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How is BHO or cannabis oil actually made?

BHO production

BHO (= Butano Honey Oil) or cannabis oil is currently enjoying great popularity among cannabis patients, especially in the USA in states where marijuana can now be sold legally. A real boom is developing around the extraction of cannabis and the production of cannabis oil or cannabis glass. So some people will ask themselves, how is this actually done? We want to give some answers to this question and first of all say:

The production of BHO is a very dangerous business!!! Butane gas is very flammable, highly explosive and can contain toxic and harmful chemical residues if application errors are made, unclean gas is used and everything is not carefully observed. Careless handling, lack of concentration or application errors can cause damage to health and even be life-threatening. Therefore, we would like to point out that we do not want to recommend the use of BHO or encourage others to do so with this report. BHO is normally produced by professionals who own very expensive equipment for this purpose and who are very familiar with the matter and the safety regulations. The layman is often not aware of how explosive butane gas can be and how it can accumulate in rooms without being noticed or where fumes can occur in the household.

Because of the high flammability of butane and the danger of it accumulating indoors, Butano Honey Oil Extraction is exclusively outdoors is done outdoors. During extraction, it is not enough to simply open all the windows and set up fans. This is because electrical appliances must not be running at all when extraction is taking place. The warnings are not unfounded at this point, because unfortunately some people have already caused an explosion in their kitchen or house when using it incorrectly and have also seriously injured themselves in the process. Butane gas is heavier than air and can therefore accumulate and settle unnoticed in corners of rooms. When the concentration in the air reaches a level of 1.8% to 8.5%, the room air becomes highly explosive. So if there is a draft in the room, the "gas accumulation" can mix with the existing room air and a highly explosive concentration occurs. Therefore this process is only done outdoors, it is enormously important to observe all safety regulations and to wear safety clothing (gloves, goggles).

Honey Oil BHO

Butane and health

Many brands of butane gas contain an odourant, so that leaks and escaping gas are noticed immediately. Especially in cheap butane gas and camping gas very large amounts of it can be found.It is mostly sulphur dioxides or other additives that are harmful to health (rotten egg smell). Therefore, special, pure and high-quality butane gas must be used for the production of extractions (e.g. from Colibri, N-butane).

There are also two different types of butane: Many cheap brands of butane gas use isobutane (2-methyl propane), which is more toxic and therefore much more dangerous than the so-called N-butane. N-butane is used in the production of extracts because it can extract better and at the same time leaves less or no residue in the oil. Up to now, it has not been easy to buy pure N-butane.

Production of extracts

For the production of extracts, a 300ml can is usually used. For approx. 25g of plant material, two 300ml cans are needed. The plant material used is a decisive factor in obtaining really high-quality honey oil. For the best quality, uncrushed, freshly dried buds are used, resulting in a clear, bright oil. The clever "extractors" then crush these buds and subject them to a second butane gas extraction. The result is a cloudier, less intense and not so tasty oil: the so-called B-extraction.

Source material

With the butane, the smell is also extracted from the plant: So if great-smelling grass is used, the oil will also have this smell. With rather bad-smelling second-class grass, the aroma will also be correspondingly bad. Just like the motto: What goes in, comes out!

  • From 25g of high-quality plant material, 3-6g of BHO is produced (when using 2 butane gas bottles of 300ml each). If the starting material is of lower quality, consists of offcuts or many leaves, the yield is of course significantly lower.

Roller Extractor BHOThe BHO Extractor

The BHO extractor is one of the most important utensils in the production of Honey Oil. Professional producers prefer extractors made of medical stainless steel, e.g. the Roller Extractror BHO, over those made of plastic.
This is because substances can possibly be dissolved from the plastic during extraction with butane, which is less desirable.

The extraction

The plant material used must be very dry. The drier the better. If clear light honey oil is to be produced, uncrushed buds are used as mentioned above. This gives a clearer and more intense result and at the same time gives a lower yield than if the buds are crushed. If very firm and compact buds are used, they are broken apart a little so that more trichomes can be extracted. After the butane gas has extracted the best oil, the contents of the extractor are coarsely bruised (no powder should be made) and a lower quality but also extremely strong oil is obtained.

The sieve is placed in the extractor and it is gradually filled and each layer is lightly pressed down, without creating air holes and without stuffing it too tightly, because then the gas will not find its way so well.

The extractor must be completely filled with plant material. If there is not enough starting material, a smaller extractor must be used. Air pockets in the extractor cause the liquid butane to expand into butane gas, which negatively affects the extraction process.

Before the actual extraction, all the necessary utensils are prepared: Gloves, protective goggles, tub with hot boiling water but not boiling water, a tub for the extract. The water must not boil, otherwise undesirable reactions with the very cold butane gas can occur and valuable ingredients would be destroyed (e.g. terpenes). As already mentioned, the extraction with the butane gas always takes place outdoors. Only tight clothing, safety goggles and protective gloves are worn. The gloves prevent, among other things, frostbite on the hands, because the extractor gets cold as shit during extraction ;).

Extractor RollerThe extractor is now positioned over a non-stick bowl or tub and then the butane gas bottle is placed on the extractor and the contents are pressed through the stainless steel tube. It takes a few seconds for it to start dripping out of the bottom of the extractor. Some experienced BHO manufacturers first let gas through the tube for 30 seconds, then wait about 15 seconds and continue until the butane bottle is empty. Depending on the situation, a second butane gas cylinder is now used in the same way. The oil collects in the pan. The butane gas must not be inhaled!

Water bath

After extraction, the bowl with the oil-butane mixture is placed in the bowl with the hot water (-> water bath). The mixture starts to bubble and bubbles rise. This is the butane gas escaping. The extract remains in the water bath until it stops bubbling and most of the butane gas has escaped.

 

The oil is then poured into a heat-resistant mould, jug, etc. and the whole thing is placed on a hot plate at 60°C. Bubbles continue to appear, which are pierced with a needle so that the gas can escape. The longer the cannabis oil remains on the hot plate, the purer, drier and freer of gas inclusions it becomes. The result is a mouldable honey oil mass.

Honey Oil Honey Oil

The production of BHO glass

BHO Glass BHO Glass

Finally, the extract only becomes cannabis glass when a vacuum chamber and pump are used. The honey oil is heated on a hot plate, put into a vacuum chamber, which is connected to a vacuum pump and creates a vacuum in the chamber. The vacuum is then slowly dissolved again and the concentrate is removed. This process is repeated several times (about 10 times) until a hard, transparent "glass pane" has been created. The brighter and more transparent the glass is, the purer and higher quality it is.

BHO Kit

What you absolutely have to know about BHO

As already described several times, the production of BHO is not an easy thing and should therefore rather be left to the professionals. BHO is many times stronger and more intense than marijuana in its natural form and reaches a different level. It is a strong concentrate of the active ingredients and can therefore easily lead to overdoses or false estimations, which do not play a role with weed. Therefore, only experienced cannabis patients with a high tolerance can use it with pleasure, for people with a low THC-tolerance it can quickly become an unpleasant experience.

In extracts, just like active substances, other undesirable substances can also occur in concentrated form and be correspondingly harmful. Chemical pesticides and fertilisers that have been applied to the plants used can subsequently appear in the extract in questionable concentrations and cause damage to health. It is therefore extremely important to only use source material that has not been treated with chemical agents beforehand.

There are also numerous methods to filter the material and make it purer. Some time ago I already wrote a small Report about this some time ago.

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BHO products for extraction and further processing in our shop:

BHO extracts
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