Extract with metho?

[Yogibear]

I asked my local chemist about Ethanol AND isopropyl Alcohol, to no avail.

I have simply been too lazy to bother hunting down other chemists, but have metho in the cupboard, right. So here's the question:

Would it not be alright to use Metho to get an extract of plant-matter to smoke?

I don't plan to eat it anyhoo, but I have about 1/4 kilo of Skullcap and it's just fuckn .. a nasty-looking mix of stem and leaf and flower, so I figured to grind it up, then toss it in some Metholated Spirits to soak. Would the denatured ingredient cause me any concern for a simple smoke-able extract?

Ta

[Francois le Danque]

I asked my local chemist about Ethanol AND isopropyl Alcohol, to no avail.

I have simply been too lazy to bother hunting down other chemists, but have metho in the cupboard, right. So here's the question:

Would it not be alright to use Metho to get an extract of plant-matter to smoke?

I don't plan to eat it anyhoo, but I have about 1/4 kilo of Skullcap and it's just fuckn .. a nasty-looking mix of stem and leaf and flower, so I figured to grind it up, then toss it in some Metholated Spirits to soak. Would the denatured ingredient cause me any concern for a simple smoke-able extract?

Ta

 

it will probably just taste like shit...i asked a similar question a couple of days ago in the chemistry section under "how to dry alcohol" i think. anyway as a tester i put some poppy material in some metho (coles brand of course, you'll love! lol) and left to evap on windowsill. what it did was refuse to dry out, leaving instead a slimy gunk after a couple of days of this. it also made my kitchen unbearably reek of metho. it was horrible and made my eyes sting. and yes i had the window open and fans going everywhere to no avail. so i threw it out. it might have come good if i left it, i'm not sure.

so yeah it probably depends on the brand, but personally i will be waiting till i get some better solvents before i go consuming any sort of extract made this way. peace.

[naja naja]

why not use acetone? Also alot cheaper than IPA. Should work fine me thinks for most things. Maybe add some water if it's a water soluable product. Never left any residue to speak of.

[poisonshroom]

Almost any time you use ethanol (metho or straight alcohol ie spirytus, grain alcohol, everclear etc) for an extract its likely to leave you with a gunky sludge - id say that would be the plant fats and oils that get pulled out along with alkaloids. never tried acetone, but id imagine itd be similar (including the product being a sludge). although i have heard somewhere that it can react with some alkaloids, which is undesirable, but im not too sure about that one.

metho will work the same as any other alcohol except it will taste really bad and probably smell quite bad too (but so do extractions with plain alcohol)

[gogogadget]

perma lighter fluid, from England works better than zippo, pulls more and leaves nothing 30 bucks inc postage, not very economical for you but still....

[ubza_1234]

just try it out on a small amount man, easy as that. If it doesnt wor you havent lost much. Soak your material, filter out solids, evap the liquid with a fan in a well ventilated area. I believe the worst that can happen from metho is you will feel nausious for an hour or to, maybe boff, but nothing deadly. Your choice if thats worth it, personly i'd prob give it a crack if thats all i had and i was super eager to extract and try something.

If its still a gummy mess and you want something hard and scapeable, get a large sealable container, around 8 or more liters, put in a bucket of of damp rid in there with a mesh ontop of the bucket. Put your lil dish of sludge ontop of the mesh. The damp rid will dry the air in the box and everything will dry propperly.

If you wanted to get it faster, cut a hole on the side of the damp rid bucket and install a CPU fan there. Position it so it SUCKS the air thru the damp rid xtals and blows air back into the box. If its set to blow it may blow damp rid xtals up and into your product.

This should take a few days to a week to cracker dry anything. And no heat or fancy machines needed ;) cost is pretty small for this lil beauty too.

If it doesnt dry in time, try stirring your extract once a day to help it along.

Try not to let solvents dry in the dry box. This includes your metho so let it dry in the normal air first under a fan or something. The reason is that the box and damp rid and everything absorbs smells and will make everything you put in it smell like solvent.

Hope thats helpful for ya ;)

[Yogibear]

Thank y'all, quite helpful

I basiclly just grabbed a several oz bag of skullcap stuffed-full, for $12 and it's stemmy and bluh, so I figure a tea would be alright, but an extract would let me know faster how much attention to give the Skullcap seeds I have planted - if an extract gives me no effect whatsoever, I'll .. well I'll still treat the plants like my babies - but I'll have some idea of the active ingredients usefulness.

So, then I though, "I'll boil the shit down - like you do making Chimo, and not worry about the solvents, but I assume the heat would kill more actives (actives that would already be far from 'powerful') the longer I cook it.

Is Skullcap best boiled first, water extracted first? Or just throw it in the solvent and leave it?

(I don't mind if it takes a while, so I won't worry too much about the fan or de-hydrating crystals/bucket/box - it's just skullcap /smirk - like I said, I don't expect the actives to be much to shout about anyhoo

[Yogibear]

I've also got a bag of Blue Lotus, that I'm not sure what to do with, if anyone knows how best to utilize this.

Steeping in wine sounds alright, though I don't drink generally, I'd certainly give some white wine a go for testing purposes.

It smells excellent, like Honey, and tastes alright smoked, but effects are all I'm interested in, and I can't say I noticed anything outside of the realm of mild placebo.

As for the dream herb, bluh! .. foulest, most feral tasting shit I've probably drunk, though S.Rue extract would be a close enough second.

[poisonshroom]

I dont think even damp rid will completely dry an alcohol extract anyway (it extracts plant fats and oils, which at room temp are usually liquid).

As for the lotus i hear wine is the way to go, although i dont have any experience with it personally. Alcohol extract will also work for that too. If you are worried about metho, you can get 95% alcohol from dan murphey's - its called Spirytus (rectified sprit), but its about $60 for a 500ml bottle. I used it for a certain extract and it worked really well, but still tasted absolutely horrible and smelled really bad too - I think almost any concentrated extract of a plant will taste bad (think of peppermint oil - smells nice, but try tasting some )

EDIT: forgot to mention, if you put an alcohol extract thats as dry as you can get it (no alcohol smell) in the freezer it should solidify to a putty which you can break into pieces and swallow like big pills

Edited February 27, 2011 by poisonshroom

[lofty86]

Yogibear

You can get 98% isopropyl from any dick smith electronics store in australia they sell the shit to clean keyboards $6 should get you 250ml thats only $24 a litre go have a look tomorrow ;)

also i know that the hobby shops here in mackay sell ethanol by the litre for those little remote control model racing cars find a place that sells those and you should find your ethanol.

any how metho should be fine for a smoking extract if your getting impatient with the evaporation why not just apply a little bottom heat i somtimes put my evaporation plate on top of a saucpan of water on low heat (the way you melt chocolate)

[Yogibear]

Yogibear

You can get 98% isopropyl from any dick smith electronics store in australia they sell the shit to clean keyboards $6 should get you 250ml thats only $24 a litre go have a look tomorrow ;)

also i know that the hobby shops here in mackay sell ethanol by the litre for those little remote control model racing cars find a place that sells those and you should find your ethanol.

any how metho should be fine for a smoking extract if your getting impatient with the evaporation why not just apply a little bottom heat i somtimes put my evaporation plate on top of a saucpan of water on low heat (the way you melt chocolate)

 

Yeah bottom heat might be good actually.

What I ended-up doing, was just throwing about 2oz's Skullcap in about 1/3 metho and 2/3 water, mash it up, and leave it. So, there's only around 200mLs metho to 500mLs water anyhoo. After a day and a half, I wrung-out the Skullcap leaf-matter; leaving behind a pool of brown liquid.

Now, after two further days, the gravy-coloured liquid has about halved in volume, but the whether's gone cold last two days, so it's stopped evaporating 'au naturalle', so yes yes, I might stick in on top a pan.

If I held-out (generally, with any extract too, I mean) wouldn't that be better for any oil/alkaloid content in the end result?

I also was wondering about microwaving - for a few seconds -> a minute, just to warm-up the liquid.. would microwaves kill alkaloids?

Ta!

[lofty86]

I wouldnt use any water for a crude smoking extract just pure isopropyl and its best to extract the material 3 times or so (once youve filtered the mush through keep it and add it to some new iso then filter again and add to the previous extract etc) with that much water in the mix i expect you may be waiting a while maybe heat isnt the way to go with iso it would evaporate in under an 15 mins on low heat. with water you would have to boil maybe put the extract onto a larger surface (wider evaporation dish) and leave it in an air conditioned room on around 18 deg it should help speed up the evaporation and keep the alkaloids intact

[Yogibear]

Cheers!

Too late for this one, but I'll stick it under the wall unit and turn the cold down so it's just air/fan tomorrow for the day and see how that goes

I still remember watching ALF as a kid Melmakian Cat eater he was

[Yogibear]

I wouldnt use any water for a crude smoking extract just pure isopropyl and its best to extract the material 3 times or so (once youve filtered the mush through keep it and add it to some new iso then filter again and add to the previous extract etc) with that much water in the mix i expect you may be waiting a while maybe heat isnt the way to go with iso it would evaporate in under an 15 mins on low heat. with water you would have to boil maybe put the extract onto a larger surface (wider evaporation dish) and leave it in an air conditioned room on around 18 deg it should help speed up the evaporation and keep the alkaloids intact

 

Mind you. this's Skullcap we're talking about; It's not even confirmed there'll be *any* effect whatsoever; As far as I'm concerned, if I end-up haing to ask myself whether there's an effect present or noticable, then there's no effect. Simple as that. I don't subscribe to the "Mmm I think there *might* have been an effect" mentality.If it's not felt, it's not felt.

But, as with most things, reading other peoples experiences- or lack thereof - is simply not enough. Till I've testedit for myself, I cannot write the plant off OR stuff seeds in my little rockwool blocks with gusto.

I added the water too, because I wasn't sure whether the alkoloids were water or solvent soluble, so figured; Watering down the solvent would make for a slower, gentler, more thorough extraction.

[ubza_1234]

would have been better to do the water and alcohol extract seperately as sometimes a solvent mixed with water will not extract as much. E.g. If there is enough water in acetone, then it wont be able to extract any salvinorin even tho there is ace tone present. Adding ethanol or acetone to cactus tea will percip out protiens. I know there not alks, but its an e.g of how a mixture of solvents can reduce the soluability of many components and how its better to soak in one solvent, dry soak in another solvent, dry etc

[planthelper]

let me add a few more things...

yogybear, you still have to improofe your writting stile, i have to read your stuff many times and still don't understand what you mean, leave out the stupid talk.

and about metho, never use the denaturated stuff, any resin you get will be impossible to smoke, the denaturant does it's job 100% believe me.

scullcap is a very harsh smoke anyway, so an extract made with bittered metho, will be close to impossible to smoke.

using bottom heat to either heat up the solvents or helping them to evaporate is a good methode, but dangerous because of fire danger, however, if you put your evaporation plate on a pot filled with hot water,

it will fasten the evaporation, without any ignition danger. after 2h or so you replace the water again with new hot water... better is to, "still" the solvent back. what that means is, you have the solvent containing the resin/herb and now either let it run thru a still or a coldfinger setup.

like that you get your solvent back wcich you can use for the same plant again.

some materials will "stay with the solvent", and i think they are called azeotropic, i would not be surprised if scullcap contains azeotropic compounds.

for coldfinger setups, the heat source has to be fire proof.

another thing i would look into are the old teks of a member here somthing called like orb and nordic gnome.

he extracted salvia with aceton, and than cleans the aceton extract, by using ipa and naphta/shellite.

and if you say, water/metho mixture versus metho or water extraction, sometimes it good to mix alco and a bit of water when extracting, because if you use only the solvent you will hardly extract any of the (drummrole) water soluble compounds, and with many herbs many of the activas could be water soluble.

[t st tantra]

just adding to the end of ph's post....

it seems to me alcohol only extns are usually very inefficient.

my theory is this is because the solvent does not actually penetrate the material easily or quickly.

a small amt of water can do the penetration and then the alcohol can extract at a good rate.

water may only be needed on the first extn.

always extract with water afterwards to get anything that the alcohol might have not got.

t s t .

[ubza_1234]

ts t: do you think liberally wetting the her material with water first, allow to soak over night then soak in alcohol would be a good aproach then?

I've noticed that if acetone is added and mixed with a thick, water based syrup made of substances insoluable in acetone, the syrup becomes thicker and thicker. I assume the acetone is extracting the water from the syrup thus making it thicker and thicker. I hope using ethanol in the way i described in the first paragraph does not result in this happening.

Which leads me to think that if a full spectrum extraction is desired, each solvent should be used one at a time, be that acetone, alcohol or water.