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Kitchen chem: coffee pot temp thresholds, fast method herb tincture

JayJohnson

JayJohnson

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I have a basic home coffee-maker pot. I want to know the safe temperatures the glass can withstand. Is it tempered? (I don't know the brand - it was in the dumpster. hehe... ) How hot do the usual cheap home coffee maker hot-plates get? I plan on putting the coffee pot inside a sauce-pan (half filled with water) which will be on the stove top. Avoiding direct heat to the glassware, and to keep the alcohol in the coffee pot from getting hotter than ~212ºF

For making a tincture, using 2oz of 100 proof alcohol, with 1/8 oz ground herb. I have an electronic thermometer for the alcohol. Wondering if I should use boiling stones under the glassware to move it further away from the metal sauce pan (which is the direct contact to the stove.)

Maybe I should forget the glass altogether and use a straight metal pan in metal pan double boiler? That negates the glass variable... (mainly worried about the glass shattering!)

Has anyone done this heated fast tincture method? My selling point was using the water-bath/double boiler method to avoid the risk of an alcohol gas explosion. (Because the steam from the water mixes with the alcohol vapors, assisted by an oven hood or close fan.)

Sorry ya'll... thinking out loud - I'd appreciate any suggestions or advice on how to go about this.
 
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so yeah if you are using ethanol it boils at 78.2C while water boils at 100C. you would cause an explosion from your temps
 
Because the steam from the water mixes with the alcohol vapors, assisted by an oven hood or close fan.
Click to expand...

The oven hood is doing the work here, not the steam... I hope you're using an electric stove.

If you are worried about the glass shattering go spend 20 dollars on a new coffee pot.
 
Sekio - why do you think a new glass pot would be better than a slightly-used one?
Click to expand...

How "used" is the pot? you dpn't know! And honestly, coffee pots are usualy thin soda glass. doing your extraction in a ceramic crock pot in a water bath is a better idea.

A hood is pretty much mandatory when you're working with alcohol fumes. Or a really strong fan and open window. (direct ventilation) Alcohol vapour can be explosive even in low concentrations.
 
MrKitty2 said:
so yeah if you are using ethanol it boils at 78.2C while water boils at 100C. you would cause an explosion from your temps
Click to expand...

My bad - I wasn't all there when I typed this last night. From the write-up I posted, they say to keep the alcohol/herb temperture under 165 F (where alcohol's boiling point is 175 F)

Sekio - thanks man, I grabbed the coffee pot because I was thinking if they were meant to sit in direct contact to the hot plate, it would handle the heat of the hot (not boiling) water. I'm going to pass on it and use a thicker mason jar like the write-up recommends. UNLESS I can find a pan big enough to fit my little ceramic crockpot in.
 
My friend already has the alcohol - plus I'm fascinated by the short time the method takes. Safety is my biggest concern, so heavy ventilation and keeping the alcohol temperature around 150º to 160ºF will be payed close attention to.
 
glad safety is the biggest concern :). make sure of low temps and proper ventilation and no open flames. Good luck let us know how it turns out, Ive recenently taken an extreme liking to glycerin tincture makes me not want to smoke it medicated me so well on a smaller dose than was recommended
 
soda glass is heat resistant provided the rate of heating isn't too great and the difference in temperature isn't too much over a short distance. thermal shock kills it because of expansion and contraction. I expect most coffee pots are actually cheap borosilicate glass rather than soda glass.

alcohol won't explode, if anything it will just ignite off the top of the container, there is not enough air present in the coffee pot to make an explosive mixture, the gas inside will be beyond the UEL for alcohol, anybody here done flambé ? the alcohol does not ignite until it touches the flame (the autoignition temperature for alcohol is over 350oC)
more serious is the way the switching is done on the coffee pot, probably a thermal contact switch which will spark each time the plate reaches the on or off temperature, and that is a great source of ignition.
 
^^^correct. Alcohols can 'explode' if the fuel-air mixture is optimal, but this is, in my experience, very rare. Depending on what compound you are are aiming for, alternative routes may be relevant........
 
I doubt very much it would autoignite at the temperatures you could reach with a hot water bath. And as stated, its not going to explode, the alcohol vapor being boiled off will fill the vessel, and exclude the air as it expands, or at least enough to prevent there being sufficient oxygen present to form an explosive mixture.

boiling temperature of water is 100 degrees C, although this can be raised a little by adding salt.

Why not just buy a lab flask and condenser to fit, ebay would be the place for secondhand labware for making herbal tinctures (or indeed, lab use itself), a 1 liter borosilicate flask and condenser can be had for the price of a couple of homecooked steak dinners, or less if you get lucky. a 2-necked flask, that can be fitted with a thermometer alongside the condenser, or a 1-necked flask equipped with a claisen head would be even better, as then one can monitor the temperature continuously.

Also, various hotplates, only ones I have ever seen allow for various heat settings while under use.
 
I appreciate the input everyone.

That night, we ended up making 3 batches (1st a `post-harvest hybrid` indica/sativa, one indica, one sativa) Because I was concerned with explosive gasses or shattering glassware, I opted for safety first and we used a crockpot with a mason jar in it. Electronic thermometer in the mason jar with the alcohol and herb.

I kept the temp of the alcohol between 155 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit, for 25 minutes. The crockpot was good for no open flame, but obviously it's harder to maintain the temp quickly or easily. On the 3rd run I was boiling water on the stove, to add to the crockpot water to speed up the temp control process. Which actually didn't help too much - the mason jar glass seemed to really slow the transfer of heat.

Also on the 3rd run I did the dumb-ass mistake of pouring the water in too full... and the mason jar tipped and got water in it. Oh well... I also read about adding water to the tincture after it was made, boiling off the alcohol, letting the thc/resin settle, and removing the water which now would contain the plant fats and chlorophyll. A purifying step to make it taste better. So I plan on doing that with this 3rd batch. After 70 minutes in the crockpot with the temp of the alcohol-water mixture between 155 and 165, and removed it, added more water, and put the mason jar in a heavy metal pot on the stove. After adding the water I wasn't afraid of problems (other than shattered glass) with the pot over the open flame stove. I continued for an hour or two on the stove, stirring and monitoring the temperature. (After like 6-7 hours of doing all 3 batches, I called an end to the days experiments... to be continued)

A couple of people tried the tincture from the 1st batch. From the method I posted in the link above, we knew it wouldn't be as strong. The crockpot method and cautious temperatures didn't reduce the alcohol as expected. I never saw the alcohol simmer like the method said it should - even though the temperature was in the range that they said it would simmer.

5 people tried the tincture we made. I only took 4 half-full droppers of it over a couple hours. 3 people took 1 to 2 half-full droppers. The daily smoker of the group, who had previous tincture experience, took over the course of 4 hours 15 half-droppers. Me and him felt *something* was there - but not what we expected.

I still think the first two batches just need to be left to air-evaporate to a 3rd the volume - and that *should* make them potent. (In any case, I kept the alcohol soaked bud for another extraction - to make sure nothing was wasted.)

So... this wasn't the home-run I expected. However, I learned a lot, no animals were harmed during the experiment process, and I do believe in the next few days all 3 batches will be finished into something excellent. (Then there is the remaining alcohol soaked bud for the next batch!)

Roughly,
1st batch: 7g mix of an indica and sativa, 3oz 96% everclear - reduced to 2.5oz alcohol
2nd batch: 8g indica, 3oz everclear - reduced to 2oz
3rd batch: 8g sativa, 3oz everclear - water was added... this batch is still very much in progress

All 3 batches the bud was ground, and put in the oven at roughly 325 degrees for 4-5 minutes. I'm kicking myself for not getting an accurate temp of the oven. The 1st batch definitely had `that smell` you get when you know the THCA is converting to THC. The 2nd/3rd had a less intense smell - but when the oven was opened it was there. It's the smell you get from vap'd herb - and it's the smell I know very well from my past (very successful) times using the coconut oil method.
 
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