• Cannabis Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules

Making shatter

sailor bugg

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 2, 2014
Messages
732
Hello all! I'm new here and this is my first post!

Now a little about myself and my knowledge of stuff. I have 3 years of organic and 2 years of non-organic chemistry as well as 2 years of engineering post secondary so all the chemical processes are easy for me to understand (polar solvents/non-polar solvents etc.) and building contraptions is fairly easy for me. I used to smoke my fair share a long while ago but quit and after finding an oz of stuff in a drawer a month ago in my room and decided to make bho out of it as kind of a fun experiment. So I ended up with shatter as what the extract was. This was decarboxylated and then isomerizered to yield about 3 grams of very pure THC ( aside from plant waxes/lipids/chlorophyll etc ). This was then turned into THC-O-Acetate with another chemical process which yielded a very, very potent substance that was quite psychedelic. I didn't like that stuff at all and gave it to one of my ex gf's friends to see if he could do something with it.

So anyways after a long long time of searching, reading techs, learning about THC and all the chemicals and apparatus' I'd be needing to use I think I have a good tech down for making shatter.

This is what I have:

1) I'll be starting with a 1/4 lb of starting material as this is the most economical for me. This will be put in a standard oven, heated to 135F on a cookie sheet in the middle of the oven. It will be left in there for at least 2.5 hours and no more than 3 hours, flipping every half hour. So the idea of this is to dehydrate the product and decarboxylate it as that starts at 122F (THC-A > THC) higher temps will cause the CBx's to vap and THC to degrade so 135F seems like the sweet spot. Also this will help keep the shatter more lightly coloured.

2) Cut the product up loosely with scissors and tightly pack a stainless steel or glass tube that a butane can nozzle can be injected into. The other side is covered with cheese cloth clamped on tight.

3) Use Colibri brand butane and before using it chill it in the freezer for at least an hour and a half to lower the butane below its liquidation point ( -0.5 C ). For every OZ of material run 12oz (2 cans) of butane through the tube. Now this is where things can get changed up I designed a butane reclaim system so that no butane goes out into the environment and you can keep your butane and reuse it! But that's not here or there. For all intents and purposes, let the tube drain into a pyrex beaker that has a layer of 200 proof lab grade ethyl ethanol in it, about an inch and a half deep. This will help evap. the butane (sorta).

4) Once all the plant material has been run with butane (make sure it comes out clear! ) and collected in the pyrex beaker, add about 150ml of 200 proof ethyl ethanol to it.

5) Put the beaker in a freezer and leave for 48 hours, this process is called winterization. It will get the lipids, terpenes, waxes to coagulate out of the solution.

6) After 48 hours decant the pyrex beaker into another pyrex beaker with 4x unbleached coffee filters strapped to it. This will filter out the gunk you do not want.

7) Take the pyrex beaker and cover it and take it out on a sunny day that is around 20C out and leave it out in the sun for about 3 hours. This will help break down the chlorophyll in it by use of UV radiation. Thus resulting in a lighter material in the end. Don't leave it out over 4 hours as this is when THC will start breaking down!

8) Now set up a water bath in a metal dish/pan. Take an electric hot plate that can be temp dialled and heat the water bath up to 120F and float a pyrex baking dish in it with a layer of about a centimetre to a centimetre and a half of ethanol/butane/cannibinoid mixture in it. Let it evaporate, don't whip it or muck with it or anything or you might end up with butter or something (ew!). And then scrape it up with a razor.

9) Repeat set 8 until no ethanol/butane/cannibinoid mixture is left.

10) A 1/4 lb of good starting material should yield between 20 - 28 g's of shatter, but it can vary to certain degrees.

So that's my tek I thought up of, any input would be appreciated. I know I should vacuum purge but I can't afford one right now because I just bought a puppy ( Which I'd way rather have lol ) but I think the winterization will circumvent that step. So what do you think guys and gals? (note a vac purg will come after I sell the first batch).
 
Do you have any experience backing up your temperature and time for decarbing? THC naturally degrades at room temp, just very slowly. Heating up speeds up the process. I'm not aware of a temp that decarbs without degrading, and from what I've read and experienced decarboxylation occurs faster than degradation. This is why I prefer higher temps and shorter times. You obviously have more relevant education so I'm really interested in this whole process.
 
Yes I do have a little graph I can show you explaining decarb
decarboxylation-graph-1-11.jpg


Now as it would seem a higher temp at a shorter interval of time would produce the most desired effects, but you'd be vaping other cannibinoids so I believe that a slower heating process over a longer period of time is more useful.
 
Last edited:
Yes I've seen the graph but having done it at many different temps and times the high has been best at the shorter times and higher temps, which leads me to believe I'm not losing anything important. The degradation of THC is definitely an issue with long cook times. I'd expect 3 hours to give you a really heavy, sedating, less euphoric high, but then I've never decarbed at such a low temp so maybe not? I'd try smaller amounts at different temps and times and compare.

Oh, also it's worth pointing out that to the best of my knowledge decarbing below ~220 F is pointless because none of the relevant compounds vaporize below that temp.
 
Last edited:
I would do that but just a few problems, I hate smoking weed and this stuff is for a friend of mine who wants an OZ. So I can't really fiddle around to see what temp does what. The main idea I had was slow cooking it would first off dry the weed out so the butane picks up less undesirables and second to turn THC-A into THC. Now I know that's kind of a moot point because when THC-A is subjected to heat it turns into THC so……. But I also read that it will help the colour turn to a nicer light colour and not as dark when the shatter is finished.
 
You can use small amounts to make capsules and test the decarb without smoking or completing the hash process.
 
I suppose but you know the more that I think about it the more that I get the feeling the THC-A isn't gonna be that significantly altered by 3 hours of 120*F cooking. I think the main issue is desiccating the weed and making it pull out less undesirables when the butane is applied. Also colour is said to be positively effected to, a nice absolute amber is what I want. So I think I'll pass up on converting the THC-A to THC by heating as the weed I'm getting is already very high in THC content anyways. But it seems a slow heating just to dry it out would be beneficial to get a nice colour plus help not extract all those nasty lipids/waxes/terpenes/chlorophyll.
 
Also if anyone know how much product do you think I'd lose to winterizing? Seeing as all those chlorophyll/terpenes/lipids/waxes coagulate out thats gotta account for some mass. Altho butane is a very good non polar solvent but it does have a bit of water mixed in with it to pull that stuff out. It's probably worth it in the end to get a nice clear product right? Smoother hitting to.
 
Top