutes, I felt VERY high. It is now more of waves, but its a different high than it started out. I was giggling at first (I'm a heavy smoker), and now I just feel really high. I don't have the giggles any more, but it is a strange high. It isn't entirely heady, but not too stoney either. I like it, and again, this is only 45 minutes into it. I'll post back later with updates on how it is going, but I can't complain as of now.
Also, I hate to write, and never write anything very long. I took the tincture, waited about 30 minutes and wrote this...:hippy:
Hey Nick -
Sounds nice. Did the effect continue in a satisfactory manner?
I don't know anything about the chemistry of isomerization so I don't know about that aspect of the vinegar step, but I assume you used standard distilled white vinegar, which is 5% acetic acid - 95% water. That's why it turned the solution cloudy. There's also the issue of water extracting bad tasting compounds. For me, GD taste isn't a big issue, so if it improved the potency, all to the good.
What kind of alc & how much?
I don't really know what happened. It seemed to taper off, but I'd get waves where it was real intense. I got a few crazy head rushes when I'd stand up or something, but not like the "out of breath" head rush, the "volcano-bag-of-headies-on-level 9" kinda head rush.
All in all, kinda meh. The high was nice, but seemed weak. I'd like to try it with a lesser tolerance, or maybe a few more dropperfulls.
I was wondering if perhaps teh problems people have with teh decarboxylation step is due to differences in teh moisture of teh bud. Water has a ridiculously high specific heat and i'm thinking tht drier bud will be heating and thus decarboxylating much faster than bud tht has more moisture. Maybe someone wants to try making two batches with teh same bud, but dry one batch out first. i haven't tried this recipe yet, but i hope to by the end of teh week.
Also, what is teh consensus on teh most effective strainer?