Vaping Marijuana: Making your own cannabis vape oil concentrateDisclaimer: This site was created to help others better understand the benefits of using cannabis vape oil concentrate for their medical marijuana needs. The information presented here is for use only by individuals at least eighteen years of age. I am not a medical doctor. I am providing this material for instructional and/or entertainment purposes only. If you use any of what is presented here you do so at your own risk and I will not be held responsible for your actions or the eventual outcome.Some background:
Then, I got hurt. Amazing how that can change ones viewpoint overnight. I found myself lying on my back most of the day with a herniated spinal disc. My S4 - S5 disc to be exact. Having no insurance left me with few options. Taking over the counter drugs like Aleve helped but that was only eating away at my stomach lining. I truly felt my life was over and just at the point I was hoping to soon retire. It was not a pleasant situation I found myself in. I needed to find an alternative method of getting better. A fellow back sufferer's recommendation that I look into the possibility of using medical cannabis to treat my condition was intriguing enough for me to at least consider it. It was only recently legal in my state. He found it helped greatly with his back issues. Long story short, it did help me and it helped greatly. I was able  I've come along way since and have now moved on from purchasing the final product to making my own. This is where this web site comes in. I want to share my methods and techniques for making cannabis vape oil concentrate with everyone in the hopes that it can help others out there who are struggling and confused by all the nonsense and hype. As you will come to find out, there is a great deal of money to be made in this burgeoning new industry. Not all the players are completely honest and people like you and I can be hurt by their questionable practices. This is why it's critical for you to bone up on what is true and what is BS. You will only get the truth, here. Anything I discuss I have done and used myself. I'm the guinea pig, not you.
In the beginning...If you research cannabis the first thing you will learn is, it is not new. Cannabis has been around for some 8000 years having first appeared in China around 6000BC. For most of that time it has been used as a food and textile source. It was not until around 3500 years ago that it was prized for its mind altering effects. Medicinally, cannabis took the form of pills and Times they are a changingEven though the US federal government still, to this day, considers cannabis The endocannabinoid systemWhen your body is in balance all systems are working in harmony. Your ability to achieve and maintain good health is maximized. You look and feel great. It is the endocannabinoid system, found in humans as well as animals, that makes this possible. We produce our own cannabinoids to keep our body in check. These then bind with the cannabinoid receptors to complete the system. Think of it like a series of locks all over your body. One for your heart, one for your lungs, your brain, your stomach and so forth. When your body is balanced it can produce the cannabinoid keys to open these locks letting each system work in harmony with all the others. When we're ill or when one part of our body is not functioning properly that particular key may not work so well. Ingesting cannabis allows the body to replenish the missing cannabinoids to keep all the locks open and the body working in harmony. This short video from Fundacion-canna explains the endocannabinoid system extremely well. Take a moment to watch it. So where does that leave me?Cannabis, as offered by an approved, licensed medical dispensary, comes in many forms. Everything from the raw flower, to pre-rolled joints, to various forms of concentrate, to all kinds of infused edibles such as candies, drinks, baked goods, capsules, and honey.. just to name a few. It is the concentrate that we will concern ourselves with on this site. More specifically it is All medical dispensaries should offer cannabis oil concentrate in cartridge or syringe form. The latter requiring you to fill your own vaporizer cartridges. Pricing ranges from $80 to $100 for a gram of concentrate. Compare that to buying the raw flower at the same dispensary for around $10 per gram. Depending on how often and how much you vape, a gram of concentrate can last you from one to two weeks. When purchasing concentrate from a dispensary it's best to look for product that has had no additives mixed in. You should purchase only pure cannabis oil concentrate for the best vaping experience. Concentrate that has been diluted with vegetable glycerine (VG), propylene glycol (PG), polyethylene glycol (PEG) or coconut oil should be avoided at all cost. These products release harmful substances when heated you do not want to be inhaling. The same goes for flavoring additives found in some vape concentrates. They also have no place in our vape cartridges. Substances eaten will generally pass thought your digestive system and leave the body as waste. Substances that enter the lungs have no where to go and can remain there for the rest of your life. Remember... just because something can be ingested by eating it
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We begin the winterization process by adding all the candy we have collected from our pressing to a 3" test tube. To this we add a small amount of gently heated 190 proof ethanol purchased from the liquor store. I use Graves grain alcohol because I can buy it in small, 375ml bottles but others may find Everclear easier to find where they live. Some states have outlawed the sale of 190 proof ethanol altogether. If that's the case, you will need order it from Ebay. Just make absolutely sure you use only 190 proof food-grade ethanol and nothing else. Your life depends on it. |
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Place the capped off test tube in a candle jar filled with water and set this on top of the coffee warmer we talked about, earlier. Make sure the water's temperature is not more than 130 degrees F. Using an infrared temperature probe makes this process easy and accurate. Let this sit for about ten to fifteen minutes giving the test tube a few shakes every so often. You are waiting for the candy to dissolve in the ethanol. Once this happens, leave the test tube in the water for another ten minutes to be sure it fully dissolves. |
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Take one of the 10 ml syringes and put a cap on the tip to prevent anything from dripping out the end. Pour the dissolved cannabis/ethanol mixture into the syringe and add enough ethanol to bring the level up to about 10ml. Put the plunger into the syringe. You may have to turn it slightly upwards and loosen the cap to release some air to get the plunger to go in. Do this very carefully or you will end up squirting your hard work all over your kitchen. |
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You are now ready for the cooling part of the process. Take the syringe and place it in a small glass along with two or three of the .22 micron syringe filters you purchased. You want everything that comes into contact with the cannabis oil to be very cold for the filtration step that will come up, next. Assuming your freezer is set at the normal temperature of around 0 degrees F, you will leave this there for at least 48 hours. The extreme cold will cause the cannabis oil to become separated from the unwanted substances and make the filtration process that much easier to achieve. After the 48 hours is up you will want to remove the syringe from the freezer and screw on one of the .22 micron syringe filters. |
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You need to do this step as quickly as possible to avoid warming up the solution. Into a clean, empty candle jar begin squeezing the syringe plunger. Drop by drop, the filtered oil will start to enter the jar. It will come out easily at first but then will only drip very slowly. This is because the filter is becoming plugged up with the unwanted impurities from the plant. Do not squeeze too hard or you can burst the filter. You can turn the syringe up towards the ceiling and pull back on the plunger a bit. This will cause the gunk to get sucked back in and away from the filter. You can then continue the dripping. Do not squeeze out beyond the remaining 1 or 2 ml. Leave that in the syringe. Compare the results now after filtration to what you had in the syringe before you started. This is pure cannabis oil concentrate in ethanol. |
Take a good look at the syringe to see what is left. That yellow-white fatty mucus contains the plant extracts, waxes and lipids that have been left behind. Had you not done the winterization this garbage would remain in the cannabis oil concentrate when you go to inhale it.
Better in here than in your precious lungs, correct?
This is exactly the same process, in miniature form, the high tech cannabis laboratory uses to remove these unwanted by-products from the concentrates they sell to you.
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We must now remove or purge the ethanol from the cannabis oil to get to the final product we're after. We do this by evaporation. The same process the big commercial producers would use their expensive rotovap machine for. In our case, we will use our home made rotovap. Place the candle jar on top of the coffee warmer and tape it down so it does not slide around. A good temperature to warm the ethanol mixture at is around 130 degrees F and no higher. Well below it's boiling temperature of 174 degrees but still warm enough for it to evaporate at a fairly good rate. Turn on the dental vibrator and adjust the vibration to cause a strong agitation in the solution but not so intense that it is spitting up and out of the jar. This part of the process will take some time. It usually takes around 45 minutes or so for the ethanol to be purged from the oil when I do it. There is a simple method you can use to know when most all the ethanol is gone. It's called the flame test. |
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Performing the flame test: |
When you test the sample finally devoid of ethanol, instead of the flame out you will just see the cannabis concentrate burn away like it's supposed to. It's really that simple. At that point you will be left with such a small amount of pure cannabis oil you will wonder if it was all worth the trouble. I can assure you, once you try this as a vape, you will be convinced that it is.
Your final step now is to simply draw up the oil into a new 3 ml syringe with a blunt (no point) needle attached. Do this while the oil is still warm. It should be quite thick and will want to cling to the candle jar. You want to get 
every bit of this precious oil so take your time. Keep moving the needle over the bottom of the jar as you slowly draw back on the plunger. Make sure to cap the needle when you're done so none of the oil oozes back out. I will usually leave this in the refrigerator until I'm ready to use it. It will last much longer the colder you keep it but freezing is not necessary. If you started out with three to four grams of flower you should end up with around one milliliter of cannabis vape oil concentrate. If you've come this far you can be quite proud of yourself. You now have the knowledge and expertise to make your own medicine and no one can ever take that ability away from you. This is a right we all need to protect 
and cherish as there are still others out there who are not as fortunate. This needs to change and change now. For far to long the major pharmaceutical companies have had a lock on what we require to remain healthy. Cannabis is an 8000 year old weed and they cannot get a lock on that. Oh, they're going to try. They're filing patent after patent... in some cases hundreds of patents... to try and stake their claim to parts of this weed. I wish them good luck... but know this. I do not need their expensive patented medicine. I can make my own in my kitchen. Hopefully, after reading this web site, so can you!
So, you now know how to make your own cannabis vape oil concentrate. Thats fantastic. Now you need to find a way to enjoy it. Let me offer some advice, if I may. Start off by keeping it simple until you see how this works for you. You'll want to begin by experiencing vaping in it's purest form, first, and for that you need only a basic, low-cost 510-style vape pen battery and refillable cartridge. You can probably find these at your local vape shop or you can buy them online. Pen batteries come as a fixed voltage of approximately 3.25v. They are supplied with USB-style wall changer. Charging takes only a few hours and a full charge, on a new battery, should last you for four to five days.
An important note here... pen batteries should remain cool to the touch while charging. If the battery is getting warm it is no longer taking a proper charge and should be discarded. Pen batteries, which contain lithium cells, have been known to explode. This is extremely rare but it has happened. Dropping the pen repeatedly, as I often do, can adversely affect the cell structure and possibly cause it to rupture. Keeping an eye on the temperature of the pen while charging will alert you to a defective battery before anything can go wrong. Word to the wise.
Beyond the basic single-voltage battery they can also be purchased with selectable voltages running between 2.6 and 3.9v. The advantage of the selectable voltage batteries is you can tailor your vaping experience to time of day or your particular need. By time of day I mean if 
you select the lowest voltage setting you will get a milder vapor which is less likely to give you as pronounced a high. This might be perfect for use during the day where you need to stay active and clear headed and know you will be staying put. It is also suggested that the temperature at which you heat the cannabis oil preselects which of the over one hundred cannabinoids you will experience. Vape cartridges also come in all types and prices. Some of the more exotic models offer ceramic heaters, pyrex glass tubes and adjustable vents. It is believed the thicker oils require these specialized cartridges over the more conventional and cheaper cotton wick type cartridges. In fact, you are better off to invest in a good quality ceramic coil refillable cartridge for health reasons moreso than compatibility. The cotton wick cartridges have been shown to give off toxic gases if they are allowed to run dry. Ceramic coil cartridges are so hard they can stand up to the rigors of high melting temperatures. Their chemical resistance makes them ideal for use in situations like those associated with the heat involved with vaping and they will not off gas if allowed to run dry. It will become necessary to clean these carts on occasion and this can be done using alcohol.
When you're ready to add your home made vape oil to a new cartridge, inject just enough to cover the lower third of the glass tube. This will insure an even amount of heat reaches the oil for the best result. A little oil goes a long way. I can easily get several nights out of a cartridge using it this way. Leave the pen standing up on its end to keep the oil covering the coil for more even results. Another trick I've learned is not to draw in too much vapor at one time and to draw the vapor into my mouth, first, before inhaling it into my lungs. This lets the vapor cool down a bit. I find I have no harsh affect on my throat by doing it this way. One final note... if you have not removed all the ethanol during the final purge you can cause it to burn off by pressing the button on the battery while holding it away from your mouth for a few seconds. I also find if you let the cartridge sit for a day or two any residual ethanol will evaporate off on it's own. This is why it's critical to use only food-grade grain ethanol for the winterization process.
When I began this web site I described for you the dire situation I found myself in 
back in March of 2017. Lying in bed with severe back and leg pain having no insurance and, frankly, no hope I would ever get better. Throwing caution to the wind, I opted to try medical cannabis as a last resort with vaping my method of choice. Several months of research led me to create a simplified system for anyone to create their own safe and inexpensive medicine in the form of cannabis concentrate. My back issues are a thing of the past as are several other conditions a person of my age usually experiences at this stage of ones life. I owe that all to cannabis. It has given me my life back. I'm convinced cannabis truly is a miracle cure for what ails the human body and if you now understand a little of how the endocannabinoid system works you may also appreciate it's potential, as well.
I think I've described the method for making cannabis vape oil concentrate in fairly easy to understand language and the images I've provided should also be of some help. I've also littered the page with links to where you can find many of these items, quickly and easily. If you still have questions about the process, I will try and answer them, here. This is a moderated forum. I will not tolerate any abusive comments so be civil or your post will not get shown.
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If you had asked me a year ago if I was at all interested in smoking weed I would have said "no way". I was about as dead set against toking up as anyone could be. I had lived through the hippie peace-love-music generation and I held people who smoked pot in low regard. I wanted no part of what that lifestyle represented. 
to get off the drugs completely. That factor alone meant I could stop using OTC medication that would eventually do me more harm than good. My medical dispensary had lots of options but I had already done my homework before I got there. I told the pharmacist my method of choice was to vape. He showed me what they could offer in that regard and I made my selection. From my research going in, vaping marijuana seemed the cleanest and most elegant way to use cannabis. As it turns out, using a vaporizer is also the safest and most controllable way to partake of this miraculous weed. We'll get into this much more, later on.
tinctures in the US during the mid to late 19th century. It was quite common for medical practitioners of that era to prescribe some form of cannabis extract to cure all kinds of ills. Fast forward to 1937 when, in the US, a fellow by the name of Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, instituted the Marihuana Tax Act that effectively prohibited all forms of cannabis. Those wanting to use cannabis have been looking over their shoulder ever since. Add to that the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (the DEA) has deemed cannabis, in all forms, a Schedule I drug meaning is has no medicinal benefit whatsoever. Forget the fact that the United States has ownership of one of the earliest and most broad reaching medicinal cannabis patents on file. It does get a little confusing when you try to contemplate just where the feds are coming from.
illegal there has been enough relaxing of enforcement to allow some states to move slowly and cautiously towards legalizing cannabis. California was the first to propose allowing cannabis to be made legal for medical use in 2003 through their California Senate Bill 420 also known as the Medical Marijuana Program Act. Since then more and more states have passed their own laws and regulations allowing some form of legal cannabis. This usually starts
with a medical program and, in many cases, gets expanded years later to include recreational use, as well. States that have instituted a program point to an increase in much needed tax dollars, a drop in the consumption of alcohol and a reduction in the use of narcotic opioid pain medication. Clearly, the benefits are there and this is fueling the move by more and more states to come on board. The need now is for the research to ramp up so that cannabis can take its rightful place among the other approved medications. Thereby, allowing more people to have access to it and doctors more willing to embrace it. That will come, in time.
cannabis vape oil concentrate for use in a vapor device we will deal with exclusively. It is my opinion vaping is the safest, most controllable method of ingesting cannabis. Why do I say that? Well, let's compare vaping cannabis extract to smoking weed, the most common form of ingesting. We know that smoking anything is just plain bad for you. When you burn a substance and breath it in you not only get the original material but all of the by-products produced by the heat of combustion. It is the extreme heat from combustion that converts the relatively harmless material into dangerous carcinogens. Each puff you take releases more of these cancer-causing substances into your lungs. This is true when smoking cigarettes and it's just as true when smoking marijuana. Vaping, on the other hand, uses less heat. Instead of inhaling smoke you are inhaling a vapor and, if the cannabis oil concentrate is made properly, you are getting only the pure cannabinoids and terpenes with almost no by products. Vaping is cleaner and way more convenient than having to roll a joint or load a pipe. Vaping, in its simplest form, uses a pen-shaped vaporizer device consisting of a rechargeable battery and a concentrate cartridge. Activating the battery lets you inhale from the device instantly. You can stop and start the process, at will. By controlling the heat you control which of the twenty eight known cannabinoids you release into your lungs. The concentrate remains viable for weeks so there is no need to empty the cartridge each time you use it. Again, that convenience factor I 
spoke of. Vaping gets the cannabis into the lungs quickly and with little to no harsh side effects. The stop-start ability of vaping allows you to precisely control the amount of cannabis you inhale and, therefore, how high you will become.
The marijuana bud and the tiny sugar leaves that surround it are covered with microscopic globes called trichomes. It is these trichomes that hold the oil containing the plant's cannabinoids and terpenes. Under extreme pressure, the trichomes can be forced to give up their precious oil. The very first attempts at pressing rosin, rosin tech was the name originally given to the process, involved using a simple hair straightener. They are still used today with some being fitted with a shop clamp to aid in applying more pressure. Pressure is key. Too little and you will not get a decent amount of rosin. A waste of good flower, in my opinion. The best way involves using a high-pressure mechanical system of some form. You can purchase a commercial 
parts scrounged from Goodwill, my work shop and the local hardware store. They are not terribly sophisticated, consisting of an automobile 
pack lose flower between the plates I use something called a puck maker I made from some aluminum stock and a piece of 1" PVC pipe. This lets me form nice tight blocks of flower that will stay together during the pressing operation. This is very important because having gaps in the flower will prevent the rosin from flowing to the outer edges. Keeping the flower in a cohesive package will insure the best result. I begin by loading a small amount of flower into the tube and push down on the plunger with my hand. The puck maker has a bottom plug that keeps the material from escaping. I keep adding flower until I have a puck about a half inch thick. Then, I lift up the PVC tube and push the plunger all the way in. The puck pops out and I'm ready to press. I'll usually make up a half dozen of these to keep the pressing process moving smoothly. BTW: Wearing disposable Nitrile gloves will make it easier to keep your hands free of the sticky trichomes.
Again, waiting a few seconds. Finally, I pump all the way until I can hear the rosin hissing as it gets squeezed from the flower. You can see the rosin oozing from between the paper. Another few seconds to allow all the rosin to escape and then I release the pressure and remove the paper. I then repeat the process with a fresh puck and paper. I will press about four grams of flower at a time. I find, from experience, this will give me at least a full gram of concentrate when the entire process is complete. This amount will last me a good two to three weeks, given the way I vape. 
the end of the tool. Do not touch it with your fingers. Put the tool in the freezer for about 20 minutes. This will harden what you have collected to the consistency of candy. I like to weigh my result so I can keep track of the flower-to-rosin ratio of various strains. To do this, I will weigh just the tool and set the scale's tar weight to 0. Then, I weigh the rosin while still on the tool. The scale will show the weight of the rosin minus the weight of the tool. You can buy small 
vaping experience but can do you much harm, as well. Winterization lets us get rid of these substances and leaves us with a pristine cannabis oil ready for the next step. You will need to invest a few dollars in some common chemistry set items. They include some 
lab nowadays. It's basically a modified distillation setup. There is a glass flask to hold the "charge" or solution to be distilled in a container of heated water. The main difference is the flask holding the charge solution is mounted such that it can be constantly rotated. This does two things. It keeps the heat evenly dispersed all around and it stirs the solution to speed up the evaporation process. A vacuum is applied to cause the charge to evaporate faster. From there the distillate (in this case ethanol) is collected in a cooling chamber and dripped into another flask. What's left in the first flask is what we're after. That's the purified cannabis oil concentrate or extract as some call it.
These cost thousands of dollars depending on size and features. They also require a fair amount of charge solution to work properly. A few millimeters won't cut it so even if I could afford one, it would be of no use to me on such a small scale. There is (like there always is) another way to accomplish basically the same thing.
What I have here is a coffee cup warmer mounted, with double sided tape, to a dental vibrator unit. This gets me the mild heat I need to evaporate the ethanol (more on that, later) and the constant movement of the solution to increase the surface tension and speed up the process. I also use this, with the vibrator turned off, to warm the water for the test tube containing the "candy" obtained from the pressings. 
