RxCE Shop Manual

RxCE Shop Manual 

Introduction

Welcome to the Refined Cannabis Extract Shop Manual. The following pages are a deep dive into the process of making cannabis oil at home. If you don't find what you are looking for, or wish further discussion, let us know on the Facebook group. This document will be regularly updated to bring you the most accurate information on the process. 

Modern day cannabis extraction technologies have been developed over the past several decades with large industrial systems now able to process several thousand pounds of cannabis biomass per day. Top producing extraction methods use  Butane and CO2. This requires industrial lab equipment and specialized training to operate safely and efficiently. 

For home-based extraction methods, there are several technologies to choose from. These methods include solvent-less ROSIN presses, solvent-based extraction, oil infusion and water bubble hash. Solvent-based extraction popularized by Rick Simpson's RSO method is an easy method for producing cannabis oil at home. However, without any refinements, the resulting product is a base-line crude oil. To address this issue, Graywolf introduced quick frozen wash methods for Ethanol and Isopropyl, which avoids picking up unwanted plant compounds. 

An Improved Solvent Extraction at Home

As the industry progressed in developing extraction processes, RSO was left behind. Over the past few years, Cannabis Home Sciences has focused on improving RSO by reducing cost and complexity while enhancing the quality of the oil. This improved process is affectionately referred to as a "hack" to emphasize that a few simple changes can significantly improve the quality of the oil. These changes optimize the way of making RSO by leveraging simple chemistry. 

Tools at our disposal

The tools available to us in the kitchen for improving oil quality are polarity, salinity, temperature and pH.

Polarity dominates this process, playing a crucial role in every step. Polarity is why oil and water separate making it easier to recover the oil. Distilling with water is one application of polarity, while winterizing with polar ethanol is an application of both polarity and temperature. 

Salinity is an important part of this chemistry. Salinity provided the magical Snow Globe effect first published in RSO 2.0 2022. Salt dissolved in water disrupts hydrogen bonding at the molecular level, playing a significant role for removing unwanted compounds. In RxCE, salinity plays a small but crucial role in breaking emulsions during distillation. A small 0.5% amount of salt goes a long way in reducing yield losses while allowing water to absorb the water-soluble compounds. The dissolved salt ions are polar thus remain with the water molecules, finding no attraction to the oil.

Hot and cold temperatures are used to push the oil around. Cannabis resins are solid at refrigerator temperatures. At certain times heat is used, and other times, cold temperatures are used to efficiently handle the oil. 

That leave's pH but this is a tool best left on the table. Every effort has been made to keep a neutral pH throughout this process. The reason being, in a more complex chemical process, CBD can be converted, ie, isomerized, into THC essentially using heat and strong acids. The technical aspects of Isomerization are well beyond the scope of CHS's mission and virtually all home users. Without proper chemistry, Isomerization is roll of the dice as to where the cannabinoids will orient. And it's just not CBD that will change molecular configurations. All cannabinoids can play along in the game of musical chairs, and can end up in new configurations.   

Secondly, given this process boils away the alcohol and also decarbs at atmospheric pressure, the loss of terpenes is unavoidable. The oil is very smooth and can be vaped with little odor. Vaping is not recommended with crude RSO mainly due to the wax content. To preserve terpenes, a higher tech approach is needed. A popular but pricey solution is the Source Turbo or EtOH Pro models that use vacuum to hold down the temperatures. Next step up is to use lab gear, ie, Rotovap with SPD techniques to generate distillates. These systems can capture the terpenes to be added back into the final oil.  

Thirdly, simple filtering lets unwanted compounds slip through. Case in point, the Wash step. The solvent washes the plant, then gets passed through a strainer, linen-like paper napkin, then huge BUNN coffee filters, but still comes up a bit hazy. These are smaller particles slipping by. The desire is to have crystal clear wash. This is fine. For those technical folk, stronger filtering setups are available which involve using a buchner filter and vacuum to pull the wash through paper filters. Nice, but not required. 

Lastly, given that the final oil has been refined at atmospheric pressure, the oil oxidizes and turns amber/reddish in color. This is not harmful, but to some less cosmetically appealing. 

All said, realize this process is a great improvement over RSO using very little tech. But keeping it simple by using only kitchen gear limits the ability to retain terpenes.

Steps in Making Oil

From a historical perspective, Rick Simpson published his simple method of making RSO back around 2001. Next came Graywolf's QWET/QWISO process in 2012. RxCE was introduced in March 2023.

Graywolf's QWET/QWISO extraction methods are the most popular methods of making oil at home. This technique has been adopted by Extract Craft and others in their extraction processes. QWET/QWISO perform both washing and winterization in the first step to minimize dissolving waxes and chlorophyll into the oil. The downside is the need to freeze a large amount of alcohol with plant material which can take 12-24 hours. The washing of the plant must also be done at frozen temperatures and requires full volume of alcohol. Any Additional filtering for waxes must also be done at frozen temperatures. 

By breaking this method apart and reordering the process, wax removal can now be done in a fraction of time with much less alcohol. This new approach is called 'Rapid Winterization'. 

Rapid Winterization uses alcohol to dissolve the oil isolated during distilling. By cooling the dissolved oil, waxes start forming much closer to their actual melting point. You can see waxes start forming around 10c/50f. By placing the solution in the freezer for an hour, the waxes solidify and can be filtered out with simple coffee filters. With this approach, you only need to freeze a few ounces of alcohol versus quarts or gallons. This can save days worth of time depending on the volume of alcohol required for extraction.  

Here are the steps. Each step is presented as a chapter with in-depth discussions and illustrations. At the end of each section, there is a troubleshooting FAQ to help overcome obstacles encountered when using this process. 

Conclusion

By using water and reordering the process, cannabis oil can be made faster, cleaner, and cheaper using only kitchen gear.

​Final words – DON'T PANIC!  If you have ever made RSO, this process is going to be very similar, but will still require new muscle memory. This new way of collecting oil from a boiler is extremely easy, but is intimidating the first time out. Follow the Quick Start Guide and you will be fine. Get ready to freeze, heat, then refreeze again as temperature is an important tool when doing liquid-liquid separations.  

Note: All the temperatures discussed in this procedure assume sea level atmospheric pressures. Higher altitude require adjusting the target temperatures. 

Note: It’s highly recommended to follow the written practice for each step. Each step will use the results from the prior step, and lends itself to succeeding steps so it makes it much easier to execute. 

Note: Sprinkled throughout this site and the Quick Start Guide are links to the products used. All these links point back to the RxCE equipment list page. Often products from a vendor will go out of stock resulting in broken links. Having the product links on the web site allows us to keep the list up to date. Live links will be maintained on the website to avoid link rot that happens in a static .pdf file.

Disclaimer:  Your use of any information or materials on the C.H.S. Website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be held liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure safe use and operation of any processes, products, services or information made available through C.H.S publications and Website.