Concentrates Blog

[Caligurl]

I have this blog somewhere else and some have asked me to post it here so here it is:

So, I am not growing anything at the moment… I have soooo much product that I’ve decided to conduct experiments and journal them here since this all new to me… Always looking for feedback and help on this new venture for me!

Let’s talk about QWET first.
OK here we go! @Jmky105

First I started off with 1 ounce of really good buds from my Nepali Pink:

Next: I broke it down by hand into pieces about the size of a grain of rice (or a little bigger) and put it in a quart mason jar and screwed the lid on but not too tight:

Into the oven at 240 degrees for 1 hour to decarboxylate it. Shaking the jar gently about every 10-15 minutes and here is the outcome… light nutty brown/green color:

Next: After it is completely cooled, I burped the jar one more time, put the lid back on - put in the freezer overnight along with my 190 Everclear (each still separate).

The next day I took the Everclear and the broken buds out of the freezer… both are nice and frosty cold! Pour just enough Everclear to cover the plant material, then I shook the jar violently for 15 minutes (I’m not joking, BTW LOL!!!).

Placed the jar back in the freezer for another hour but pulled out and shook every 15 minutes.

Removed from freezer, shook again and poured through a strainer with cheesecloth like this. Note, I use the food grade cheesecloth like this (they are re-useable):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TWQ7P4R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There are other things out there that I may try next like this:

Let it drip through the cheesecloth into a silicon baking dish.
When that was done dripping, I squeezed as much of the alcohol/liquid out as you could by hand:

Next step, I rinsed the mason jar and then poured the liquid back into the mason jar. Took the same strainer and lined it with a coffee filter:

Poured the liquid over the strainer/coffee filter. Note this took a long time so I made a setup so I didn’t have to hold the strainer. Seriously took about an hour for it to all drain through. NOTE: This is where that Buchner Funnel Filter would come in instead.

I should have filtered it one more time (,maybe with two layers of coffee filters) since this is all the gunk I filtered out, maybe next time…

I squeezed every last drop of of the coffee filter and here’s what it looks like now.

So now, back into the silicon baking dish (rinsed first), covered with a cookie drying rack, covered with regular hardware store cheesecloth to keep crap out of it, set up my fan on high blowing directly over the baking dish (Note, I put some clips on the cheesecloth to the rack to keep the cheesecloth from flying off LOL)…

Now the wait… (about 1.5 days has passed. And…

The wait is over! (Well it was over yesterday but we had company coming for dinner).

Anyway, remember 2 days ago I started with 1 oz of good bud from my Nepali Pink. Well here’s what it looks like when you’re ready to scrape it out of the silicon dish. Make sure there is no liquid left, tilt the pan around and make sure nothing is still runny whatsoever!

To scrape it out, I’m just using the dab tool that came with one of my silicon storage containers:

Here is the container I’m going to use you can buy them on Amazon (Dab/Wax storage containers)

Just keep scraping and scraping… trying to get every bit of wax you can - don’t waste a thing!

This stuff is SUPER sticky and gooey! If you get any on you or your countertop, grab some more Everclear - that’s the only thing that will get it off!

[Caligurl]

NEXT UP… A very simple chocolate recipe that you can make as strong as your heart desires.

[Jmky105]

Thanks for all that, very thorough and the pictures help a lot! Once you’ve made the wax/QWET do most people use that in cooking recipes or is there some other use?

[Caligurl]

@Jmky105, I only do edibles but I’ve heard that you can use it as a dab. I just don’t want to steer you wrong. The final product is approximately 700-750 mg of THC per gram so its pretty easy to dose properly. Some recipes as you will see, require the concentration to only go down to an oil consistency just because it’s easier. But if you have the wax, you could, say, make cookies by melting just some of the butter and stirring in the was, then refrigerating it and adding it in with more butter as usual.

I’ve also heard that you can add something (can’t remember right now) to make it vapable. I will see if I can find that post and copy it to here.

[JaneQP]

@Caligurl. I saw you were looking at a hand pump. I do extracts from other plant materials and have learned by trial and error.

First I use cheese cloth. Next a coffee filter (40 micron) - these two are gravity filtration just set and let them drip. Depending on the client and product I used the system you have but bought an inexpensive electric vacuum pump. Trust me your hand will get sore with that manual pump!!! Make sure you look at the filter disks and determine that their micron size is less than 40 micron. Always wet the the filter disk before filtration with EtOH. You may have to change out the filter a couple of times because of the micron size.

Just sharing my trials over 3 years. My extracts are used in soaps and hand lotions for two product lines now. Made enough to buy my daughter her dream wedding dress!

[Caligurl]

I totally appreciate the info!! Thank you!! This is new to me and I’m learning as I go and trying to help,others

[JaneQP]

Ditto! You have been a great inspiration to this newbie.

@Caligurl

[Caligurl]

@emgoldslo @Nothingshocking - Tagging you guys here as well, my new blog

FIRST HOW TO KNOW HOW MUCH CONCENTRATE TO USE!

My recipe below makes 28-30 bears.
1 gram of concentrate/wax is about 750mg THC (this doesn’t matter on the strength of the cannabis you use. Higher THC plants will just produce a larger volume of concentrate)

I want approximately 25mg per bear X 30 bears = 750mg THC total
Since 1g of concentrate = 750mg of THC - I need 1g of concentrate for the recipe.

I use 1 inch / 3.5ml bear molds super cheap on Amazon

I started with a 3.5 ounce dark chocolate bar (of course, you can choose any kind of chocolate bar you like. We just like dark chocolate

And 1 gram of wax. Now this stuff is really sticky right?
How I measure this sticky stuff is this:

I take a piece of styrofoam and put a toothpick in it. Put it on the scale and zero it out. then I take the toothpick out and scoop out some wax (if you need to put more on the toothpick, just use another toothpick to add wax to the original toothpick because it is so sticky, it’s hard to add any more wax to the first toothpick LOL

This is what a gram of wax looks like:

It’s a little runny so make sure it doesn’t fall off the toothpick while you’re getting everything else around. I recommend that you measure it out right before you are going to use it LOL!

Now, I break up the chocolate bar into a small dish (leave out a few pieces to ‘temper’ the chocolate when you’re done melting.

Into the microwave for about 3 minutes (your microwave may vary but it should be mostly melted)

Out of the microwave it should be mostly melted but not all the way. Throw in your chocolate pieces that you kept out and stir the mixture with the toothpick of the concentrate/wax.

When all the wax has melted off of the toothpick…

keep stirring with a spoon until you see absolutely no lumps! One of those lumps might be a chunk of wax lol!!! You wouldn’t want that to happen!

Ready to make the chocolate bears! Make sure you put the bear mold on a flat plate or cutting board first because it will be impossible to move the tray after it’s filled!

Then just carefully spoon chocolate into each cavity. Some people use a syringe of sorts. I have a cheap one I bought ate the hardware store in the paint area but for the chocolates, I find it just as easy to spoon it in. There is no rush, the chocolate stays workable and if not, just pop it back in the microwave.

Now pop the mold into the fridge for a few hours and you’re done! I put them into an airtight container and keep them stored in the fridge.

PLEASE ENJOY RESPONSIBLY! Wait an hour or two before you decide how many you should take. You can always take more LOL!

This time it made 32 bears but somehow my hubby usually manages to steal the spoon and bowl from me before I can get the extra few bears out of it LOL!

[emgoldslo]

@Caligurl

Looks awesome. I want to make some milk and white chocolate gummies. Did the wax melt ok for you?

Looks like we use the exact same gummy molds

[Caligurl]

Yes, the wax melt just fine in the chocolate. I’m beginning to think it’s because chocolate has fat in it and the gummy bears do not… could be wrong but it melts perfectly in the chocolate.

[Jmky105]

Great tip on measuring the wax, I was curious how that would go haha

[Caligurl]

Next Up!

Okay, so my first attempt at Magical Gummies using the concentrate QWET wax (if that’s the term lol):

1/4 cup corn syrup
1/3 cup of water
1/4 teaspoon citric acid
6 ounce package of Jello
2.5 packets of unflavored gelatin (Knox)
1/8 teaspoon KoolAid mix (same flavor or not as the Jello and this is optional)
Gummy bear molds (I used the 1 inch / 3.5 ml molds)
Syringe (I buy mine at the local hardware store for less than $3

First - lightly oil the gummy bear molds but VERY lightly - you shouldn’t see any excess oil in any of the bear.

Next - Sprinkle corn powder on some parchment paper to put the bears on:

Mix all dry ingredients into a heavy pan, then stir in corn syrup and water - then let this sit for about 10 minutes to let the gelatin bloom:

Weighed out my concentrate. This recipe makes 95-100 Gummies so I was aiming for 25mg each. 100 X 25 = 2500mg thc
2500 / 750 (how much thc is in one gram) = 3.33 grams (of concentrate)

Turn the stove to a medium/low heat and heat the Jello until it’s fairly clear but don’t stir too much or too hard so you don’t get bubbles:

Stir in the concentrate until it’s melted completely (I had a hard time getting the wax to melt evenly so I found I had to turn up the heat just a little bit and keep stirring gently (I think this made the mixture a little too thick but not sure what to do about that…

Using the paint syringe, fill the gummy bear molds.

Let the gummies sit on the counter for about 15 minutes, then into the fridge for 4 hours.

Pop them out on the the parchment paper, cover and let sit for a day or two until the gummies get to the consistency you like.

This recipe made 98 gummies with approx 25+mg THC each. It was difficult to get the wax to melt into the jello so I think next time I will try using a concentrate that hasn’t been evaporated all the way down to a solid… just a little fluidity to have to measure it by ml instead… I’ll post that one later when I need more gummies LOL

[Caligurl]

@NugFlush sorry I missed tagging you here. Happy New Year!

[emgoldslo]

@Caligurl

This stuff is SUPER sticky and gooey! If you get any on you or your countertop, grab some more Everclear - that’s the only thing that will get it off!

I found that goo gone also works.

https://smile.amazon.com/Goo-Gone-Adhesive-Remover-Spray/dp/B07PVBD58K/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=goo+gone&qid=1609526075&sprefix=goo+&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzOUlDSktBR1JYUzQmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA0MDUyODUzNTE2Tko4M1VCQjA5JmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA3ODc5MjAyQ0s2RVNMNDdRVjNYJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfcGhvbmVfc2VhcmNoX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

[Caligurl]

Sweet! I always have that stuff around (just saying I’m a little messy LOL) Thanks!

[Caligurl]

@Myfriendis410 I need to edit this post. I wrote 6.5 ounce chocolate bar and that should read 3.5

[Myfriendis410]

All done. Do me a favor and tell me the post number in future

[Caligurl]

Thank you! I didn’t realize it had a post number… it’s in the URL correct?

[Myfriendis410]

Yes. If you scroll to it then look to your right side you’ll see a count there too.

[NugFlush]

All good. Hope you have a great year as well😁