Can you make THC oil that will work in an e-cig by yourself on a budget? Cartridges pre-filled with THC have been rapidly increasing in popularity due to their convenience and stealth factor. But if you don’t have access to pre-filled cartridges and don’t want to pay the premium price, you can totally DIY it. It won’t be as smooth and tasty as some of the best vape pens on the market, but it will still get you high on the go.
What You’ll Need
If you have access to cannabis concentrates, you can make THC oil for e-pens in less time. If not, you can still use cannabis flowers and trimmings.
- 7 grams of quality flower (more if lower quality) or 1 gram of high-grade cannabis concentrate.
- 2 glass jars (left in a freezer for 2 hours before the extraction process begins)
- Strainer
- Baking sheet or Pyrex bowl
- Freezer
- Oven
- Stovetop
- Pot for boiling
- Precise thermometer
- Aluminum foil
- Baking sheet
- Dropper bottles
- PEG400 or a mix of polyethylene glycol (PEG), propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerin (VG)
- Everclear or another high percentage alcohol.
Avoid using rubbing alcohol. Even with Everclear, you’ll need a stovetop or a hot plate to boil off any remaining solvent.
Next: Decarboxylation
Decarboxylation
You can skip this step if you’re using cannabis concentrates to make THC oil. However, with flowers and trimmings, you want to make sure they are fully decarboxylated to convert any THC-A into THC. THC-A won’t get you high if you eat it. It would need to be heated to do so, which is what the decarboxlation process is all about.
1. To start, finely grind your weed onto a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. Next, bake the broken down buds in an oven at 225-250 °F.
Break up your materials and spread them across a sheet of aluminum foil. Leave them in an oven at 225°F for 15 to 30 minutes. The temperature should be low enough to prevent flavorful terpenes from burning away. If you smell or see vapor forming, turn off the oven.
Decarboxylation
You can skip this step if you’re using cannabis concentrates to make THC oil. However, with flowers and trimmings, you want to make sure they are fully decarboxylated to convert any THC-A into THC. THC-A won’t get you high if you eat it. It would need to be heated to do so, which is what the decarboxlation process is all about.
1. To start, finely grind your weed onto a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. Next, bake the broken down buds in an oven at 225-250 °F.
Break up your materials and spread them across a sheet of aluminum foil. Leave them in an oven at 225°F for 15 to 30 minutes. The temperature should be low enough to prevent flavorful terpenes from burning away. If you smell or see vapor forming, turn off the oven.
Alcohol Bath
You can also skip this step if you’ve already got your cannabis in the form of a concentrate. We don’t recommend using rubbing alcohol. The higher the percentage of the alcohol, the easier it will be to evaporate.
1. Take one of the glass jars out of your freezer. The cold temperature helps separate unwanted lipids and fats from your cannabinoids and terpenes.
2. Take the baked buds and put them into a mason jar. You should have a jar full of dry and crispy weed flakes ready for an alcohol bath.
3. Soak your buds in a pool full of liquor. Pour in just enough Everclear so that your weed is completely submerged. Then, gently swish the mixture back and forth instead of up and down to avoid agitating the mixture too much.
4. Return the jar to the freezer for another minute.
5. Next, take the second jar, place the cheesecloth at the top and pour the mixture through. Squeeze the cheesecloth over the mason jar until you can’t get another drop out of it.
Next: Final Steps
The final step before introducing the e-juice mix is to evaporate any remaining alcohol. This is where your thermometer comes in handy. You can use a water bath to keep any flames from getting too close to the alcohol.
1. Fill the pot with about 4 inches of water. Then, place your mason jar filled with liquid in for about an hour at 160°F. What you should be left with is a cannabis concentrate.
2. When there’s no alcohol left, add PEG/VG/PG. You can add about 25mg of any of these cutting agents. You’ll have to experiment with the amount of PEG, PG or VG in your mixture to suit your preferences. The more cutting agent you use, the easier it will be to vaporize big clouds from your oil. However, that means less THC. If you’re just trying to get high, use just enough of the cutting agent to give the concentrate a looser consistency to fill a cartridge or tank.
If you have access to a PEG400 blend like EJmix, turning your cannabis into a viscous liquid for e-pens and tanks is easy. Just use 1 ml of liquid for every gram of concentrate.
Simple, right?
Without EJmix, you’ll have to experiment with PEG, PG or VG to find the right ratio to work with your herb.
Once you have evaporated the alcohol away, the solution should be warm enough for easy mixing. On the other hand, if it cooled and hardened up, you can apply light heat to loosen things up. About 1 ml of a glycol should be enough to turn a gram of concentrate into a liquid you can vaporize in e-cigs.
Use a syringe to transfer your medicine to a tank or cartridge.
Next: Final Hit
Final Hit: How To Make THC Oil
It’s that simple!
Just make sure you take the proper precautions like keeping flames away from the alcohol. Unless you want to blow your kitchen up trying to make THC oil. Once you have homemade THC e-liquid, you can fill an empty cartridge or use a tank and box mod typically used for vaping nicotine e-juice. Furthermore, vaping from a box mod and tank will grant you the stealth of an e-cigarette in public without the nicotine addiction. The only way someone would know that you were high is if they checked your urine for THC. You can even add flavoring to the mixture to mask the smell and taste of cannabis.
Source: Learn How To Make THC Oil That Will Work In An E-Cig · Page 4 of 5 · High Times