Butane Extraction Method?

So I've been reading a few posts in this foram about butane extarction method people are using to extract pure THC from there buds. To be honest, this is a first for me. I've only used cold extractions methods using 190pf alcohol for use as a tincture. I'd like to know more about the butane method; in depth and in detail if anyone would mind taking the time to share.

What exatctly is needed?
Amount of weed?
Brand name Butane?
Lenth of proceddure?
Amount of Butane per bud?
Tube/apperatice (extraction device - I'm cluess)?
Detailed step by step instructions of how to proform the proceedure?
Anything else I make have missed or over looked?

As I said, I am extremely interested in this butane method and would love to give it a go. I just dont know anything about it and cant seem to grasp the general idea behind it. I would appreciat any advice regarding my concerns.

Thank you in advance,
Sprt

this is a wicked way to extraction. bubblebags are much better w/o the carcinogens. i have found the butane extraction to be way too wasteful. the honeyoil is VERY hard to work with & sticks to everything, not to mention it is highly explosive while awaiting for it too evaporate. if you really want to try it get the most expensive butane you can find, (usually the purest), need a pipe w/capends, drill the ends for the nozzle of the butane on one end use a coffee filter to keep the buds in. when you disperse the butane keep the bottle tight against the pipe to keep the pressure coming out the coffee filter end. when it stops leaking out grab another can of butane, keep this up till butane comes out clear, wear thick gloves to keep hands from freezing. then sell it so that you dont smoke all the chemicals that are in the butane

p.s. do a search on butane extraction you'll get hits & a video somewhere that'll show you step-by-step

Hmmmm.
What exactly do you need?

Here's my recipe for a "prepetual motion goodness extractor" that you can make from stuff laying around the house (my house, anyway . .). It's cheap to make, relatively safe to operate, and EXTREMELY EFFICIENT! This unit uses 4-8oz of butane, and has a max donor capacity of 100g.

PARTS:

10" metal 2" pipe threaded both ends (1)
Pipe caps (2)
3/8 Hose barbs threaded 1/8NPT (3)
3/8 Hose barbs threaded 1/4NPT
3/8 copper tubing (25 - 30')
3/8 re-enforced clear hose (10')
3/8 copper elbow (1)
hose clamps (10)
Pint wide mouth Ball Mason jar with cap and ring (1)
plastic bucket (you know the kind) (1)
Good teflon tape (big roll)
wire ties
pipe blanket (insulation) (10')

Put it all together:

CONDENSOR:

Wrap about 16' of the copper tubing around a gallon milk jug so that the tubing follows the shape of the jug and is as close to the jug as you can get it and still pull the jug through the coil. You'll get about 7 wraps around the jug. Leave about 6" of straightened tubing at one end for the low point, but leave the other end (top end) long.

Size the coil to the height of the bucket. Make sure the coils provide a constant downward spiral (no high points in the loops). When you are sure the coil will flow a liquid, it is ready to insert into the bucket.

I set my coil in a frame to ensure the spacing and down-angle. I made the frame by marking braze rod every half inch, and starting at the 2-inch mark, I soldered each corner of each loop at half-inch intervals. This ensured a pitch of 0.5" per side, or 2" per loop -- plenty to flow a liquid.

Cut a hole in the side of the bucket about an inch from the bottom of the INSIDE of the bucket. Don't measure the inch from the outside. It will be wrong. Make the hole just big enough to pass the bottom end of the tubing through. I start with a tiny hole and open it with the rat tail of a file for a perfect fit.

Carefully install the coil in the bucket, bending the bottom bit as needed to pass it through the hole.

Drill small holes in the appropriate places around the rim of the bucket and use wire ties to secure the coil in place. At this point you should have a bucket with a short spout sticking out the bottom. The top wrap of coil should exit the top, and the extra several feet of tubing should be parallel to the bucket.

Solder a 6" bit of tubing to the 3/8 elbow and solder the 3/8 elbow to the lower end of the coil.

Use Marine Goop (or other good adhesive/sealer) to seal up the hole you made in the bucket. Set it all aside to dry. Move on to "evaporator."

EVAPORATOR

Cut a couple of holes in the mason jar lid as close to the size of the 1/4" pipe/hose barbs as you can get them. Ideally, you should be able to thread the barbs into the lid and snug them up. Then puth the lid on the jar upside down and screw the ring on snug, but not too tight.

Solder the joint of the lid and barbs from the bottom.

Set it aside and move on to "extraction chamber."

EXTRACTION CHAMBER

Drill two holes that can be tapped for 1/8NPT in one pipe cap. Make one hole centered, and the other off to the side. Drill one hole in the center of the other cap. Thread all three holes.

Liberally apply teflon tape to the threaded ends of the pipe barbs, without obstructing the passages. Thead them in nice and tight. Hmmm -- did I forget one barb in my parts count? Well, make sure you have enough . . .

. . .cuz I did forget the extraction chamber filter: That's two of those big shredded-wheat-size puffs of medium grit steel wool. Take the steel woll, and push them side by side up one end of the 10" pipe. Don't worry about being gentle, just that they are side-by side and get crammed in there. Then put the pipe end-down on a hard surface and pound the steel wool from the top as much as you'd like to. I used a hammer handle as a plunger . . .

Wrap teflon tape liberally around the filtered end of the pipe and cap it with the single-barbed cap. This is the bottom.

When the time comes, you will fill the pipe with up to 100g of chopped/ground stuff -- pot trimmings, bud, poppies, whatever. For now we'll leave it empty.

Screw the top cap on. Make both caps as tight as you can with pipe wrenches, but still removable.

Move on to "assembly."

ASSEMBLY

Lie all the stuff on its side on the floor.

Using the extraction chamber as an index, figure out how long everything needs to be to fit in the shortest space, with the condensor at the top, and the evaporator at the bottom. Lay it out with the top of the extraction chamber about 6" the low side coil outlet, and one barb of the expnasion chamber lid about 6" below that. Bring the high-side coil tube down to the other expansion chamber barb and cut it about 6" above the barb.

Cut the re-enforced hose to the proper lenghts to connect the pieces, add hose clamps, and connect it all up. You can heat the hose and/or use PAM cooking spray on the MALE ends of things to help get the hoses on.

TIGHTEN TIGHTEN TIGHTEN

Move on to "injection and testing"

INJECTION AND TESTING

When everything was assembed, there was an extra barb left open at the top of the extraction chamber. This is where you will inject butane. You need to figure out some way of getting the butane in. This means a means of depressing the valve of the butane can while it is inserted into the barb. I used a piece of rubber hose, inset into the barb such that the valve of the butane can was pressed as the can was touching the rim of the barb. This sealed the backflow of butane as it entered the system. Since valves differ on different butane products, you'll have to wing this part.

The other part of the injection issue is plugging the hole you just filled from. A piece of the re-enforced hose with an empty (fired) .38 cartridge makes a good plug -- remember the hose clamps!

Once you think you have an innjector valve built, hang the entire business up at a comfortable height. It will hang from the bail on the bucket just fine.

Testing and operation with butane is best done on a cold day. Cold means below freezing. Butane boils at about 30f (-0.5c). We don't want it to boil anywhere but in the expansion chamber.

To keep things below boiling, and to condense vapors, we need to cool the butane. This is what the coil is used for. To cool the coil, take a gallon jug of ice that has been frozen in the deep freeze. Peel off the container so you just have the ice. Slip the ice into the middle of the coil. If you can fit two gallons, do it.

I next use snow to pack around the ice. When that's a full as I can get it, I grab a gallon of heavily salted water that has also been in the deep freeze till little bits of ice are forming. This is about +20f. Pour this water into the bucket. Put a thermometer in it till it's all below 25f in there. Save about 2 cups of the water.

Get a platform up to within a couple inches of the bottom of the expansion chamber. suspend the chamber in a mixing bowl and add the two cups of icy water to the bowl. When everything is down to 25f or lower, you're ready to test the unit.

To test,

loosen the ring on the mason jar
Press the butane bottle into the valve for about a minute.
quickly tighten the ring on the mason jar and then plug the injection port.

Liquid butane will pour into the expansion chamber. Let it drip through, sniffing and listening for leaks at the various joints. Go around and tighten hose clamps and fittings until all leaks seem to have gone away. There might always be a hint of smell, but the important thing is that you can hold pressure.

Once you are satisifed with the integrity of your system, removed the mixing bowl from under the expansion chamber. Mark the butane level on the side of the mason jar.

Rinse the mixing bowl with warm water and fill with a couple cups of 100f water.

Slowly immerse the expansion chamber in the warm water. The butane will begin boiling. Soon you should see a drip from the extraction chamber side tubing. Let the process work for an hour or so, checking that you have enough heat to keep the evaporation/condensation cycle going. The test is complete when you can stop the boiling with icy water, wait 15 minutes, and have close to the same volume of liquid butane reappear in the mason jar.

For live exercises, fill the extraction chamber with up to 100g of the donor substance of your choice, to within about an inch of the top. Tamp it in lightly if you need to. Let the process run as long as you'd like to.

When you're done, you have your extracted goodness and the butane sitting in the bottom of the mason jar. You can remove the jar from its lid and cap it for security uintil you can release the butane.

If you want to reuse the butane, I have some modifications to this simple design that will let you recover most of it for next time.

Enjoy!

I succesfully used an old m&m's tube and poked some holes in it. one on the top for the butane nozzle and a bunch more on the bottom. took maybe 5 minutes to make

That kind of method is what I'm offering an alternative to with my Prepetual Motion Goodness Extractor. I admire the ingenuity I've seen in these "one-pass/total-loss" solutions -- and I've seen them used -- but I've got a little paranoia about the smell and the fumes, as well as the economy and safety of using all that butane, or alcohol, for that matter. I don't think I can move all the THC out of the donor stuff in one pass, and I think it calls a lot of attention to myself to shoot a couple or three 8oz cans of butane into my backyard air.

But my Prepetual Motion Goodness Extractor With a few modifications will do much more than a prepetual butane extraction. It's a still. So by separating the expansion chamber from the collection chamber you can separate alcohol from cheap vodka. Although more expensive than butane, it stinks less, is safer, and it's still cheaper (and stronger) than everclear. The modifications basically amount to removing the extraction chamber and routing the flow from the bottom of the coil to a pop bottle, and using a heatable, sealable vessel like a pressure cooker for an expansion chamber instead of the mason jar. Of course you need a better heat source than a mixing bowl of tap water, too. Butane boils at about +30f, but pure alcohol boils around +170f, and impure vodka might take +185f to build up enough vapor to run to the coil.

Also, if you add valves in the right places you can trap the solvent in the coil, change out the donor stuff or reconfigure the device, and restart the process without a significant loss of solvent. I have valves at the top and bottom of the extraction chamber, top and bottom of the coil, and at both of the ports in the expansion chamber lid. I can separate the solvent from the goodness and drip it into a glass bottle when I'm done, put it in the deepfreeze, and reuse it next time. This control, economy, and better safety makes the effort worthwhile. It's also fun to watch!

Damn .... let me read all this shit, see if I understand it, and get back to you on it. What I really only want is the THC in its purest form to use as a tincture. Right now I use about an once of the best herbs I can find per 375ml 190pf EverClear. It takes about 30 days though to extract the THC using a cold extraction methode used. But it works. A couple drops when I'm done and I'm feelling nice without all the ephoria (sp). Its a lot more mellow, but relaxing just the same.

I was hoping a butane methode would extract the THC faster so that i could just mix it up in the 190pf EC and tincture myself away. I'm definitely still interetsed in your methods though. I also appreciate the time you took to type all that shit. Let me just sift through it and get back to you all.

Thanks,
sprt

just use 91% or 70% ISO and a very short shake period..2 minutes is about right with cleaned buds, trim or shake...the longer you shake/soak, the more green you get [that is not what you want]...at 2 min your yield should be amber colored and relatively hard when evaporated dry...ISO is about 1/10th the price of everclear...if you prefer a tincture, you can always use a little everclear to keep your product liquid and ready to use...

yeah but that 'green dragon' shit is just plain nasty. save the ispropyl for cleaning the keyboard or starting cool little fires. that method rodekyll posted is probably the best around for a nice, fairly clean oil and one i used to use...before reading up on and buying a set of bubblebags! bubblebags are the only way to go...!

I've done both the alcohol and butane extraction methods. If you don't like the green syrup that the alcohol presents (and who does?) butane is your solvent. The green is clorophyl (so I can't spell -- so what?) and other gaggy stuff. I've separated the green out of alcohol extractions, but it's messy, stains everything, and tastes more like the tar you scrape from your pipe when times are hard than essential oil.

On the other hand, The butane extract is a cheery gold color from the get-go. Butane doesn't seem to pick up the green much at all, and the post-extraction separation of the desired goodness and whatever else the butane leeched out is done quite simply with reagent alcohol. The good stuff is carried in the alcohol, and the rest beads up on the bottom of the container.

I use the same apparatus I described above to re-distill cheap vodka. Two passes thru the still (first pass at 190f, 2nd pass at 175f) and the resulting moonshine won't float a hydrometer at all, so I don't know exactly how pure it gets. It burns bluer and hotter than everclear though, and evaporates more quickly too. I use this stuff for post-extraction processing with good results. I've tasted it too -- pretty nasty, but a spoonful will give you about the same buzz as a black russian . . .

If you folks like cooking with this stuff, the butane extracted product is almost impossible to taste in anything I've added it to. Budder tastes like herb butter. Brownies taste like brownies. I don't advocate ambushing people with laced brownies, but it's certainly that undetectable. I can't say that about the alcohol extracted oils, or about the kiff/powder hash products.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ICEToker

just use 91% or 70% ISO and a very short shake period..2 minutes is about right with cleaned buds, trim or shake...the longer you shake/soak, the more green you get [that is not what you want]...at 2 min your yield should be amber colored and relatively hard when evaporated dry...ISO is about 1/10th the price of everclear...if you prefer a tincture, you can always use a little everclear to keep your product liquid and ready to use...

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I used a 1:10 ratio good chrone to EC for thirty days and I had to drink the whole bottle (50ml) to get even the lightest head change. If i where to ever do it again (which I wont) I would use a 1:5 ratio instead. I've get my weed for free so I wasnt trippen. I was just disappointed in the whole tincture thing.

Butane is next for me. :thumbsup:
Sprt

hehe yeah the high is great. the taste is nice but the high is very strong and lasts way longer (for me) than with normal hash.
i think BHO (butane) and ISO (isopropanol) are about the same quality, to be honest i dont know the difference between BHO and ISO-oil except for the method of extraction
Ive made some butane honey oil yesterday (and today)
ive used a pipe, some screen, tape, 500ml gas, a piece of iron in which the gas goes and of course the trim..
put the screen on the pipe, put the trim in there, put the iron thingy on top of it and put the gas down there.
the cannabinoids will come down with the gas, into a container. the gas boils at 0C, so after some time only the oil will be left in the container.
I have had some problems (the trim was too tight and didnt let the gas through in the end) but i managed to get some fine quality BHO from trimmings only.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SprtNVolcoM00

I used a 1:10 ratio good chrone to EC for thirty days and I had to drink the whole bottle (50ml) to get even the lightest head change. If i where to ever do it again (which I wont) I would use a 1:5 ratio instead. I've get my weed for free so I wasnt trippen. I was just disappointed in the whole tincture thing.

Butane is next for me. :thumbsup:
Sprt

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I haven't tried the Butane yet, but I did use the 1:5 ratio ... worked out a lot better. 2ml-3ml got me f*ck'n stoned!! I didnt wait the thirty days either or cold extraction method, instead I gave the EC/Weed mix a water bath for a couple minutes. Gota be careful though, EC is highly flamable (learned the hard way).

Anyway, just wanted to say that in about 10min time I had a nice 60ml vial of pretty potent tincture.

Still wana try the Butane though,
Sprt