This is my first thread here so please be gentle. I’ll try to keep it simple. Nothing important is at stake, no drinking out of the wrong bottle or anything life altering. I just want to know and I have not found anything in my searches.
Here’s what gives. I’m working on a simple syrup project using a common recipe that is circulating, just seeing if/how it works. Wanting to avoid surfactants if possible and I’ve had good luck with simple syrups in the past but they were only really small batches and before the commercial syrups became common. It didn’t matter then if you had a bit of wax stuck to the side. It was common because winterizing wasn’t.
Everybody freaks out about the wax even though you’ll find it even on the dispensary syrups. I’m of the opinion that the wax represents minimal cannabinoid loss and can be filtered out if it doesn’t just stick to the original vessel, leaving a beautiful syrup.
The secret ingredient here is supposed to be glycerin, not as the infuser but just as the emulsifier. 5 ingredients…sugar, water, glycerin, citric acid and unwinterized shatter dissolved in ethanol. I have previously made a syrup with glycerin that worked well but I winterized. This time I was wanting to see how it went without doing so. I feel that the infusion process should have captured my cannabinoids leaving the wax behind
I use citric acid to make an invert syrup and it needs to reach 235°F. If I understand correctly “cannabis oil” becomes molten at 180°F and more readily infuses into sugars and such. I don’t remember if that refers to THC or the group. I read it a couple of places but won’t swear it’s right. It gives me a point of reference, though.
I tried the syrup last night. It’s not potent because I mixed up my measurements and made 16oz for just one gram instead of half that. It’s about 45mg/oz of syrup. I tried a couple of ounces in some ice tea and copped really nice effects for afternoon and evening.
Since I know it works I want to prove that it has cannabinoids in it at least so I thought to run a TLC plate. I mentioned that I had made a glycerin syrup like this before and I ran it on a plate with a few other kinds of samples, no other syrups. At the time I saw that the syrup sample would not break down in the solvent. It just remained a clear glob that would roll around in the vial and I couldn’t get it to blend and couldn’t pierce it. That lane on the plate was blank.
Today I saw the same thing. I use 100mg of syrup with 1ml of whatever the solvent is and shake, shake, shake, shake, shake and let sit…and shake, shake, shake. Still just a round ball in a vial of solvent. I’m sorry I can’t get a picture of it to illustrate it. I was hoping that there would be something in the solvent that would cause a reaction when I ran it.
So I processed it along with a sample of cannabis powder to use as a control. I knew it would show some color. The syrup lane is blank, nada, no idea anything was ever there. The powder lane is good. I didn’t have a full weighted sample of it because it wouldn’t all fit in the vial.
The company I bought the test kit from mentioned in the midst of a paragraph somewhere that they had problems with glycerin. Didn’t say what kind of problems but there was just 2 tablespoons in 16oz of product. This is now the second time it’s happened and it has me wondering if this is a property of an emulsion and not necessarily the glycerin alone. I don’t know. Don’t really have a clue and hoping someone here has any idea.
Now, because I believe that if there’s no pictures, it didn’t happen, here’s the plate. The syrup is on the right and the powder on the left. Or, the syrup should have been on the right. What do you think?
