Should this tincture turn out OK?

[AwakeningCT]

so. I ground up one ounce of good quality buds finely. In a oven safe bowl with tinfoil on top I baked @ roughly 215-230 degress for about 40-45 minutes, to decarboxylize the weed.

The bud came out slightly browner than before basically dark greenish/brown. It smelled a little like vaped bud, makes sense.Then I put the cooked bud in a mason jar and covered it with 151 bicardi rum, slightly over the line of the bud. My friend also added a moderate amount of straight up kief, not decarbed.

Shaking occasionally I plan to let it sit for approx 2 weeks. Did I miss or forget anything or should this turn out OK. Overall the bud to alcohol ratio was very high (28 grams in 200ml.) I am skightly concerned i may have messed up with the decarb process. Please let me know, thanks!!

 

[w01fg4ng]

Green Dragon huh? Finding the right GD recipe is almost as difficult as actually chasing a dragon.

I think your decarb method might be only slightly off. First off, don't use a bowl, you should be using something flat like a cookie sheet as to evenly spread the dryness equally over all of the herb (don't ball it up into a bowl).

Second, your decarb times seem slightly long to me (unless you are using fresher, wetter buds), meaning that your recipe is probably going to be slightly more sedating than uplifting if that makes sense. Being a green dragon recipe though you probably don't care too much because the alcohol will also make you sleepy.

My last recommendation would be to use slightly more alcohol and then at the end of the recipe (before filtering out the weed) put everything into a crock-pot on warm heat for at least an hour or so. This will assure that the THC and other goodies are being extracted into the alcohol at the same time you may make a more concentrated drink by allowing as much of the Bacardi to evaporate as you see fit.


Drink responsibly.

 

[AwakeningCT]

Thanks!! The decard time and temp actually seemed a bit less than other ones i read online. Also, the bowl was pretty large and the bud was evenly spread so I am not concerned about that part. BTW I already did all of this and it is currently sitting in the alcohol right now. 2 weeks sound good to wait till I strain?

 

[w01fg4ng]

Thanks!! The decard time and temp actually seemed a bit less than other ones i read online. Also, the bowl was pretty large and the bud was evenly spread so I am not concerned about that part. BTW I already did all of this and it is currently sitting in the alcohol right now. 2 weeks sound good to wait till I strain?

No problem. If you have experience with decarbing then you probably did ok. 2 weeks with agitation sounds good for a simple extraction.

However, I'm not sure how good your return will be starting with only 200ml but I understand your reasoning (you wouldn't need to evaporate down and you wouldn't have to deal with flammables and/or heat so much).

Everything looks good to me, but I wouldn't expect a large return...this is something worth trying once for sure though...have fun!

 

[AwakeningCT]

The idea was to use a smaller amount of alcohol in order to make the tincture more potenet. Is there anything wrong with that logic? Yes I understand the final yield of the mix (once strained) will be less, but shouldn't it be more potent.

 

[w01fg4ng]

Yes, your recipe looks potent and should work. I was only suggesting that you might be able to make it more potent by starting with a larger amount and then reducing the mix using evaporation. This reason behind this is to assure that all the cannabinoids are being extracted into the solution.

Another way to look at this is to re-phrase your question. The question your post is implying would be "How many mg of THC/CBD/CBN/CBG/etc can I fit into 1 ml of grain alcohol and how quickly does it happen when using bacardi 151?"

Since noone really has an accurate answer for you, you are essentially attempting to answer this question yourself using your own science experiment (kind of).

The idea behind using a larger amount and evaporating down is that you are assuring that ALL the cannabinoids are being extracted into the alcohol at which point you may (safely!) evaporate down to the desired level for consumption.

With that said, I think your recipe might be sufficient to make the evaporation step unnecessary, but I can't say for sure without free lab tests done etc.

In conclusion, your recipe is good and potent and has promise but without more experiments we will never know if it's as potent as it can be. Good job btw

 

[AwakeningCT]

Thanks!! As far as decarbing.. Do you think the 40 mins at about 220 degress would have been sufficient?

 

[w01fg4ng]

That sounds standard to me. If the bud is "snap" dry, meaning when you bend a piece it snaps in two fairly easily then yes, 40min@220 should work well. I would only decarb longer/hotter if the bud was "wet". I think the last decarb I used on standard bud was 30 min @225, and I've seen others use a similar recipe.

I have noticed some people on this forum using higher/longer temps/times to get a different effect, HERES AN EXAMPLE

So you can see that people have different recipes for decarbing as well and for good reasons.

Unfortunately I think the kief your friend pitched in was probably a waste if it wasn't decarbed (hopefully it wasn't that much?). Even though decarb recipes can differ from person to person, most will agree that decarbing IS necessary for a proper edible/tincture. However there is another side to this coin.

Other side to this coin: I don't see many people talking about (mostly cause it doesn't get you high), and that's using THCA and CBDA and other precursors to cannabinoids as medical benefits. Many people claim Juicing to be medically beneficial.

Good talk.