SWIM was going to be attempting to make some BHO. However, most of the butane you can find is not pure butane and therefor not good to be using as a solvent due to the nasties that will be left behind after evapping. So, the question he needs answered is this;

Does anyone have experience in making good medical quality BHO? If so, to your knowledge, what butane would be best to use for someone doing this on a small scale for themselves?

No one knows? In case no one is familiar with the term, it means butane hash oil.

I've always heard that Vector and Power are good brands; 7x if you really want the best but 5x is generally considered to be fine. Make sure you purge it well. At least in Cali, there is no medical quality BHO, it is illegal due to safety and health concerns.

You might want to look into Hexane. None of the concerns of poorly purged butane or impurities in BHO. Does much better extractions than ISO or alcohol/ethanol. A quick wash and second evap in ethanol/everclear after you get your hexane honey oil shold take care of any trapped hexane in the final product.

i have had really good results with colder-than-ice ISO (easy to get in AK in the winter ) and frozen material. just let it sit in the cold (on a winter night, close to 0ºF) for a couple minutes (5 for the first pull, 10 for the second, 30 for the third).

the first pull comes out really pure, it all comes out very good (slight greenish tint on the third pull).

the iso is also much easier to purge than the butane.


i have yet to get hexane to compare it with hexane.

How do you go about doing the purge?

few ways, you can let it cure for a day, then do another hot water bath,

or you can rake a lighter flame over the oil, which will bring all the flammabe particulates to the surface and then combust them.

i have tried both of those methods and they work well.

also i was given this advice in another thread, which looks promising but i haven't tried it out yet:

Sounds easy enough to me. I thought it would be more difficult. SWIM is slowly saving up nugs out of batches he gets til he recieves an ounce or so, then purchasing a honey bee essential oil extractor and using that. Since you have to grind it up, SWIM is going to be adding all the kief that is left after grinding for extra potency.

There are many different ways. One easy way is to use alcohol/ethanol (like Everclear) to thin out the oil into a liquid. It is best to do this in a glass bowl with warm water underneath to heat it all up. Once the BHO dissolves into the alcohol it rids itself of most of the trapped Butane. Then just slowly evap it back to the oil or shatter glass consistency you had before and most of the Butane is now purged. It will not get rid of any impurities in the Butane though. Be sure not to heat the oil too hot or it could burn. Warm water bath and glass bowl for the oil to sit in are the best methods. Another way is to do a vacuum extraction with heat. I've seen people use glass mason jars with smaller oil jars placed inside without a lid. The oil has been heated up to around 140-150 degrees. Then a hand pump (Pump n seal or similar) has been used to force the air out of the sealed mason jar and create a vacuum. The Butane comes out of the thick oil and into the air or the mason jar where it can be released. I've heard lots of warnings not to use plastic of any kind when running Butane, and always use glass or very clean stainless steel but no other metal and certainly not galvanized. A glass turkey baster works great for small runs and lots of online sources carry them cheap, maybe cheaper that a honey bee. Just wear thick garden gloves and be careful not to break the glass. Another way to run Butane is to get a Dewars Flask and freeze it and your herbs and your Butane cans all in the freezer. 24 hours should be enough. Then when it is cold outside or at night dump all of your cold liquid Butane into the Dewars Flask until the herb is all submerged. The Flask will keep the Butane liquid and it will for hours. After an hour of sitting in the cold Butane, dump all the cold liquid though a fine filter ( a nice thick clean cotton tshirt will work fine) into a large glass bowl and evap the butane in warm water bath, purge, evap again and done. The slow cold method seems to get all the goodies out and conserves the Butane. Used flasks are around $100 online, so if you are running bulk this is a good way to go.

also this, i forgot to mention. here is a handy chart for that. you can to to 110ºC without losing really anything (Which should be more than sufficient for hot water baths), and up to almost 150ºC without losing any of the "important" cannibinoids

Thanks Parshvik, that is handy and fits with my experience.

if you get propagation mat which is similiar to a pigs blanket, you can try it on there it takes longer and you have to let it cure off the mat too total like 7 to 10 days of curing and you get flake like product like sheets of bho very crystaly looking super nice and smooth ive noticed water baths can "burn" it and give you that more oil consisty instead of wax or shatter those take the slow cure on prop mats.

Interesting. Do all propagation mats have a consistent temperature or can you dial it in? If adjustable, what setting or temperature works best for a long cure. I assume you put a flat bottomed glass dish with the BHO in it on the mat? thanks, had not heard of this technique.

Buy one from a plant store there used to keep seedlings warm in the winter or like a said if in need go to your local farm store or online farm supplier and order a pigs blanket.

Never seen one you can adjust temp but the one I have has been used by everyone in my circle we all bho for medical "clinics". It works great and it says like certain parts are hotter than others but they never exceed 85degrees which makes it cure deal slow and real nice.

Start with the glass pan on an already hot prop mat and extract straight onto it sounds crazy but it is safe I've done it more than I can count let alone how many I've been party to. Let it sit on the mat rotating off the cold spot onto hot spots( wherever the dish is will begin to freeze mat that's why you move it) let it cure in therefore days like a week just keep checking everyday never touch it leave it alone don't whip it nothing. Pull it off and let it cure off the mat for say four to five days then scrape off with large like paint scrape so you get the chunks whole and then let that cure on cardboard like another few days and your wax will resemble crack lol very crstaly very smooth. It takes time but makes great product maybe less if your using less flower we normally do three lb at a clip of trimmings also work out a formula for how much butane per amout of flower the ratio we have is one lb is about ten to twelve cans depending on how tight you pack I. By the way tighter you pack more pressure better in the long run. Also I've been using a smaller extracted lately about a eight inch tall stainless steel extracted that is hella wide and that also addsnalot to the pressure if you need any other questions on it just ask away my friend who taught me has been doing bho in Europe since 2003

oh also always always always use vector it is a better product that power shit is fals advertising

Thanks bonger for the info, much appreciated. Do you have any photos of the finished product you could post? I'm curious to see what the end product looks like. Cali MMJ shops have some really, really nice extracts. I like to know the teks used to get the cleanest and best end products. I like the slow cure and constant low temp technique you advocate. Cheers.

here are some flicks i hope they upload right

Nice! Thanks again.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of yield are you getting? You say you are using 1lb of trimmings, how many grams per average are you getting of final product from that? Have you ever tried using a Dewars flask setup to soak the herb in cold butane?

the last pic is what happens if it doesnt come out in a full chunk thats about half gram. all the other pics are a product new to the scene called slax the name comes from slate(slang for crack where i grew up) and wax the names combined give you slax . lol it is still pure cannabis just a funny name my crew and i came up with it is typically called shatter