You made me a happy man.
Now please tell me.about this alternate method, I dont have an Insta-pot.
It “sounds” like you just steep the trim in pg under heat and then strain it. Temp? How long?
Can I just put roughly shredded material in an accurately temp controlled vessel? I.e. 100g of plant to 100ml pg and steep at 200f for an hour.
Is the purpose of the heat to extract, or to decarb? If I understand correctly, decarbing isnt necessary if we vape it at over 200F. It might be necessary for a good extraction though.
BTW, I did studies on PG and VG degradation into carcinogens by temp. You dont start getting the bad carcinogens until you get above 420F
I had discovered some new research by Wang and Guiss suggesting that carcinogens (like formaldehyde) start getting produced at high temperatures, temperatures that were within the normal range of vaping, ie before encountering a dry hit.
So I posted the research. I fully expected numbers from a real modern day atty would be lower than Wang’s, as 100% of the juice in Wangs study was exposed to the specified temperature. Whereas in a real atty a significant portion of the juice does not contact the coil, but vaporizes at a lower temp directly off the wick. My gut told me the thermal degradation phenomena is genuine, but I had no clue what magnitude we would see in a real atty under real-life vaping.
I got flamed to hell and back for posting that research. A lot half baked malarkey, with little to no base in fact, got thrown at me in opposition. Also, since thermal degradation is triggered by temp, many of the VW mod users had legitimate concerns about what temps they might be vaping at. So I started doing professional temperature testing on real attys and posting the results in my blog. That led to “why not test for formaldehyde too”. One of the members shared a video showing a relatively inexpensive formaldehyde meter and suggested we get one. Several of the members then generously contributed towards buying one of these meters.
What resulted is the first publicly posted (to my knowledge) results of thermal degradation formaldehyde testing on a real atty, and under real vaping conditions. I.e. how much formaldehyde is generated at what temperature.
Test Gear Utilized:
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DNA 200, calibrated, and validated, to be +/- 10 degrees in accuracy
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Merlin RTA with a 0.51ohm, 5/6 wrap, 28g TI coil, and a rayon wick.
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Mettler Toledo PB303, freshly calibrated.
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Extech FM200 Formaldehyde Meter with a fresh factory calibration
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The testing was performed under actual vaping conditions.
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Juices were 36mg (its what I vape) and were unflavored as I didnt want flavorings to skew the results.
Flavorings (and Terps I would imagine) are a whole different can of worms and really need to be tested in and of themselves.
VG and PG were from Essential Depot, nic was from E-Liq.com
So, here are my bottom line results, they were not nearly as severe as some of the unrealistic studies floating around.
Below 440f vaping is relatively formaldehyde free (flavorings not included)
Above 480f is appears that the 90\10 VG\DW was the safest, which makes perfect sense if you look at the boiling point which is 281f. Even 5% DW would lower the boiling point to 332f and be way below the danger zone.
Test Considerations:
Tests were performed on accurate TC gear, these results wont directly apply to VV or VW gear because these tests were all "temperature based". It all still comes down to temperature. The amount of formaldehyde generated is a direct result of thermal degradation, the hotter you cook your juice the more formaldehyde you will get. However, the hottest of these tests were done at 500f, if you get much hotter than that you will start to taste "burnt" even if not yet in a dry hit situation. IMHO, if you arent tasting "burnt" (unless strong flavorings cover it up) then you are likely not exceeding the level of a cigarette.
These test were done on modern gear. Older VV/VW gear (and the type most often sold for vaping weed) might have more severe results due to juice flow inadequacies, and other unfavorable variables etc. Still, IMHO, if you arent tasting "burnt" then you are likely not exceeding the level of a cigarette.
Formaldehyde was the only nasty tested here. Ecigs can have a few different nasties, but not nearly as many as the hundreds of nasties found in burnt tobacco that arent in vape.
These tests were done using MTL conditions. I have no clue how they would correlate to DL hits. My gut tells me DL would be higher levels, especially if cloud chasing, simply because you are inhaling higher volumes (more mg) of juice per hit, so if nasties are present at a given temp you will get more of them.
I think that the Wang study was onto something. They documented the thermal degradation phenomena, and the temps that it occurs at. However their quantities were skewed vs vaping by not using real vape gear in real conditions. There are physics going on inside an atty that can only be reproduced in an actual atty.
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The bottom line is if you are concerned about carcinogens from PG and VG then you want to keep your coil temperature below 420F. The best way to do that is with a Temperature controlled mod (like a DNA) but you have to use a compatible TC wire for the coil in order for it to work. All are readily available in the ecig market. Most of the “batteries” I see marketed for weed vapes are just simple VV (variable voltage) devices that will not tell you what temp the coil is.
I am not aware of any thermal degradation study’s done on weed extracts. I dont know what they degrade into under heat. Please share if you know of any studies that show this.