I’ve tried 2 methods of extraction: using a Levo machine to infuse directly into MCT oil, and using QWET to make a tincture, then evaporate the ethanol away, then add a very small amount of MCT oil to dissolve the remaining tar-like stuff (what is this called?). Each time the oil is an amber color.
When I make gummies the amber adds a big color component. If I try Blue Dream cannabis, I use blue raspberry flavor oil and blue food coloring, then my gummies will be green. It picks up the yellow in the amber oil.
Maybe I’m being too picky. My gummies taste and function just fine. I would just like to make them more visually attractive. The amber color alters whatever I’m trying to make.
Color remediation is done with carbons and Bentonite bleaching clays. Product is winterized and filtered through a Buchner. Can run the wash through a pour over water filter to clean it up cheaply without a lot of investment.
I’m not sure what a pour-over water filter is. I used a ‘Big Joe’ coffee filter twice on my tincture before evaporating it. The tincture came out yellow before evaporation, but looked nearly black after all the ethanol evaporated away.
It didn’t seem like the filter caught much. I had frozen the ethanol and cannabis to -7F (I’ve seen recommendations for colder than that, but that’s the lowest setting on my freezer) before extracting. Didn’t seem like all that much plant matter was there before filtering.
Is yellow the natural color of THC? It seems to turn more amber as the potency increases.
Golden when spread thin but yes more amber to black without remediation.
This Celite video will give you a visual of what the carbon does.
There Celite is just a media filter bed and not worthy of buying.
The industry standard for EtOH remediation use is CRAC. I bet the cheaper rout for you would be to get B-80 bleaching clay. It zaps the amber exceptionally well.
Some of your amber color is coming from the process itself. Short, very cold washes to reduce chlorophyll extraction along with filtration will nearly eliminate amber color. (used wash can be washed again for the bulk of the oils present)
I make my oil using the instapot recipe. I think filter , add water and put it in the fridge. Separate, the layers, and repeat until the water runoff is clear.
According to my tcheck, the tincture contains about 4mg/ml of THC.
A first question is: should I be able to extract a lot more cleanly? I assume it’s better not to extract the chlorophyl and cellulose than it is to filter it out later. If I’m reasonably close then I should focus on filtering but if not I should focus on extracting.
If I am focusing on extracting, I would probably try to decarb the tincture. So far I’ve been decarbing in the oven before extraction, but perhaps that toasts the cannabis a bit and puts brownish stuff in the tincture. If I extract from un-decarbed flower and later decarb the tincture perhaps the color will be reduced.
If I stick with filtering then in looking at the multiple answers here, the most effective technique looks like a Buchner filter with activated charcoal. I’m missing a lot of the equipment for that so I’ll play with other things first.
But maybe there’s an easier and better answer. I might be able to correct via food coloring. Supposedly if you add purple food coloring it will offset the yellow. Maybe I can find a quantity of purple to add to the blue to make the final color blue. This is likely to be the only approach that actually works anyway. The reason is that sunflower lecithin is also yellow and I need a bit of that in the gummies for emulsification. Without food coloring, I will have yellowish gummies even if my tincture is perfectly clear. But figuring out the exact amount of purple food coloring to do this is likely to be challenging.
I do not decarb prior to extraction but still end with an amber oil which darkens further after dilution and decarb. I could improve color by shortening wash times but probably only marginally.
Yes. Quicker wash time and keep agitation to a slight twist and don’t shake. You want to disrupt the dissolved layer around the buds without introducing chloro contam.
I do closed jar decarb after. Dry decarbed buds ooze chlorophyll.
@SeaOhAreWhy wow we-that’s some old school green dragon lookin stuff.
How old is the bud youre working with? When i press, the older bud will have a dark color to it, but when the bud is within 3 to 6 month of post harvest is when the buds produce a golden color. Dont know if its the same way with qwet. Ive never decarbed in my LEVO with any bud more than 6 months old and have never gotten a dark color.
I don’t think age is the issue, it’s never more than 3 months old (and usually less than 1 month). I have a Levo Lux and used to infuse into MCT oil. Plain MCT oil is completely clear and even on a small infusion the color would change somewhat. To get stronger oil I switched to a potency pod and use 3 passes (new cannabis each time). That gets the potency up to about 30 mg/ml (according to my tcheck), but that oil is quite amber and hard to disguise in a gummy.
I’m trying to switch to QWET. That starts out a very light yellow, but as the ethanol evaporates it gets more amber and when the ethanol is all gone it’s almost black.
I’m going to try these things in QWET before buying more hardware:
1. Use QWET on un-decarbed weed. Use very short washes and no shaking, just a gentle turn.
2. Filter the tincture using a Brita water filter.
3. Decarb the tincture
4. Evaporate the ethanol.
If it seems like I’m on the right path I’ll replace the Brita filter with a Buchner filter and activated charcoal.
I’ll update this thread when I see how all this works. It might take a few weeks though. I’m well stocked with brownish gummies at the moment. They look funny but taste and function fine :).
I think my mind is playing tricks on me again. I would swear I saw a youtube video where someone was decarbing tincture on a magnetic stirring hotplate. I must have been hallucinating. I can’t find it again and I don’t think it’s possible.
Maybe all I do is wait until after evaporating, then put the glass container into the oven to decarb there before dissolving the tar?
The main point is that I want to somehow decarb after the QWET, not before. That should reduce the plant material in the infusion.
Now I’m lost again. Ethanol boils at 173F. Decarbing is usually around 240F. I shouldn’t be able to heat a tincture beyond 173F without a pressure cooker or something like that. So how can I decarb tincture on a magnetic stirring hot plate?
It seems like I have to evaporate the ethanol away, dissolve the remaining tar into a little bit of oil and decarb the oil. If that’s correct then evaporation comes before decarbing.
Have I just got my terminology messed up? AFIK, a tincture is something dissolved in alcohol, like the alcohol-infused mixture I get from QWET. If I let all the ethanol evaporate away what’s left is a kind of tar and I don’t know the term for that. I can see how to decarb the tar, but not the tincture.
What I’ve been doing is the ‘oven method’. But when the cannabis is exposed to air while decarbing it tends to ‘toast’, turning a golden brown. That might be the source of some of my color. I could try the sous vide method (an advantage of a chef spouse means I have access to some fancy kitchen stuff) prior to the QWET, or I can try evaporating the tincture into the tar-like stuff and decarb that.
