I’m making this thread to show how I make slightly larger batches of Rick Simpson Oil, or RSO. This first run will turn approximately 400 grams of quality trim into a little over 40 grams of RSO. I’ll be doing a run of Black Cookies or Black Candyland BUDS next.
Tools of my trade for THIS batch:
- Quality frozen trim, dried and crushed. I don’t use decarboxylated trim to start
- Solvent (3 quarts to 1+ gallon) - stored in freezer
- (2) 5 gallon buckets
- 5 gallon bucket strainer (25 micron)
- (2+) 5/6 gallon coffee filters
- Cordless drill
- Large paint mixer
- Pump sprayer
- Silicone spatulas (large and small)
- 1 perfectly sized pot lid
- 4000 mL Griffin beaker
- Alcohol Distiller
- Small non-stick pan
- IR thermometer
- Magnetic stirrer/hotplate
- Scale(s)
- Large syringes with caps
Trim: When I trim my plants, I do it twice. The first round is to remove the fan leaves and all the other plant material that isn’t well covered in trichomes. This gives you an idea of what I start with:
I dry it, then store it in the freezer. While it’s frozen, I put the trim in a thick plastic bag and crush the sh!t out of it. When doing this, you’ll be releasing lots of heads from the plant material, making it easier to dissolve. Be sure to put that crushed trim back in the freezer until you’re ready to use it.
By the way, here’s a pic of the “crush bag” I use. After dumping the trim in the bucket, I pour some of the solvent I use into the bag and clean it of all its sticky goodness!
I place the trim in the bottom of the bucket, then cover it with the ice cold solvent. In this run, I added about 3.25 quarts of solvent. This is what it looked like before mixing:
Time to mix it up:
Mixed:
See that material splashed up on the sides of the bucket? That’s where the tank sprayer comes in to play. I fill it with about 2 pints of the ice cold solvent and spray down the sides every minute or so. Much easier and faster than using a spatula.
After mixing this batch for about 8 minutes, I let it sit for a bit longer. Perhaps another 5 to 7 minutes.
NOTE: If I was making a much smaller batch, I would mix using my magnetic stirrer and Griffin beaker.
OK, now it’s time to start the straining process. Probably want to take a few hits as we begin, because this is gonna take a while!
Put the bucket strainer in the 2nd bucket:
Put 1 supersized coffee filter in the strainer:
Slowly pour as much solvent as possible into the filter. Use the spatula to hold back as much plant material as possible. You do this so the solvent can more quickly and easily flow through the filter. Do this until you mostly have the saturated plant material left in the mixing bucket.
This is what your filter will look like after pouring just (mostly) the solvent through it:
Now pour the filtered solvent from that 2nd bucket into another container until we marry all the solvent in the Griffin beaker.
Alright, pull out that coffee filter. Now we pour the plant material from the 1st bucket into the empty bucket filter sitting over the 2nd bucket. Then use your spatula to create a space in the middle like this:
Why did you create that space? For the perfectly sized pot lid I mentioned in the list, silly. Now put that pot lid upside down on top of the plant material like this:
And why did you do that again? Because we don’t want to spend all day waiting on that material to drain through the filter. Instead, we can press firmly and evenly on the pot lid and significantly speed up the process. In fact, you’ll get more solvent to release by using this method than you would by letting gravity do the work for the rest of the day.
RINSE OUT AND DRY THE FIRST BUCKET. You’ll be using again soon.
This is what the drained plant material looks like now:
Dump that out of the bucket strainer, then place the strainer into a plastic bag and tap the top of the strainer against the counter to get it as clean as possible. It won’t be totally clean, so now you can pull out that pump sprayer again and rinse it out with your solvent until it’s clean. It should look like this now:
OK, now put that 2nd supersized coffee filter into your clean bucket filter and place it on your CLEAN 1st bucket. Pour that 2nd bucket through the filters into the first bucket. You’ll want to spray the inside of the 2nd bucket to be sure you got it all.
Now take a few more hits, because this is s-l-o-w to drain.
Use your spatula to tap the sides and to move the solvent around inside the filter. It WILL eventually all drain out and should look similar to this when finished:
OK, now marry the solvent you got from the first filtering and the solvent that you just filtered into the Griffin beaker. It will likely have a green color to it. That’s because you extracted chlorophyll along with the cannabinoids:
Don’t like chlorophyll? No problem. Put the beaker out in the sun and let the sun have it. Here’s what it looks like after about an hour:
Keep in mind, I live in the woods, so there’s gonna be some green in the reflection in that pic.
Alright - now it’s time to begin the distillation, which also accomplishes a bit of the decarboxylation. Pour your solvent into the alcohol distiller, and let it do its job:
A couple of notes about the distiller. Alcohol boils at a lower temp than water, so you’ll be more efficient if you use this type. I’ve used a Megahome water distiller and I wasn’t able to recapture nearly as much. Be sure your distiller is sitting on a completely level surface or else it will drip down the side, even if off by a little bit.
YOU DO NOT NEED A DISTILLER!! I’ve made RSO with a rice cooker many, many times. I prefer the distiller because I can recapture a majority of my solvent and reuse it. The math works out if you make enough batches.
The distiller I use is a StillSpirits AirStill, which is made by the same company as the Megahome. Look at how much I recaptured! I started with 3.25 quarts and added another pint or so with the sprayer. I was able to get over 2.5 quarts back!
I don’t have a pic showing it, but I weighed the distiller when it was empty and again when it was filled. I kept weighing it during distillation so I would know when it was about to finish up. My distiller automatically shuts off when it’s finished, but you don’t want the oil to sit on the bottom and make it harder to empty. This stuff is already thiccc!
Take a peek inside. Oops - be careful, the silicone seal that goes on the lid of the distiller might fall in!! This is why I weigh during distillation now and don’t keep opening it!! But I’ll tell you how I clean this stuff at the end (if I remember).
See how it’s still bubbling. Yes, it’s very hot, so it’s a good time to pour it into your non-stick pan. Get your spatula out to help it along. And no matter how fast you are, quite a bit of oil will remain. That’s fine. Pour a bit of the alcohol that you just captured into the distiller and use the spatula to loosen everything up and dump into your pan. Be sure to weigh your pan, down to the 10th of a gram if possible, so you’ll know when all of the solvent has evaporated. This is important if you start with decarboxylated plant material. You won’t need to cook for nearly as long or as hot.
Yes, I see that hair (?). Don’t worry, I got rid of it before decarbing began. See that white thing? It’s a magnetic stir bar. If I was feeling lazy, I would put it into that pan, which is sitting on a magnetic hotplate/stirrer, and let it heat up AND stir the oil for me. I decided to do it by hand, which is where the small silicone spatula comes into play.
Stirring almost constantly, I heat my oil to between 230F (110C) and 250F (121C). As a reminder, you want to know the exact starting weight of your filled pan before you start, especially if you’re using plant material that you’ve already decarb’ed, and you can heat it at a lower temp. When you see that the weight is no longer being reduced, you’ve removed all of the solvent and your oil is ready. I use material that is not decarbed, so keep the heat and stirring going beyond the time the solvent has been eliminated. There are guidelines out there for time and temps, many of them conflicting, so I’ll leave that up to you. For me, I keep withing the range I mentioned for about 80 to 100 minutes or so. Trust me - it works nicely.
Magnetic Hotplate/Mixer
IR thermometer showing the temp range
You’re almost done! Time to store it for future use. I strongly prefer large oral syringes (60cc or almost 2 oz). Let the oil cool a bit, but not a lot - you still want it to be free flowing as much as possible. Tip your pan at an angle to allow the oil to collect on one side and suck it up with the syringe. You might need to use the spatula to get it all over the one area, but get as much as you possibly can.
You’re done! Now it’s time to clean up and weigh up. Let’s weigh up first…
Yup, approximately 43.4 grams. I say “approximately” because there was a little oil in the pan when I started. There’s always a little in the pan, just like there was when I finished this time. That’s fine. I put on foil lid on it and store it in the fridge until the next batch.
Not bad for some trim!! This trim is from my super special GSC, which is basically a trichome factory on steroids! Your results may vary.
Ugh…now it’s time to clean up. Don’t fret - I have a hack for that, too! Since you’ll be storing your pan in the fridge for repeated use, there’s no need to clean it. That spatula, though, can be quickly and easily cleaned off by using a little canola oil (or similar). But don’t just clean it off and waste it, get a zip lock bag, pour a measured amount in it, and place your spatula in the bag and swirl it around. Use your hands on the outside of the bag to really clean it off. Your before and after results should look like this:
Oh, and don’t forget to clean off that silicone seal that fell in the oil!
Be sure to store that oil in the fridge or it may go rancid. Eventually, you’ll want to make some brownies or something…maybe even a roux for a gumbo! You won’t be able to stop eating it!
That’s it. Next time, I’ll do a batch of buds and see what we come up with.
wish I have a rice cooker or distillery… what exactly is the solvent you used? 
