Small scale home extraction set up questions

Hash and Stuff Terps
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Hi, I am looking to start doing some extracting at home and have been trying to decide what the best route to take would be. I have an engineering background, but pretty much failed chemistry. I can understand the processes and the tangible aspects of things, but not so much completely understanding the actual chemistry behind it.

I am looking for the highest yield while also retaining as many of the terps as possible. Frankly, I don’t care how it looks or tastes (as long as it isn’t complete shit) I just want as much of the cannabinoids as reasonably possible. Being smokable would be nice but not necessary as I also have a rosin press and right now I am mostly looking to get concentrates that will be used for various types of edibles and topicals.

I am also not opposed to multiple different extraction methods depending on the end product. For the topicals I don’t care about the terps and with both the edibles and topicals I would want some that was not decarbed as part of the extraction process because the acid forms can also have some medical benefits. I would be looking to extract THCa, CBDa, CBGa, and CBDV as well as the minor cannabinoids from various types of flowers.

I am not able to grow my own so I will be extracting from dispensary weed, decent quality hemp flower, as well as the pucks left from pressing and possibly AVB too.

My initial thought was to do a quick cold ethanol wash to get the crude, but I can’t decide where to go from there. I am leaning towards just doing a low temp vacuum distillation through a reflux column to get most of the ethanol out but leave most of the terps, but I don’t know how the azeotropes between the ethanol and more volatile terps would work. I am not too concerned about removing all of the ethanol because I am not too worried about it being smokeable and it is just for personal use.

I have also considered short path distillation but from what I’ve read it seem like it is even harder to separate the terps from the ethanol that way. I would still consider this for the topical applications because as far as I can tell terps don’t really do much of anything on the skin.

Aside from changing solvents to a petroleum based one are there any other options I am overlooking? What is the best option for achieving the most yield and preserving as many minor cannabinoids as possible? I would prefer to stay away from “*-ane” extractions, but if it really is my best option then I might put more consideration towards it.

Also, for decarbing, I should be able to decarb for longer at a low temp in a sealed container and most of the terps that do boil off will just condense and not be lost, correct?

Sorry for how long the post is and that I may have started to ramble. I may have been smoking all day and trying to figure out a process for months so I’m having trouble organizing it all in my head as I’m typing it out.

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I don’t see this being realistic. You will end up paying more per gram than if you just bought the end product at the dispensary…

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Not here I wouldn’t. I am in Delaware and non-distillate concentrates are very limited and expensive as hell. Last time I bought rosin it was $65 for 0.5 grams. And no, that wasn’t a typo. And even then I might be willing to buy if there was any selection to be found at all. Currently in the entire state my only options are cinderella shatter and chocolope, sour diesel, master kush, and wedding cake RSO.

I really don’t see much of an option other than do it myself because I don’t want to buy black market.

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Your best bet is probably grabbing a rosin press…

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I have one, but I don’t get hardly any return on hemp flower. I also want to use the pucks from after pressing and extract whatever is left in them. When an 1/8th is $50 I don’t want to throw any of it away.

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Make Flower rosin, with those flower prices and you are going to be disappointed. Flower rosin is generally (atleast the stuff I have tried) very lackluster imo. Not even comparable to some quality hash rosin or bho.

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Meet people and expand your network. Find flower from another state and buy a pound or 2. Use that to extract etc…

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Start a small grow. If you can that is. If not, talk to people who do grow. Avoid the dispensary.

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Buy a press then listen to thrash metal. Automatically makes you good at rosin. I swear.

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WE HEARD YOU LIKE METAL, DAWG SO WE GOT YOU A ROSIN PRESS SO YOU CAN PRESS METAL AND LISTEN TO METAL WHILE YOU CONTROL THE METAL WITH METAL DAWG

But really…These guys have it right. Flower rosin is largely unfulfilling and for 65/ A HALF GRAM a crack habit would be more cost effective. I’m not sure of the laws in your state but if there is any sort of caregiver programs, find one who won’t fleece you, get a little bit and just play around with it. Expecting perfection in the beginning stages of any form of extraction is foolhardy and will essentially disappoint you into quitting. Keep your expectations tempered and expect it to be more like climbing up a mountain rather than a plug and play thing. Yeah it’s not instant gratification but once you finally nail it you feel extremely accomplished. Just remember the general ‘ladder’ of rosin quality. Bottom is flower, next rung up is keef (think what’s in your grinder), dry sift (I consider these two different since sift is usually targeted vs keef is just ‘holy shit look at all this stuff in the grinder!’), then finally toward the top you have air dried bubble hash which will come out dark but taste good and then finally the ‘rosinporn’ you’re usually used to seeing online is fresh frozen freeze dried bubble hash.

Don’t let those dispos get you the fuck down, you got this

Rosin is also my little niche` if you will. Not just redditing the shit out of you with advice I wouldn’t follow myself.

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It generally isn’t economically viable to extract from retail purchased weed. Even buying bulk it’s hard.

Grow your own.

If you are looking at $50 for 3.5g or $65 for .5g of Rosin, do you really think you are going to get .5g of comparable extract from the flower?

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I wish I could. It is still illegal here and my girlfriend is a teacher and I work with the government and financial institutions frequently and they sometimes require a background check. Plus I am divorced, but still have 50% custody of my daughter and god forbid her mother find out and use that against me.

I know it is an abysmally small chance of it becoming an issue with just a couple plants, but my girlfriend isn’t comfortable with it in our situation and I am going to respect that.

Not to mention that I just kill pretty much every single plant I have ever tried to grow.

We are also the “very democrat heavy” state that our democrat governor just vetoed what was essentially only a recriminalization bill. Hell, even every single recreational bill they have attempted in the past 5 years still didn’t allow growing, even for medical patients. So in other words there is no caregiver program or anything remotely resembling that.

If I am using a solvent extraction then I would hope to end up ahead. But that is still fairly irrelevant because not even considering the cost my selection and options are complete trash. Currently there is around 5 decent concentrate options in the entire state and it is usually only 2 or 3 different options. And those are all RSO with one option of shatter. There is no dispensary in the state that currently has any rosin available.

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Wait you want to extract at home but not grow?

I think your ex would flip out more at you extracting over growing, if she knows what you’re extracting, if she doesn’t probably still a risk.

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Start here….

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Check graywolf’s lair

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a 1 gal vacuum chamber would be a good investment for you

or a lil mason jar if your going the micro batch route :arrow_down_small:

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That’s actually the refill for my soldering iron…travels in my glove compartment these days. Pretty sure there’s a full size can under the passenger seat at the moment.

Might be sufficient to extract 3-4g. Won’t yield but 1/2g if you’re feeding the tube the bunk you have access to.

If you can afford an oz of input at a time, you can graduate to the more standard starting point.

EtOH is considerably safer to play with (and here in OR is not a felony as homemade BHO is).

Plenty of info on how to get the job done either way here.

a wee open blast into a pie plate outdoors will give you something to compare your qwet to.

Then you can figure out your path forward…

edit: neglected to agree with @Pupparoo. you won’t like the yield or extract from flower rosin. you feel the need to explore squish (works great if you feed it trichomes ONLY), my first rosin press (a temp controlled hair straightener) cost me $20 new.

my second (Jack) cost less than $200.

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if you’re playing that game, I suggest you go visit somewhere legal every now and then…

or stick with the EtOH/hair straightener route(s)

edit:

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Its not illegal for me to extract, but growing would be. That’s the main distinction. She can have an issue with it all she wants, but a court can’t do anything about me extracting or using otherwise it would be discrimination unless it could be proven it was a determinant to my daughter’s wellbeing because I have a medical card and do legitimately use it medically.

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I was trying to avoid butane, but have not completely ruled it out. I won’t open blast though so if I do end up going to route I would build a closed loop system. I would probably be running batches between an 1/4 - 2 ounces. I would be running CBD too and with that I would likely be running at least a half ounce if not an ounce or more at a time.

I do have a press but looking to do more than that because CBD doesn’t press very well and I want to be able to extract everything that is left after pressing THC bud.

I am going to look into closed loop systems again because from what everyone is saying it seems like that is my best best for what I am looking for.

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The amounts you’re talking about, open blasting isn’t as dangerous as you think.

An oz of material is gonna be 300 ml can of butane. Trying to blast and 1/8 and scrape it all up your transfer losses will be insane as well, it’s hard to work with tiny bit and not lose a ton relative to your starting amount.

bho is kinda not an option for you realistically.

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I actually thought it took quite a bit more butane than that.