How To Make Hash Oil From Marijuana

Hash oil is the most potent form of cannabis available. If you are a marijuana or hashish smoker, you have probably smoked hash oil before. If not, you've heard how strong it is compared to marijuana.

Until recently actually making hash oil has been the domain of chemists and other people who were familiar with extracting psychoactive compounds from cannabis plant material.

How To Make Honey Oil From Marijuana

The Boffo Butane Hash Oil Extractor by Indra, has its basis in a method known as Supercritical Fluid Extraction. It uses totally over-the-counter butane gas (8 oz can, camping supply store) as the extraction solvent, and requires nothing even remotely suspicious or difficult to purchase.

The only other thing needed is a few dollars worth of PVC pipe: a section about 1.5 (one and a half) feet long with a 1.75 (one and three-quarter) inch outer diameter, and two end caps. Threaded PVC is not necessary. Some people prefer plastic or metal pipe because PVC might release chemicals when exposed to butane.

Butane and CO2 (and perhaps other solvent/gas combinations with similar ultra-low-boiling properties) selectively solvate the desirable fraction(s) of cannabis oils, pulling out only a beautiful amber honey oil and leaving the undesirable vegetative oils, waxes, chlorophyll, etc. behind in the plant matter.

Even unsmokable shade leaves produce a wonderfully clean and potent gold oil with this method (so if you grow save those shade leaves). I have every reason to suspect that this would work splendidly to extract a super-strong and tasty oil from bad tasting marijuana too.

Bear in mind, a better grade of marijuana will produce a larger yield of hash oil. See further down on this page for an idea of how much marijuana you will need before attempting this.

The most important thing to remember is to work outdoors away from people, animals and anything else that might catch fire or be injured if the butane comes into contact with any ignition source. Butane is highly flammable, work away from anything that might produce a spark. Make sure you are the only victim, if anything goes wrong.

Method:
1) In one of the PVC end caps, drill a single small hole in the center. This hole should be correctly sized to snugly receive the little outlet nozzle of your butane can.

2) In the other end cap, drill a group of 5 or 6 small holes clustered in the center (like a pepper shaker). The honey oil will be collected from these holes.

3) After putting a piece of paper towel or coffee filter inside it for filtration (to keep plant material from exiting with the oil), put the end cap with several holes on one end of the pipe. Push it on there real tight. This is the bottom.

4) Fill the pipe up with plant matter that has been pulverized into a coarse powder. You want it filled, but not packed down. (Full pipe estimated at 2 oz capacity, but this is a guess. I did not weigh it.)

5) Place the top end cap on the pipe. Again, push it on as securely as you can by hand.

6) Find a location outdoors with a decent breeze. You want these butane fumes to be quickly carried away.

6a) Mount the pipe (single hole-side up) over a vessel that can hold 300mL+. Beakers are perfect. A lab stand and clamp are ideal for the mounting, but a regular shop clamp or anything that can hold it sturdily is fine (metal increases the chance of sparks). Position the bottom end of the pipe immediately over (1-2") the receiving vessel to eliminate splatter loss.

7) Turn the butane gas can upside down and dispense the gas into the pipe via the single top hole. A whole 8-oz can takes about 10-12 seconds to evacuate. Be brave, swift, and careful. A spark at this moment would spell disaster since you have basically created an incendiary explosive device that is leaking.

8) When you've exhausted the can into the pipe, back off to a nice distance and let it do its thing. The butane moves down the pipe, extracting the cannabis oil as it goes. When it gets to the bottom (about 30 seconds after dispensing), it begins to drain into the receiving vessel. Notice the pale, glowing yellow-green-gold hue of the extract.

Over approximately five to eight minutes, the butane extract will finish draining from the pipe to the receiving vessel. Maintain caution with the pipe, however, since there is a lot of residual butane still evaporating from within the pipe (notice the stream of fumes coming from the top hole).

When it slows down to a drop every few seconds, you can tap on the top hole with your finger and it will help push the last of the liquid butane out (or one can gently blow into the top hole to do the same thing). Remember, NO SMOKING, unless you wish to immolate yourself in grand fashion.

Being very low boiling and volatile, the collected butane will likely begin boiling at ambient temperature.

The receiving vessel will gradually frost up as the butane cools it down, slowing down its rate of evaporation, but you can speed this up again simply by holding it in your hands. A better way is to set it in a saucepan containing a little bit of warm water.

Watch the butane start bubbling madly with the increase in temperature and marvel at its low boiling point. Again, do this outdoors with a nice breeze!

You may have to repeat the process several times if you have a lot of marijuana to process but the result is worth the effort.

When you are finished, you can simply let the butane evaporate. It takes a minimum of 20 minutes for the butane to evaporate. Use a glass receiving vessel with a flat bottom if you choose this method.

The honey oil will be fairly cohesive and can be scraped off and collected with a razor blade and stored, after the butane has fully evaporated.

An alternate method is to let all of the butane evaporate off and then redissolve the oil in some anhydrous or high-% alcohol, and then pour this into a vial and let it sit out for a day or two to allow the alcohol to evaporate.

Trying to transfer the oil into a small container while it is still solvated by the butane is too risky. I learned the hard way about this, thanks to the volatile temperament of butane.

I had filled a vial almost all the way to the top and was preparing to drop those last couple drops in, so that cleverly, I could let the last of the butane evaporate from the vial and the oil would all be neatly contained.

But when the last drop hit the mother lode in the vial, it changed the temperature of the solution in the vial upward by a hair and it all super boiled out of the vial and onto my fingers, which of course startled me and caused me to drop the vial.

I suggest dissolving it in alcohol as I mentioned above. If you can get pure or 99% isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol), use it, because THC's photosensitivity reportedly does not occur in isopropyl alcohol.

The final product is a deep yellow-amber oil of the highest quality, incredibly pure and potent. I remember well some of the prime honey oil hash oils that hit the market in the late 1970s, and this stuff stands up to (if not exceeds) any of them.

It's amazing how this method extracts only the good fraction and leaves the junk in the weed. But that's exactly what it does. The color of the oil isn't as see-through as traditional honey oil but it is just as potent.

Note also that this oil has a somewhat higher melt/vaporization point than traditional hash oils. The traditional dispensing method (dipping a needle or paper clip in, getting some goop on the end, and warming it with a flame to get it to drip off) still works with this stuff.

However, it seems you have to be more careful with it because it doesn't heat to liquid state as quickly or in the same manner. It can easily be burned up on your needle if you are used to hash oil that is produced using other solvents. So be careful.

I also observed that unlike honey oil derived from traditional methods, this product is not immediately soluble in room-temp alcohol. It needed to be warmed before it dissolved fully.

Your experience may vary depending on the potency of the particular marijuana you use, but here is a general idea of how much marijuana it will take to produce honey oil.

leaves 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) : 1 gram or better
commercial 30 grams (about 1 ounce) : 1 gram or better
premium flowers 15 grams (about 1/2 ounce) : 1 gram or better

--- 100 grams of marijuana leaves will yield about 1 gram of honey oil, or more.
--- 100 grams of commercial marijuana will yield about 4 grams of honey oil, or more.
--- 100 grams of premium marijuana will yield about 10 grams of honey oil, or more.

Never try to produce hash or hash oil from marijuana seeds, they contain no psychoactive compounds and will only add impurities to the final product. If a seed or two accidentally gets mixed in the marijuana you are working with, don't worry, but keep the seeds to a minimum.

For your first attempt try filling up the pipe with leaves, stem, and other marijuana by-products that would otherwise not be good for smoking. You should get something. If you fail to make any oil, talk to someone who understands marijuana chemistry.

When growing marijuana, most people throw away leaves that dry up or are cut during regular plant maintenance. This is a good way to experiment with something that would otherwise end up in the garbage.

If you like the results, you can try making larger amounts of oil using premium marijuana instead of leaves. Making honey oil out of marijuana is recommended for growers and others that have access to a large amount of weed.

Chances are unless you grow or sell weed, you are not going to come across 3.5 ounces of leaves to experiment with very often. If access to leaves and other growing by-products is not an option, you can experiment with a minimum of 1 ounce (28 grams) of good marijuana buds.

Using the butane method with 1 ounce of good bud will yield about 2-3 grams of honey oil, if you do things properly. Using less than 1 ounce of good bud or 3.5 ounces of leaves and by-products is not recommended because the yield will be too small.

How To Make Red Hash Oil

If you have some practical chemistry experience you can try making red oil instead of honey oil. Red oil is not as potent as honey oil, but if you use the same amount (and potency) of marijuana to produce both red oil and honey oil, the red oil yield will be larger.

You will be working with chemicals that will ignite if not used in a properly ventilated lab. Do not attempt this without a proper spark-less exhaust system if you are not working in a lab.

1) completely dry and grind material to a powder. soak material in petroleum ether for several hours, but less than 24 hours. strain, saving the pet ether/oil mixture... pressing out the material thoroughly to get as much solvent/oil out of the material as possible. filter the solvent/oil mixture through a coffee filter.

2) extract pet ether/oil mixture w/ an ~ 4% sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in alcohol solution three times.

3) acidify the NaOH/oil mixture w/ HCl (diluted 2:1 or 3:1 with distilled water) to pH 3. filter the acidified mixture through a coffee filter.

4) extract acidified mixture w/ pet ether three times. evaporate off pet ether to yield red honey oil!

when dealing w/ large material quantities, replace 1) w/ ->
- dry, grind and soak material in 91% (or higher) isopropyl alcohol for three days.
- strain and filter, saving alcohol/oil mixture.
- evaporate off alcohol down to ~ 250 - 300 ml of alcohol/oil mixture.
- extract alcohol/oil mixture w/ pet ether three times.

* extract = placing two solutions in a separatory funnel, mixing thoroughly, and allowing the two phases to separate...
--- given pet ether & alcohol >> (pet ether on top) (alcohol on bottom)
--- given pet ether & NaOH soln >> (pet ether on top) (NaOH soln on bottom). same for pet ether and acidified NaOH solution.

* to make the NaOH solution - mix 40 mg of pure NaOH pellets into 500 ml of distilled water until dissolved thoroughly. then add 500 ml of absolute grain alcohol (everclear), yielding ~ 1 liter of the sodium hydroxide solution.

* white gas can be substituted for pet ether (verified) muriatic acid (swimming pools) can be substituted for HCl (verified) lye can be substituted for NaOH (verified).

Hashish

Over 350 very well researched pages about the history, consumption, production, and other aspects of the substance known as hashish. The book is easy to read and the only book to get if you are interested in making, using, or learning about hashish.

The first 300 pages thoroughly trace hash history, methods of consumption, pressing, storing, and cultures. The last 50 pages go into great detail about traditional and modern methods of making, hashish.

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