Green Goop
Green Goop (leaves)
The material was prepared by seperating the leaf material from any
stems, roots and other non leafy matter, then ground to a fine powder
using an electric blender. The ground material was weighted to be 325
grams.
The ground material was put in a large stainless steel pot (the same
pot later used for the initial reflux and extraction of the crude
oils) and throroughly saturated with cold water, covering the plant
material by at least one inch. The material is allowed to soak in the
the water for one hour, afterwhich the water tea is seperated from the
plant material and discarded.
Note: After much experimentation, it seems that a piece of silk screen
material (no finer than 200 mess) and a large aquarium charcoal filter
bag works well for seperating the water (and later alcohol extract)
from the plant material. The piece of silk screen makes for a good
strainer, while the filter bag is ideal for squeezing the excess
liquid from the plant material.
Two more one hour cold water soaks were preformed, then the plant
material was spread out, with a fan blowing across it, to dry out
completely.
Once the material was dry, it was placed in the aforementioned large
stainless steel pot along with approximately 2.5 liters of isopropyl
alcohol (91% alcohol). The pot was covered and placed on a hotplate
and refluxed for 3 hours.
Note: Refluxing means heating the liquid until it just passes from the
liquid phase to the gaseous phase, but not heating it so much that is
evaporates away before is hits the cooler surface of the pot, and
turning back into a liquid... similiar to a low simmer cooking soup.
During the reflux stage, the hotplate/pot combination was placed near
a fan in a window (blowing outward) which exhausted any of the alcohol
fumes which did not return to the liquid phase before escaping from
the pot.
After the reflux, the pot was removed from the heat, and allowed to
cool. Once cool, the material was seperated from the liquid/oil
mixture using silk screen material, and the last bits of liquid was
squeezed from the material using a fine mess aquarium charcoal filter
bag.
The liquid was returned to the pot, and placed over just enough heat
to cause the alcohol to boil off slowly (a little more heat than is
required for refluxing). The setup was placed near a fan in a window
to exhaust the alcohol fumes. This stage takes quite awhile... almost
five hours for the amount of liquid/oil solution retrieved from this
experiment. The heat is turned off when nearly all of the liquid has
evaporated, and all that remains is a dark green goopy sludge at the
bottom of the pan, which almost dries to a solid if allowed to sit at
room temperature for a few days... yielding green goop.
Note: A liquid tincture can be prepared by leaving some of the alcohol
in by removing the pot from the heat before the mixture turns to goop.
If this is done, filter through a coffee filter once or twice to
remove any solids.
Note: If better input material is used (flowers instead of leaves),
then the resulting oil, by definition, will be better. Do not do the
material water soaks in the beginning if using flowers.
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