Quote Originally Posted by ucesq
It seems that a lot of the techniques developed by Master Wu for Green Dragon should be applicable to this. For example, Decarboxylation could be used to convert the THCA to THC.
I agree. I think most of Master Wu's techniques for making Green Dragon could be applied to this glycerine tincture.

Quote Originally Posted by ucesq
What I don't understand about the above-recipe is the very long (36 Hour) heating time and requirement for a thread-lock beaker or autoclave. First, GD only has to boil for about 20-30 minutes to create a potent mix. My simple understanding of the process is heat applied to herb breaks down cell walls to release more THC to bind with the Alcohol or Fat. Therefore, if the temperature is not heated anywhere close to the boiling point of Glycerine - why must an airtight container be used? Is there some reaction occurring between the Glycerine and air that I don't understand at 311F? Since Glycerine does not boil until 554F, it should be fine without being airtight.
I went to another forum that had a long discussion of this recipe, and it seemed like they eventually decided that the 36-hour process with the thread-lock screw-seal boiling beaker was not valid. First, no one could actually find a piece of equipment called a thread-lock screw-seal boiling beaker. Beyond that, people had the same ideas you had, that the temperature was too high for too long. I think the idea behind the process was that the higher temperatures would cause a more complete isomerization step, and the airtight vessel was to prevent any of the desireable compounds from evaporating or oxidizing --- not that the glycerine would eveprate or react, but the THC would evaporate or react. Or, possibly the higher temperature had to do with the fact that THC is soluble in glycerine, but not as soluble as in alcohol or fat, so it takes longer --- maybe the temperature and time are to speed up that process, but 36 hours at over 300F seems like more than required for the extraction. Anyway, no one at the other forum was ever able to validate this longer high-temperature process.

Even if it could not be validated, it seems like there might be something to the idea of using slightly higher tempearatures in a vessel that could contain the preasure and keep out the oxygen. With the regular green dragon recipe, the temperature cannot exceed the boiling point of alcohol, around 170F. If all the alcohol boils away, then it does not exceed the boiling point of water, 212F. If you boil out all the water and don't use the water bath, then you could get higher temps, but above a certain point, some of the desirable compounds begin to evaporate. Maybe there are isomerization reactions that can occur at temperatures that are higher than these temperatures? I don't know if that is true or not.

If higher temperatures do result in some different reactions occuring, then one idea might be to heat the glycerine/weed mixture in an oven, but keep it below the vaporizing temperature of the desireable weed compounds (whatever that might be? 250? 300?) In this case I would just forget about the thread-lock screw-seal boiling beaker and use some other kind of vessel that could be covered to prevent too much oxygen circulation, but would not really seal to hold in pressure. Covering the vessel might prevent some oxidizing that might occur, and as long as the weed were covered with glycerine, I think that would help to preven too much oxygen exposure as well. Again, I'm not knowledgable enough in chemistry to know if this would produce a desireable isomerization reaction, but it would take advantage of the fact that glycerine can go to higher temperatures without boiling than alcohol or water can. Like you mentioned, it can go to over 500F.

Does anyone know if there is anything to this idea?