I started another experiment to remove the dark color from my friend's cannabis extract.
Before I get into the details of my experiment, here is some pictures of an out-door grow from another property. It is doing very well. The season is really early and these plants are huge. The reason they have gotten so large so quickly is that they were started in door when the weather was too cold. They are going to be transferred to 50 gallon pots any day now.
My last experiment was a failure using activated carbon. This time I attempted the same process as before, but with bentonite clay. Activated bentonite clay has the ability to filter like activated carbon. It is known to be a clarifying material. By the way, we got the bentonite clay by raiding my friend’s bathroom and borrowed his wife’s bentonite clay. It is used as a beauty product for a facial mask. Ironically, it is also used in clumping cat litter. So the next time your wife puts bentonite clay mask on her face, you can make fun of her for putting cat litter on her face. Well…, that is if you don’t want to stay married.
The goal is to get the light golden color in my friend’s cannabis extract. The theory is the bentonite clay is porous and could pick up the dark material and chlorophyll.
I started with the tar-like material with the end goal of loading vape pen cartridges. Like before, I used alcohol to thin the tar-like extract to make it very watery. The alcohol will be removed later. I started with 2 ounces of alcohol and added 5 grams of the extract. This time I heated the extract and sucked it into a syringe to measure and transfer the extract to the mason jar. I added ¼ teaspoon of bentonite clay and mixed thoroughly. I then poured the mix through coffee filters to remove the bentonite clay. Just like before, no difference.
Just like before, I repeated the charcoal process with a teaspoon instead of ¼ teaspoon. The bentonite clay clogged the coffee filter and is extremely difficult get the thinned extract through. Again, no difference in the color. My friend has a vacuum filter set on order with very fine filter paper. Given that there almost no sediment on both samples, I’m not hopeful that finer filtration will make any difference.