RED HONEY OIL

  1) completely dry and grind material to a powder. soak material in
     petroleum ether for several hours, but less than 24 hours. strain,
     saving the pet ether/oil mixture... pressing out the material
     thoroughly to get as much solvent/oil out of the material as possible.
     filter the solvent/oil mixture through a coffee filter.
  2) extract pet ether/oil mixture w/ an ~ 4% sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in
     alcohol solution three times.
  3) acidify the NaOH/oil mixture w/ HCl (diluted 2:1 or 3:1 with
     distilled water) to pH 3. filter the acidified mixture through a
     coffee filter.
  4) extract acidified mixture w/ pet ether three times. evaporate off
     pet ether to yield red honey oil!
  NOTES:
  * this recipe works well w/ small quantities of material. when
    dealing w/ large material quantities, replace 1) w/ ->
    - dry, grind and soak material in 91% isopropyl alcohol for three
      days.
    - strain and filter, saving alcohol/oil mixture.
    - evaporate off alcohol down to ~ 250 - 300 ml of alcohol/oil
      mixture.
    - extract alcohol/oil mixture w/ pet ether three times.
  * extract = placing two solutions in a seperatory funnel, mixing
    thoroughly, and allowing the two phases to seperate...
    given alcohol & pet ether >> pet ether = top, alcohol = bottom
    pet ether & NaOH soln >> pet ether = top, NaOH soln = bottom
    (same for pet ether and acidified NaOH solution)
  * to make the NaOH solution - mix 40 mg of pure NaOH pellets into 500
    ml of distilled water until dissolved thoroughly. then add 500 ml of
    absolute grain alcohol (everclear), yielding ~ 1 liter of the sodium
    hydroxide solution.
  * white gas can be substituted for pet ether (verified)
    muriatic acid (swimming pools) can be substituted for HCl (verified)
    lye can be substituted for NaOH (verified)
  * when dealing with leaf material, soak the material in cold water six
    times, for four hours each time (24 hours total), discarding the water
    after each soak. the material should be completely dried after the
    water soakings before extracting with alcohol or pet ether.
  * material material in:oil out
    -------- -------------------
    leaves 100g:1g
    commercial 30g:1g
    flowers/trim 10g:1g
    A+++ flowers ????? have not been there yet as far as measurable
    quantities, but should be better than 8:1
    therefore, starting with less than 1/4 lb. of leaves yields less than
    1g of oil... when the return is smaller than 1/2 gram, it usually
    sticks to whatever it is evaporated in, making storage a mess at best.
    the following is recommeded:
    - leaf runs of 1 to 2 lbs w/ 1st extraction into alcohol
    - flower runs of 1 to 2 oz. w/ 1st extraction into pet ether
  * pet ether 1st extractions yield a cleaner/clearer goo.
  * especially with leaves extracted with alcohol... when extracting an
    alcohol/oil mixture with pet ether, the phase seperation can be very
    difficult if not impossible to visually identify. in such cases,
    measurent of fluid volumes going into and coming out of the sep funnel
    is about the only way to accurately make the seperation... and even
    then, there may be a need to extract more than three times and/or
    backwashing the pet ether/oil extract with alcohol to clean it up.
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