Tincture of Mars

**dragonrider** · 05-15-2008, 05:21 PM

Here are the results of my tincture experiment:

I cooked the 1 oz glycerine and 4 grams of decarboxylized weed at about 200 F for about 4 hours. The weed took on a lot darker appearance after that amount of time.

I strained out the tincture using a fine-mesh sieve and pressing the mash hard with a spoon. I only got about 1/2 ounce of tincture out of the mash, so I don't know if the other 1/2 ounce remained absorbed in the weed mash, or if there was some kind of evaopration. Probably some of both. I think there is some percentage of water in glycerine, so maybe that could have evaporated. But I could tell there was a lot of glycerine still in the mash that I could not squeeze out. I labeled that first "press" as #1 and set it aside.

Then I added another 1 oz of glycerin to the mash, along with a teaspoon of Everclear 151, and I cooked that for another 2.5 or 3 hours. Then I strained that second batch of tincture out the same way using the sieve and spoon. This time I got about a full ounce, so that supports the idea that the first "press" was short 1/2 ounce because the mash had absorbed the other 1/2 ounce. Since the weed had already absorded all it could hold, the second batch yielded about as much liquid as was put in. I labeled that second "press" #2 and set it aside.

Then I put a couple ounces of Everclear 151 in with the mash and cooked that in a double boiler setup for about 1/2 hour and extracted the liquid using the seive and spoon again. That one I labeled #3.

Tincture #1 after the extraction was more viscous than the glycerine was before the cooking, so either there was some kind of evaporation of the dissolved water, or maybe absorbing the pot resin increased the viscosity, or both. The tincture has a brown/gold color, sort of like a dark honey. I like the taste a lot. It tasts a lot better than Green Dragon. The glycerine is sweet, and there is sort of a toasted nutty flavor and a kind of grassy herbal flaovr as well. It's hard to describe, but I think it is pleasant.

Tincture #2 is not as viscous as #1 and not as dark in color. I had added the teaspoon of Everclear 151, so maybe that thinned the final product some. The taste is a lot like the first batch. You cannot taste the alcohol from the Everclear at all, so it probably evaporated almost completely away.

Tincture #3 is very liquid, just like green dragon. It is much browner in color than the green dragon I have made in the past. I haven't tasted it yet. I mostly made it just to be sure that I had extracted all the THC and none was wasted.

I'm always kind of cautious when dosing myself with things I haven't tried before, so I haven't gotten realy HIGHHHHH off of it yet. I'm not sure if that is because of low doses, or because it isn't all that strong. First I tried about 4 drops of #1 and went for a bike ride. I could tell I was a bit high, but not intensly high. I had a good body sensation, but not much head high. It was actually about perfect for a bike ride when you mostly want to enjoy the ride and not be too high. Another factor is that I am on a kind of fast right now so I already feel a little bit tired and light headed, so it's hard to pick out what is due to the tincture and what is due to low blood sugar!

The next day I tried about 6 drops and went for another ride with similar results --- a nice feeling, but not an obvious high.

If I get a chance, I'll try a larger dose today. Does anyone know how this stuff should be dosed? LdyMarsRN said it only takes a few drops for her. My 6 drops are about 1/2 of a dropper full. Usually when I make Green Dragon with 4 grams of weed, I get something I mix into about 24 doses. I'm not sure how much a dropper holds, so I may be taking a lot less than a full dose. Does anyone know? I don't have a good way to measure out milliliters right now.

My plan is to keep increasing doses until I get to an "effective" one. Then I'll figure out how many doses I've made to determine how efficient the recipe is. I also want to compare the #1 and #2 tinctures for how strong they are. And if it turns out that there is not much THC in the glycerine tinctures, I'll try the #3 green dragon to see if anything was captured in that step.

Does anyone have any opinions on the process I used? It's too early to start worrying about it, but I'm wondering if I used too high a temp for too long. Another thing I wonder about is whether the decarboxylization process is necessary if you are going to use long cook times and high temps. Does anyone know about this? I've never made canna-butter or canna-oil, but do people decarb for that, or is the cook time and temp enough to do it? It seemed like people were having trouble getting the glycerine to dissolve the THC, so I wanted a long cook time. But I'm wondering if THC begins to degrade after enough temperature and time.

Also, has anyone ever taken a sublingual tincture? To me, it was kind of wierd. I put the drops under my tongue, and immediately my mouth began to water. I had this idea that I should hold the tincture in my mouth as long as possible, but within just a minute or two my mouth was so full of spit I had to swallow it.

All in all, I'd say this is a pretty easy process, and the result tastes good. It's too early for me to say whether I think it is an efficient or effective recipe. I'll post back. Any feedback is appreciated.

**Coelho** · 05-15-2008, 06:41 PM

Hello my friend! Nice to know that youre back to making experiments with weed... i think im done with it (i already spent more weed than i wished doing unsucessfull experiments), but if you get some nice results maybe i try some of it again...