Rosin Extraction Method
Put a cannabis nugget between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Or, take a single piece of paper and fold it in half, with the nugget in the middle. Gently massage the nugget to flatten it as much as possible. Make sure you use parchment paper rather than wax paper or ordinary writing paper. Parchment paper is heat resistant and won’t burn or contaminate your nugget with melted wax.
Heat a hair straightener to 230–300 °F (110–149 °C). If you already have a hair straightener, check the settings to make sure it can heat to the right temperature range. If not, you may need to buy an adjustable straightener that lets you control the heat. You can also check the temperature of your hair straightener with an infrared (laser) thermometer. You can get one of these handy gadgets at a hardware or office supply store. If the nugget gets too hot, you could burn away terpenes and THC, which will give you a lower-quality rosin.
Squeeze the nugget firmly inside the hair straightener. You’ll need both heat and a lot of pressure to get the good stuff out. Squeeze hard for about 3-5 seconds, then check the wax paper to see if any oil has come out of the nugget. It should look like a brownish, sticky liquid surrounding the nugget. You’ll hear a sizzling sound when the nugget begins to release rosin. The lower the temperature of the hair straightener, the longer you’ll need to squeeze. However, try not to press for longer than 10 seconds at a time to avoid burning the nugget. You may need to press the nugget multiple times to release all the oils. Transfer the nugget to a new piece of paper between presses.
Use a dabber tool to collect the rosin from the paper. A dabber is a metal tool with a small scoop at one end. Use the scoop to scrape up the rosin. Or, if you have a dabber with a round head at the other end, simply roll it around on the parchment paper until all the rosin builds up in a ball on the head.
Transfer the rosin to a new piece of parchment paper. Carefully wipe the rosin you’ve collected off the dabber onto the clean paper. Fold the paper over and press the rosin flat, then stick it in your fridge to cool. Cooling the rosin will make it firmer and less gooey, so it should be easier to transfer it to your mixing container.
Collect between .4 and 1 gram (0.014 and 0.035 oz) of rosin. To fill 1 cartridge, aim to make at least .4–.5 grams (0.014–0.018 oz) of rosin. Use a small kitchen scale to figure out how much rosin you have. If you’re weighing the rosin in a container, weigh the container empty first. Then, weigh it again with the rosin inside. Subtract the weight of the vessel to find the weight of the rosin. Some recipes recommend extracting as much as 1 gram (0.035 oz), but you generally don’t need a lot to fill a little vape pen cartridge.
Place the rosin in a mixing vessel, such as a glass vial. Choose a container that’s heat safe, like a borosilicate glass vial, dram, or flask. Scrape the cooled rosin off of the parchment paper into the mixing container. Science supply stores are a great place to get these types of containers. You can also get them online.
Add 8 drops of terpenes per .5 grams (0.018 oz) of rosin. Terpenes, which are aromatic compounds found in a variety of plants, are a popular type of liquidizer for vape juice. Starting with 8 drops is usually a good bet, but you may need to add more or less than that. If you add too much, the smoke could sting your nose and throat, while too little won’t make your rosin juicy enough to vaporize properly. Experiment with different amounts of terpenes until you get the results you want. While many recipes recommend using PG (propylene glycol), PEG (polyethylene glycol), or VG (vegetable glycerin) as liquidizers, these products might be unsafe to inhale. Some researchers think they may release formaldehyde or other irritating or toxic gases when you heat them up. Popular terpenes include phytol, linalool, and limonene. You can also buy terpenes in a variety of flavors to boost the taste of your vape juice. While terpenes are often thought to be safer than other liquidizers, there’s still not a lot of research out there on the possible health effects of vaping them. You can buy terpenes and other liquidizers online or from stores that sell vape products. Always research the product to make sure it’s made by a reputable manufacturer who’s transparent about the ingredients they use.
Heat the container with a flame for 3-4 seconds. You can use a regular lighter for this part of the process. Hold the base of the container in the flame and watch closely. As soon as the mixture starts to bubble, turn off the flame and stir the solution with a toothpick or your dabber until the liquid is well mixed. If you don’t remove the heat right away once the mixture starts to bubble, you could burn off some of those tasty terpenes and reduce the quality of your juice. Some recipes recommend microwaving the mixture for 10 seconds instead of using a flame. However, you won’t have as much control over how much you heat the vape liquid using this method.
Transfer the liquid into your cartridge with a clean syringe. Your vape juice is ready to use! Give it a little time to cool, then grab a syringe and draw the liquid into it. Use a syringe with a blunt needle. Make sure the syringe is clean, or you could contaminate your vape liquid or give it an unpleasant flavor. You can buy blunt-needle syringes online or from stores that sell vaping supplies.
Vegetable Glycerin (Quick Method)
Tear some marijuana flower into small pieces. Put the pieces in a small, heat-proof glass cooking dish, jar, or beaker. There’s no set amount of marijuana flower you need to use for this—it all depends on how much vape juice you want to make. About 10 grams (0.35 oz) of flower is a good starting point. You can also use this type of cannabis oil as a tincture, or even cook it into gummies and other tasty edibles. It’s better to tear up the flower by hand rather than grind them. If the bud is ground too fine, it will be hard to filter the flower fragments out of your vape liquid at the end of the process.
Saturate the flower pieces with vegetable glycerin. Pour in just enough glycerin to barely cover the flower. To get a nice, strong juice, you want your mixture to be thick and gooey, not runny. Vegetable glycerin is a natural product derived from plant oils, such as palm or soybean oil. It’s totally safe to eat food-grade VG, but unfortunately, it’s still not clear how safe it is to inhale it. Some studies show that it may degrade into unsafe chemicals called carbonyls when heated. You can buy food-grade vegetable glycerin at most grocery or department stores.
Pour vegetable oil into a glass baking dish. Add enough oil to cover the bottom 1 inch (2.5 cm) of the dish. You’ll use this oil to make a hot “bath” for the vape juice. The basic canola or vegetable oil that you can buy in the baking aisle at your grocery store will work fine. Alternatively, make a hot water bath by pouring water into the dish instead of oil. However, keep in mind that water baths tend to evaporate quickly and can be hard to maintain at a stable temperature for long periods of time. Don’t overfill the oil bath, since the hot oil could overflow when you add the container of marijuana and VG. Make sure the dish is no more than two thirds full. A Pyrex bowl that’s about 8–9 inches (20–23 cm) wide and at least 3–4 inches (7.6–10.2 cm) deep will work well. There’s more risk of overflow with a shallow dish, and you’ll need more oil to fill a wider container.
Heat the oil bath on a hot plate to 220 °F (104 °C). Put a food thermometer in the dish so that you can watch the temperature carefully. Turn the hot plate on at a low heat setting and wait for the oil to reach a temperature of 220 °F (104 °C). Adjust the heat up or down as needed until the temperature is stable. It’s important to keep the temperature precise and stable so that you don’t overcook the marijuana, which will reduce the potency of your vape juice. Be very careful when handling the hot oil. Don’t get any water into your oil bath, since this could cause it to splatter and burn you. Wear goggles and a long-sleeved shirt to reduce your risk of burns.
Place the container of flower and VG in the hot oil bath. Ideally, the bottom of the smaller container should be submerged in the oil, but you don’t want the oil bath to be so deep that it floats. Work carefully so that you don’t get burned or splattered by the hot oil.
Boil the VG and marijuana mixture at about 180 °F (82 °C). Put a second thermometer in the smaller container so that you can monitor the temperature carefully. You want to heat the mixture to 180 °F (82 °C), since this is the temperature at which the flower will begin to release THC into the vegetable glycerin. If you notice the temperature of the mixture going above 190 °F (88 °C), slightly reduce the heat of the oil bath to bring it back to the right temperature range. You don’t want to lose those flavorful terpenes or burn off any THC!
Stir the mixture frequently for about 45 minutes. Use a dabber or stirring rod to mix the marijuana and vegetable glycerin as it simmers. This will help maintain an even temperature and will distribute the THC into the VG as it releases from the flower. Be careful not to touch the hot oil when you’re stirring the mixture! To be extra safe, put on a pair of heat-resistant gloves. Some recipes recommend keeping the mixture in the oil bath for at least 4 hours in order to create an extra potent batch of oil.
Strain the infused VG into a separate container. After 45 minutes, remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Put a fine-mesh strainer over a clean glass jar and pour the mixture of marijuana and VG into the strainer. Use a silicone spatula to push on the bud and squeeze as much of the VG as possible into the jar. If some fragments of bud make it through the strainer, don’t worry. You’ll be able to refine your oil even more later on. The VG is very viscous and thick, so you’ll need to push pretty hard to squeeze it all out.
Cook the buds in a fresh batch of VG 2 more times. In order to get as much cannabis oil out of the flower as possible, repeat the process a couple more times. After straining the buds, transfer them back into the heatproof container and saturate them with clean vegetable glycerin. Once again, heat the buds in the oil bath for 45 minutes, then strain them. Do this one more time, for a total of 3 runs. The first run will be the most potent. If you want, you can keep the 3 runs separate to create batches with different levels of potency.
Boil your final solution in the oil bath at 220 °F (104 °C) for 30 minutes. This final heating process will decarboxylate the cannabis, which activates the THC and makes the oil more potent. Transfer the infused VG into a clean, heat-proof glass container and put it back in the oil bath. Increase the temperature of the oil bath enough that the vape juice in the smaller container reaches a temperature of 220 °F (104 °C). Let it cook for another half hour. At this point, you will have made 3 runs of the extract, so this should be your fourth time heating the VG solution. Some recipes recommend straining the oil through cheesecloth first to remove any lasting tiny bud particles before decarboxylating, while others save the final straining for last. Experiment with doing it both ways to see which method makes the tastiest, most potent juice.
Strain the oil through 3 layers of cheesecloth. Remove the cannabis oil from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Line a fine-mesh strainer with 3 layers of cheesecloth. Alternatively, you can put the cheesecloth in a rice press, which will let you squeeze a little extra oil out of the cloth. Hold the strainer or rice press over a clean jar and pour the oil through it. Once as much fluid as possible has dribbled through the cloth on its own, give it a firm squeeze (either using a spatula or with the rice press) to push out the last few drops. For extra-fine filtration, put another piece of cheesecloth over the top of the collection container to catch any plant bits that sneak through.
Inject the solution into a vape cartridge. Grab a clean, blunt-needle syringe and draw a small amount of cannabis oil from the jar. Inject it into an empty vape cartridge. Enjoy your new cannabis-infused vape juice! Store the remaining oil in a sealed jar until you’re ready to use it. Most cannabis extracts can stay good for several months if you store them in a cool, dry, dark place. Too much light and heat will break down the THC and make your juice less potent.
Vegetable Glycerin (3-4 Month Method)
Break up some raw buds by hand. This extraction process is similar to the short-term glycerin extraction method, but it doesn’t require a hot oil bath. However, it takes a few months to complete. To start, break up some marijuana flower into small pieces. Don’t use a grinder, since this will create very fine fragments that could be hard to filter out of the oil. This method is also called the cold process. This is a great option if you’re not in a rush or you don’t want to mess around with hot plates and other equipment. There’s no set amount of flower you need to use for this process. Some recipes call for filling a canning or mason jar about two-thirds full of broken-up flower, but you don’t need to use that much if you’re making a smaller batch.
Bake the buds at 250 °F (121 °C) for 30 minutes. Spread the buds on a foil-lined baking sheet. Or, alternatively, you can keep them in a heat-proof glass jar. Place them in the oven and let them cook at a low temperature for half an hour to decarboxylate the cannabis and activate the THC. Baking the buds before you put them in glycerin will give the vape juice a nice roasted flavor, but it can also burn away some of the natural aromatic compounds (terpenes) in the marijuana plant. If you want to save the terpenes, heat up the oil at the end of the extraction process instead. If you choose to decarboxylate later, you’ll still need to dry out the buds first. Put them in the oven at 200 °F (93 °C) and turn them every few minutes, until the buds become brittle and break easily when you roll them between your fingers. Let the buds cool for a few minutes after taking them out of the oven.
Put the buds in a sealable glass jar. A mason jar or canning jar will work fine for this purpose. You’ll need a jar with a tight-fitting lid since you’ll be steeping the cannabis and vegetable glycerin in the jar for a few months. Put a label on the jar with the date so you can keep track of how long the cold extraction process has been going on.
Add enough vegetable glycerin to saturate the buds. Aim to make a mixture that’s thick and clumpy rather than runny. This will give you a more potent extract. Some recipes recommend stirring in enough vegetable glycerin to thoroughly coat the buds, then pouring in another 1 inch (2.5 cm) of VG on top. This method will give you a slightly milder juice.
Stir the mixture thoroughly. Stirring helps release the THC into the vegetable glycerin. Use a dabber or a stirring rod to agitate the bud and mix it in thoroughly with the VG. You can also seal the jar and shake it, or even put it in a tumbler or vibrating cartridge case cleaner for a few minutes.
Seal the jar and store it in a cool place for 2 months. Next comes the hardest part of the process—lots of waiting. To ensure that the compounds in the cannabis don’t break down and degrade, keep the jar someplace cool and dark. You can even wrap it in aluminum foil or put it in a brown paper bag to make sure that no light gets in. Make sure the jar is well sealed. You’ll get the best results if the container is airtight.
Shake or stir the jar daily. Regular mixing will help release as much of the THC as possible. Once a day, grab the jar and either open it up and stir the contents, or give it a vigorous shake to get everything mixed up.
Strain the mixture after 60 days and add fresh flower. Once 2 months have passed, pour the vegetable glycerin mixture through a fine-mesh strainer to filter out the buds. Add a new batch of baked buds to the infused glycerin, then seal the jar again and store it for another 30-60 days. Don’t forget to keep stirring or shaking the jar daily! Alternatively, you can keep the same buds and add another 1 tablespoon (15 mL) of vegetable glycerin once a month for a total of 3 months. However, your juice might be a little less potent if you do it this way.
Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. After all that time and patience, your vape oil is almost ready! Place the sieve over the top of a clean glass jar and pour the cannabis and VG mixture into it. Use a spoon or spatula to press the soaked buds up against the sieve and push out as much of the infused VG as possible. Vegetable glycerin is very thick, so you’ll need to apply a lot of pressure to squeeze as much of it out of the buds as possible. You can also use a French press or a potato ricer to squeeze out even more juice. Make the filtering process easier by warming the mixture a little before straining it. Set it in a hot water bath on the stove and warm it up to about 150 °F (66 °C). Use a cooking thermometer to check the temperature.
Refine the oil further with 4 layers of cheesecloth. Wash out the original jar you used for the extraction process or set up a new, clean jar. Place a clean mesh sieve at the top of the jar. Line the sieve with 4 layers of cheesecloth, then pour the filtered vape juice through the cloth. Let as much liquid run into the jar as possible, then use a spatula to squeeze any remaining juice out of the cloth. When you’re done, seal the jar and store it in a cool, dark place until you’re ready to use the vape juice.
Heat the juice to 180 °F (82 °C) if you didn’t already decarboxylate it. Decarboxylating at this stage will help preserve some of the aromatic terpenes in your vape juice. Pour about 1 inch (2.5 cm) of vegetable oil or water into a glass baking dish and heat it to 220 °F (104 °C) on a hotplate set to low heat. Use a cooking thermometer to make sure that the temperature of the cannabis oil doesn’t go above 180 °F (82 °C). Let the oil simmer in the oil or water bath for 30 minutes to fully activate the THC.
Inject the juice into a vape cartridge. Use a blunt-needle syringe to fill a vape cartridge with your new e-juice. Save the rest in a sealed jar to use whenever you like. The cold extraction process produces an especially flavorful and aromatic oil that you can also use as a tincture.
Alcohol Extraction Method
Bake some finely chopped bud at 230 °F (110 °C) for 35 minutes. The alcohol extraction method is complicated, but it makes an extra concentrated, high-quality cannabis oil. To start, pull the bud apart by hand or chop it up with scissors or a food processor. Don’t use a grinder, since it will be a lot harder to filter the plant matter out of the oil if it’s ground too fine. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and pour the marijuana flower onto it, then bake it for around 35 minutes. Baking the bud will dry it out and activate the THC in the plant, a process called decarboxylation. If you prefer, you can also decarboxylate your oil later in the process, after you’ve extracted the THC from the raw bud. To get about 1 gram (0.035 oz) of cannabis oil, you’ll need to start with around 10 grams (0.35 oz) of bud.
Place the bud in a glass jar and pour in some 180-proof alcohol. Use a drinkable alcohol, such as vodka. Do not use rubbing alcohol, because it is unsafe to vape even in trace amounts! Pour in enough alcohol to completely cover the plant with a little extra on top. For instance, if you’re using 10 grams (0.35 oz) of bud, around 118–237 millilitres (4.0–8.0 fl oz) of alcohol should be enough.
Stir the mixture to release the cannabinoids. For the most efficient extraction process, use a magnetic stirrer. Drop the magnetic stirring rod into the jar and switch on the stirring plate to activate it. This will allow you to release most of the cannabis within about 15 minutes. You can get a basic magnetic stirrer online for under $30, while magnetic stirrer/hotplate combos tend to be a bit pricier. If you’re not in a rush, store the jar in a cool, dark location for 10-14 days after shaking or stirring the contents by hand for a few minutes. The alcohol will naturally break down the plant matter and release the cannabis compounds during that time.
Filter the solution to remove all the plant matter. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean glass jar or beaker. Push on the bud with a spatula or the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible. Then, pour the filtered solution through 3-4 coffee filters into a new container to remove any remaining particles. Place the coffee filters in a mesh sieve or a funnel at the top of the collection container. When you’re done, throw away the remaining flower. After the extraction process, it should no longer contain any active cannabis compounds.
Put the liquid in the sun for 1 hour to remove the chlorophyll. Once you filter out all the plant matter, you’ll be left with a greenish liquid. While the green color won’t do any harm, you might prefer to neutralize it to create a more appealing, amber-colored extract. To do this, simply cover your jar of extract and place it outside in the sun for about 60 minutes. While UV light can also break down the desirable cannabinoids in your extract, this process takes a long time. An hour or two of sunlight isn’t likely to do any harm. If it’s not a sunny day, you can also place the extract under a UV grow light for 3-4 hours.
Evaporate the alcohol in a rice cooker or air still. If you use a rice cooker, put it outside or in a well-ventilated room with a fan going, since this process will release strong alcohol fumes. Pour the extract into the rice cooker and set it to a low heat setting, under 290 °F (143 °C). Check the extract frequently, and remove the pot from the rice cooker once most of the alcohol appears to be evaporated. Depending on how much extract you’re making, this process could take several hours. If possible, use an air still instead of a rice cooker. While stills are more expensive, they allow you to collect and reuse the alcohol, and many models also shut off automatically when the distillation process is complete. Don’t attempt to evaporate the alcohol on a stovetop or over an open flame! Alcohol is very flammable, and you could accidentally start a fire if it’s exposed to sparks or flame. Some recipes suggest skipping this step and simply vaping the alcohol solution, but this could potentially be dangerous. The effects of inhaling alcohol are still not well understood.
Heat the distilled liquid to 162 °F (72 °C) on a hotplate for 1 hour. This will boil off any remaining alcohol. Pour the extract into a heat-safe glass jar or beaker and set it on a hotplate. Keep cooking the mixture until the volume of the liquid drops and the solution stops bubbling. Use a cooking thermometer or laser thermometer to monitor the temperature. If it gets too hot, you could burn off some of the terpenes and cannabinoids in the extract. Keep stirring the solution to keep the temperature even. If possible, use a hotplate that doubles as a magnetic stirrer so you don’t have to stir by hand. If you didn’t decarboxylate the bud before you started, leave the extract on the hotplate for an extra hour at 220 °F (104 °C) to activate the THC.
Thin the extract with a few drops of liquidizer. Your finished cannabis oil will probably be a bit too thick and gooey to vape. To thin it out a little, add a liquidizer, such as vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, or terpenes. Warm up the oil in the microwave on a low heat setting (like defrost) for about 90 seconds to liquefy it. Then, mix equal parts oil and liquidizer to create your vape juice. While vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol are two of the most common liquidizers used to make vape juice, it’s still not clear how safe it is to inhale them. Be aware that vaping these chemicals could damage your lungs.
Inject the e-juice into a vape cartridge. Grab a blunt-needle syringe and draw the desired amount of vape liquid into it, then inject it into a cartridge. Enjoy your potent and powerful new vape juice! Store any unused liquid in a sealed container in a cool, dark place.
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