I think I found the answer, for anyone interested in producing the highest-quality possible honey oil. This page and flash movie carefully explains the steps:

Column Chromatography

So the best procedure would be to:

  • Run the cannabis through a Soxhlet extractor using hexane as your solvent (easier, healthier, safer, and more efficient/selective at extracting THC than butane or other alternatives).
  • Process the result of the extraction with a rotary evaporator, sometimes called a rotovap for short.
  • Process the result of the evaporation with column chromatography, stacking the column, from top to bottom with: sand, silica gel, sand, cotton. Add hexane to the top of the sand before you add the honey oil as a buffer. Attach a syringe to the bottom of the column to pull the oil through.
  • Process the result of this once again through the rotovap to remove the hexane.


What you have at the end of this process should theoretically be a somewhat reduced, but extremely pure, clean, and potent honey oil.

Silica gel is kind of expensive, but you can find it at electronics stores. A bonus is that apparently it should work pretty well for curing; if you threw a packet into a mason jar with the bud it should absorb the moisture as it comes out of the bud. Much more exact than "open the lid every once in a while".
vostro Reviewed by vostro on . Column chromatography for honey oil Does anyone have experience using column chromatography for the isolation of cannabinoids (mainly THC) in honey oil? I've researched high and low and have only been able to find mentions but nothing helpful for someone figuring it out. My basic idea was to run ground bud through a Soxhlet with hexane, purify through silica gel column chromatography and remove the hexane with a rotary evaporator. If I've understood correctly, this should yield highly potent, extremely pure honey oil. I'm not Rating: 5