So, being as my wife and kids hate the most wonderful smell on the planet, I decided to buy a decarboxylator to keep the smell down. The one I got was ECRU from Amazon.
Was going to make a 50/50 THC/CDB tincture. Ground it up and put on THC decarboxylate cycle. Great so far, not much smell at all. Made my MCT tincture and sent it off to the lab as it was my first batch and wanted to see how it came out.
Came back 50/50 THCa/THC and 50/50 CBDa/CBD so the unit did not decarboxylate well.
Anyone have experience with this unit specifically or can provide me an alternative that does not stink up the house? Wife has the nose of a damn bloodhound and I occasionally enjoy her company.
Contact the manufacturer as the sensors or heating element may be faulty
I only decarb the flower in my device
Not confident that these contraptions can hold up to the rigor of infusion
I do qwet and reduce into oil on a separate electric stovetop
Hey, thanks for the input. The unit I got does was definitely heating, next time I’m going to throw a bluetooth digital thermometer in there and see what it’s doing. Does have manual override for time/temp so I think I’ll try that next time as the unit did do a good job of containing odors.
When I made the tincture ( I want it in MCT oil at the end) I used a “24 hours in jars, in a crock pot, on low” method and not overly pleased with the absorption as it came out ~35mg per ml or about 15mg less than the tincture I used to buy. So only about 16mg/ml since it was 50% THCa/CBDa
Is there any way I can decarb the tincure itself at this point?
If you or anyone else anyone has any suggestions on a good infusion method where it ultimately ends up in MCT oil I’m all ears, starting with alchohol would be fine.
I do like to test, at least once, to get a ballpark for where I’m at but it’s $80 a sample so not anything I do a lot.
You can evaporate the alcohol then do a stovetop decarb or try your luck with the device
Several stovetop methods
I use a stainless steel bowl used for spices
Reduce tincture using the method of your choice to a tablespoon or so and transfer to stainless steel bowl
I think its medium high heat with a dab of cooking oil in the center of the pan, electric stovetop is best
Place the stainless steel bowl with the reduction on top of the cooking oil
The leftover alcohol bubbles will evaporate first then the oil will begin to almost froth, as the bubbling becomes more intermittent you are getting close to decarb
This has a good demo of a stovetop decarb
You can order MCT oil on line
I ordered 5 gallons of 200 proof culinary ethanol on line
Wow. Thanks Dude. This will really get me on the path I want to be on. I’m going to try to digest this all and give it a whirl. probably stick w/190 everclear though. Brother worked at a lab and worked w/200 proof grain alcohol. Hard to keep it from taking on water and going to 190 proof. We used to rub it in our hands and inhale it. Yeah, stupid, But being young you are stupid.
QQ - How “stinky” is it on the stovetop this way?
For extraction purposes not much difference between 190 and 200
It was on sale, liter bottles are too expensive
There will be an odor most of the time you are working with decarb, extraction and infusion
A spice simmer with cinnamon, cloves or anything with strong smell can usually drown out small batch processing odor
The worst is the decarb, the reduction is not too bad until you start to get a concentrate and infusing a carrier oil can have a subtle odor but still there from my experience
If you have an Instant Pot, they will work for decarb and infusion, that’s what I started with. It’s basically a programmable pressure cooker. Put a sealed canning jar of cannabis inside on a trivet with a couple cups of water around it. Under pressure it heats up to 245 degrees F. Leave it for 45 minutes and vent, instant decarb. Set it to crockpot function and it will simmer the bud and oil in a jar, now it’s infused. For what it’s worth, I switched to the exact machine you have and it’s worked fine for me. Maybe yours is defective?
I’ve had no problem with mine. For the decarb I usually go 1.5 the times auto programmed because I do higher volume. Infusion I set it for 4 hours and forget about it til the timer goes off. I infused a coconut oil that renders me useless for hours if I go even to a tsp in anything.
