Whoop, whoop, lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu!!!!!!!!! Hee, hee, hee, snicker, snark, snort, don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Those of ya'll who've tried to blend BHO and Vegetable Glycerin to make e-juice, know it doesn't readily happen and you are limited in the potency levels that you can reach extracting with glycerin as the menstruum.

You are limited even adding a surfactant like lethicin, to promote absorption, so that market hasn't taken off as readily as it might if it delivered a more potent hit.

At the suggestion of CAT Scientific, whom has supplied Skunk Pharm Research with equipment for testing, we tried their X-120 Homogenizer with a T-17 (N) generator shaft assembly, to see if they would not only blend, but stay blended.

For that experiment, we heated 250 ml of VG to 66C/150F in a 500 ml beaker, and added 6 grams of green BHO, which I've saved for several years as an example of too many washes using an open tube. Before investing any amounts of prime oil, best to see what it does with bad example show and tell samples.

250 ml is about the minimum that can be processed with the T-17 (N) generator in that sized beaker, as it is high precision and relies on the liquid as its lubricant. CAT S. not only published that caveat in their supplied "destruction manual", but passed it on to us in an e-mail to make sure we read the manual before firing up the homogenizer.

They also provide the caveat that homogenizers don't like vortexes, for the same reason, so it can't be used in the center of the container, only around the center. That seemed fair enough, so we followed those simple instructions in the test.

Wowza! It made about one minutes work of fully emulsifying the BHO and VG, producing a light green opaque solution, which hasn't observably changed in 60 hours of standing, so we will be moving on to seeing just how much BHO we can mix with 250 ml of VG.

We will run it up to 50% BHO, in the next trial, but will start with a fresh sample so that we can field test it on patients afterwards. At CAT's suggestion, we will use a T-17 (V) generator shaft assembly, because the viscosity will be much higher.

I've also started dialog with an associate who is an e-juice manufacturer, whom has a market for the end product, so can test on a much larger scale. We donate our meds, but over half a liter of e-juice would far exceed current demand, while demand for the same BHO in cancer meds continues to be strong.

You heard it here folks, this device is a game changer in the e-juice market!!!

While on the spendy side for ma and pa, they could produce more e-juice in about a minute, than they would likely need in a year anyway. It is however, easily in the price range for small groups, and chump change for someone producing e-juice for the market place. In fact, for those in the market, CAT makes much larger machines than the hand held unit that we are testing.

Contact information for this sweetheart is http://www.catscientific.com/ and bon appetite!

Here is a picture of the X-120, as well as the T-17 (N) generator, as well as the 250 ml emulsion that we created three days ago:

GW

UPDATE 4/16/14

By Joe

We had the opportunity to make a much larger batch of BHO/Glycerin e-juice. We started by winterizing around 270g of raw extract in a dry ice bath for one hour and subsequently filtering to 20 um. We then decarboxylated the extract at 250F until all the small CO2 bubbles were gone. The extract cooled to 150F before continuing. The final volume of extract was just under 250ml and we brought the total volume to 500ml with vegetable glycerin while stirring. It took only a few minutes to completely mix the solution and it stayed mixed for a few weeks. *With this large of a volume you must keep the stir bar on and keep turning the vessel while the homogenizer is running. *Place the head of the homogenizer below the surface but not completely below the interface of the two solutions.

After two weeks the solution started getting a little oily on the surface; which was quickly fixed by the addition of a little glycerin and re-homogenizing. The postulated reasoning for the separation is thus; we calculated the ratio with raw extract and allowed for a 20% loss due to winterizing and decarbing. The final volume of oil was estimated from a beaker, not a graduated cylinder, so the margin of error is greater than +/- 5% especially since the oil was between two graduations. The volume to volume ratio was close to 50/50 and was easily dropped into a wickless e-cig liquid tank.

The reviews coming back from patients are positive and some newer patients have even asked for a more dilute version! The flavor is pleasant as well!

4-20-14

Answers to two most asked questions

The question, “How ya’ll do that”, keeps arising, so here are some more process details on Joe and my previous experiment blending 24 grams of BHO Absolute into 39 grams of VG.

We started with an ounce of borrowed, raw oleoresin BHO extract, which I redissolved into about 10X warm 190 proof ethanol, and stored in a 0F freezer for 48 hours, before filtering out the plant waxes and cooking off the alcohol in a 250F oil bath, and then decarboxylating the Absolute to about 70%.

Yield was 24 grams of carboxylic acid Absolute, which we decanted into a 140 ml graduated beaker.

While the Absolute was decarboxylating, we heated up a 100 ml beaker of Kosher Vegetable Glycerin to 65C, using a CAT Scientific stirring hot plate, and set up the CAT Scientific 120 X variable speed drive motor, with T17 Homogenizer and “N” impeller on its stand.

After decanting the 24 grams of Absolute into the 140 ml beaker, we added 24 grams of 150F Vegetable glycerin and set the beaker on the homogenizer stand base and lowered the homogenizer shaft until there was just enough space left between the bottom of the beaker and the rotor, that when the beaker was held firmly against the base, as it was rotated and oscillated in small circles, there was no contact between the two.

That allowed us to process the minimum amount of material, and still keep the rotor fully submerged, in the 140 ml beaker, which was about three rotor diameters wide. Pressing the beaker against the stand base and adjusting rotor speed to about two thirds throttle, Joe moved the beaker in an oscillating motion, working around the bottom, where there was an inhomogeneous mixture.

Once we had reached the process limits, we started slowly adding VG and continuing to oscillate and rotate the beaker, until the oil and VG were fully homogenized. At that point, we had added a total of 39 grams of VG to 24 grams of BHO Absolute.

As we added glycerin, we raised the homogenizer some, so as to keep the rotor just under the surface of the area that we were working. We kept the rotor submerged to keep it lubricated and away from the center of the beaker to avoid generating a vortex.

The second question is, “How long was it stable”, and I note that the first post was 12-6-2013, and the first emulsion has started developing a fine dark hairline around the top of the test tube, so 90 days or so.

The second emulsion was returned to the person loaning us the oil and sat around unchanged for about a week while he shared it with volunteers using an Essential VAAAPP pen. It produced impressive volumes of vapor, produced good medicinal effects, and was rated as couch locking in excess.

It also separated in the VAAAPP pen bottle after heating, but in that application still delivered a potent hit.

After a week, there was no separation ring in the original container, but he stuck it in the freezer to preserve it, which caused the VG and Absolute to separate.

The short answer to the stability question, is that it does eventually separate all on its own at ambient temperatures and you can speed it up with heat or cold. In the middle lies opportunity, which as you note, Joe has already started exploiting with clients on larger scales!