Hi folks, I wanted to invite any interested parties to my company’s shop in the Gunbarrel, Colorado area to see our ‘lipid infusion’ process in action. This week I started a production run of infusing MCT oil with 300+ lbs of hemp and I expect to be busy infusing til the end of next week.
My company conceives and builds infusion equipment and also offer infusion processing services.
Without the hassle of using hazardous solvents to make concentrates, a large array of products can be made from infused oils in a streamlined manner including:
Edibles
Gummies
Topicals/salves/skincare
Tablets via oil-absorbing powders
Nanoemulsions
totally full spec product… if it is oil soluble then it’s going into the infusion. some infusions taste better than others no doubt. I honestly haven’t isolated the reason why so many infusions come out bitter but I have found some hemp and d9 strains give oils that taste, well, pretty damn good and true to the strain they were made with. My opinion is “lipid infusion” (an expression I hate because people assume the process is way more technically advanced than it really is) is the edible & topical cousin to the way rosin is for vaping: fantastically easy, and adheres to the ‘fire in = fire out’ mantra. My recent d9 infusion – made from my aunt & uncle in law’s trim (been growing for decades) – gets reviews all the time of “best damn tincture I’ve ever had”
edit to add: “naturally-infused oils” is my preferred nomenclature
definitely no upsell – I’ve worked with this process for over two years and firmly believe this is the future of craft topical & edible production. So much easier than working with concentrates and ‘rebuilding’ strain profiles.
BTW this is how the Italian (and German?) governments dispense medical cannabis – as olive oil infusions. Likewise a lot of research has come out from there talking about stability, phytochemical retention, etc.
I hate the taste of weed. I think most people ( maybe I’m way off) want there edibles to taste, well, not like weed.
Distillate or decarbed thca mixed with a carrier oil is hard to beat imo. I’m a capsule guy, but you can cook with these with minimal taste (when compared to infusions) ime. I don’t see the potency of this being anywhere near that of disty or decarbed thca
Note: I realize this is hemp, just talking about what I have dealt with
There is little to no research data on the gut absorption of terpenes and terpenoids. It looks like pinene and limonene have zero bioavailability at least from this one study.
" In a pharmacokinetic study with human volunteers, enteric
coated capsules containing a defined mixture of limonene,
1,8-cineole and a -pinene, were investigated (41). As capsules
were administered uncrushed and crushed (as a surrogate of
a liquid application), some information on the absorption of
1,8-cineole, which was the only compound detected in suffi-
cient quantities in the plasma of all patients, can be extracted
from this study…"
Ran lipid infusion for a while and two batches of decarbed flower (5lbs each) yield about 4 gallons of 1000mg/oz product but started with 5 gallons, there’s a little waste that will be recovered via screw press or fuge down the line *this was with super midsy material probably 6% total cannabinoid content?
I think this has to do with your olfactory capabilities on your mucosal membranes that are exposed to the oil/terpene/cannabinoid tinctures.
Somewhat an entourage effect occuring.
There are probably cannabinoid receptors in our upper GI that rapidly recognize the cannabinoid intake, and can co-effect how the terpenes are observed with our olfactory sensors.
My filtration is pretty basic, normally I use a bit of air pressure to push through the 0.5 micron, ptfe backed felt sold by places like DudaDiesel. Doing it at warmer temps speeds things up but I prefer to minimize use of heat with these oils
Terps taste even worse. Unless there is more research on the absorption of terpenes (which can’t happen in the gut, low pH + high volatility = waste of time and precious compounds) through sublingual buccal delivery systems, seems like a far reach. I understand some individuals like to have some of the weed or cannabinoid taste because it assures them that it is infused, but people want infused products that taste good, not like sour diesel or golden goat.
As I said, lots of interesting work out there coming from Italian researchers concerning infused oil product stability, terpene content and so on. This quote from
“As a general comment, the extraction methods of medical Cannabis oils that involve a decarboxylation step at high tempera- ture (145 ◦ C), even for a limited time, led to a poor terpenes fraction. Conversely, the use of milder decarboxylation conditions (115◦C for prolonged time) in a closed flask is highly recommended in order to obtain a product rich in terpenes.”
For decarboxylation, my process generally is to:
add infused oil to reactor at room temperature
several times: pull vac to remove O2 from oil/reactor & backfill with argon/N2
heat up vessel jacket & oil infusion to 100 degC
cook oil for 4 to 6 hours or until desired completion
Have you tried fractioning off your terpenes (steam distillation, CO2 extraction, etc.) prior to the “lipid infusion”?
You would have a shorter decarboxylation time, the terpenes can be preserved and reintroduced (or used/sold separately). Decarbing with presence of volatile organic compounds can be tricky.
I have not! Steam distillation I would worry introduces water content that should be removed again before oil infusion. CO2 capture seems like it could fit however with a higher cost.
Preferably I would like to stay contained within the grind → infuse → decarb → filter procedure. Some I know use color remediation adsorbents but I find that quality input material makes good colors.
For decarb I’m interested in the notion that YIPS is putting out there. I’m guessing that they are pressurizing with inert gas to inhibit volatility (discussed elsewhere here I’m pretty sure).
Promise one day I will show up here with terp data!
