@99percent: Thank you! That’s good news! I thought I’d read that the best were a combination of PEG 300, 400. That makes it MUCH cheaper.
@ReikoX : Thank you! I’ll check both out. The Atmos site is loading horribly slowly today. I did look at the other, w9tech. I wasn’t aware a cartridge was made just for vaping oils until you mentioned it.
@legalcanada: I looked up the links in my favorites for ejuice. 99.9% of the online vape vendors only offer pg/vg mixes of just pg or vg. Only one mentioned PEG400. It is a Canadian shop:
They have a larger assortment of sizes than Amazon.com, prices similar. I was going to order from there, but the shipping is much lower from Amazon to me. Probably be much cheaper for you.
I was just on YouTube trying to find out how long to let my kief and 90/10 pg/vg soak to become ejuice. Apparently this can be a no heat operation. (The answer was 30 days if you didn’t already know).
I looked over videos about pressing dab. Out of about 15 videos, there were 4-5 different temperatures given as optimal. The range was huge, which was surprising. Any other subject, there is consensus, such as decarboxylation and ejuice. I am certain there is an optimal temp. I know there will be a consensus at OG. How about it? Anyone wanna educate me on this?
On a different note, I looked at my dry ice kief through my new microscope. There were different levels of kief, depending on if it was trim or smokable buds. This difference was highly visible @ 80x with both bottom and top lighting. I don’t have a camera for the scope yet, So I can’t yet post pics (I will when I get camera function), I can only describe the scene.
The least potent, trim leaves, I would swag an estimate of about 30% of this kief was the good stuff. There was a lot of debris in the field. Bottom lighting makes a huge difference in distinguishing between debris and the THC. The THC is nearly clear, and is obviously fluid in shape. Some of the debris is also clear, but has the shape of a long, thin cone. Other debris is dark with irregular surfaces.
The most potent was the kief I made using fresh, wet buds right off a couple of plants of my purple strain. (In other postings I’ve referred to this as “freeze dried”, although I don’t really know the process for making freeze dried food is.) This view swagged as 75% THC to debris. The THC made many very round beads that dominated the filed of view. This is the kief I am using to make the no heat ejuice. You could also plainly see coating on the long cones as well as coating the irregular debris as well. The visual of the next most potent kief appeared to be only about 50/50
Now my tincture had been soaking from SAT to SAT. I stirred it (I do that several times per day) and placed a drop of the stirred concoction on the slide right next to the freeze dried kief. I could easily dial between samples for comparison. The first thing I noticed is there were less of the beads in the droplet. Also, it appeared that much of the debris was still encapsulated in the good stuff. This is very interesting. It tells me that I probably won’t need to guess when my ejuice is finished, I will see it! I plan to check it again next SAT. I am excited to visually follow the progress.
@99PerCent, Thanks for the temps. One young guy in a YouTube video said to use as much heat as it takes. He said the more heat you use, the less pressure it takes to get the oils out. That didn’t ring true, especially after studying decarboxylation.
Nah, it’s just an experiment. Somethings I like to see for myself. It’s already been 8 days. And I don’t have PEG yet. This batch is 90% pg 10% vg. Also, no that I know I’ll be able to see when it is finished, I am curious to see how long it takes to finish breaking down like this. I’ll do a similar test when my PEG 400 arrives. I read the links you posted about PG and PEG. Very interesting. To me, the both have scary names. Not the kind of thing I ever thought I’d be deliberately ingest or inhaling. But, if it food grade, no scratch that, pharmaceutical grade and both of these chemicals are already being used in meds and food products…
I figured it is different from one plant to another. My blonde strain has more thc deposits, but the are smaller. I looked at a little of that today. When I make butter, I get 2x the debris in the cheesecloth with the blonde than the purple. Both seem to make the same strength of cookies.
I had different stages as well as trim vs bud. The kief is very different across the containers. I may make some bubble hash next time so I can compare them under the scope.
Debris is what I am calling anything that is not thc. Remember, the kief had already passed through a 105 micron screen. I’m thinking the long cones are actually the stem the thc sits atop on the bud leaves. I’ll need to look at a bud leaf to see. I looked as a single pistil under 80X with full lighting. Effing gorgeous. The goo coats the entire pistil, no gaps.
From dab? I’ll bet everything is better made from dab. In time I’ll get there. I had been thinking about making a small press using some 1" plate and a little bottle jack, but I apparently did too good of a job cleaning out my garage in the spring.
Nice 99, Like the ops you got going. I love my vap pen, it works so well when I’m out and about…That one pic of the rosin on the paper looks like a butterfly really cool looking!
we played around this like last year or like in 16? like when pens first hit the streets… tried pre-made dissolver products (ie: waximizer or whatever its called), best is the original unflavored E J juice, hard to find. u can make your own, though. using different weights of PEG. heavy on the 400, with a little 200 and 300weight and some PG, like just a little, dont put too much PG. Ive tried the 50/50 VG/PG and VG/peg400, and it seems to me, the homemade EJ mix of peg 400+300, 200 and pg works the best…u just gotta make small batches and play around with it… its all subjective to the type of pen youre using. every pen cartridge works different. u want it to flow, but not too thin… how mcuh concentrte to add would vary, it depends on yur THC content… ie: 1:1, to like 1 part concentrate to 1.75 parts mix, is good for some 60% THC BHO…u do math just like edibles… ie: 1gram of 60% concentrate would be 600mg of THC…
Using a crude butane extractor produces wax that needed to be purged of the butane, and after 4 or 5 days in vacuum, it doesn’t dissolve as well in PEG. I used straight 400 with no issues in the glass cartridges. Good flow, no leaks.
Staying away from PG, linked with cancer.
Might look into some terpenes. Looks like they can be had in oil form.