Cannabis Fun Club in Russia

Preparation of khimka

Content

Introduction
1. Selection of solvent
2. Preparing the grass
3. Extraction
4. Extraction
5. Solvent distillation and drying
6. Fighting the Golyas

Selected methods for obtaining chemicals
1. Khimka "home-style"
2. Khimka "on the wet"
3. Chemistry in the laboratory
4. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) test

Introduction

"Khimka" is a popular name for a concentrated extract of active substances of cannabis. It is usually prepared by soaking (boiling) dry grass in organic solvents and then evaporating the extract. After that, there remains a cake that does not contain any active substances at all and is good only for paper production :) And a certain amount of thick concentrated resins, the content of active substances in which is several times higher than in the original grass. If, for example, there are two boxes of relatively useless grass (say, at the level of a one-snout joint), then the resulting khimka can be smoked wonderfully by about five people without the need to spit out their lungs (as a rule, useless grass turns out to be the most vicious when smoked). If the grass was decent, then the result will be more like "hashish", this word is usually used to denote the same khimka, but made from very good grass. Such a product can kill even with one hit! In general, there is such an empirical rule: if the grass is good for milk, then it is good for khimka.
Now we need to take a closer look at the main points of the process...

1. Selection of solvent

There are many solvents suitable for this purpose, and when choosing the right one, you need to be guided by the following factors: availability, ease of use, extraction quality and toxicity. Here is a brief description of the most convenient and common solvents:

Ethyl alcohol (drinking, medical, etc.) - very easily available (in pharmacies, 96%). Practically non-toxic, in addition, there is much less chance of confusing neighbors with various strange smells. The main disadvantage is that alcohol is a polar solvent, so it captures a fair amount of dirt along with resins. This is not scary, but the product is smellier.

Acetone - also easy to get, but much smellier. Evaporates much faster than alcohol, but is also polar - so it also attracts all kinds of dirt. Work should be carried out in a well-ventilated room, because sniffing it is harmful.

Petroleum ether (gasoline "Zippo", "Kalosha") is a completely different matter. It is characterized by low volatility, does not smell strongly of gasoline, and, most importantly, is non-polar! Chemicals on it turn out good, but it must be dried for a long time and carefully. Otherwise, when smoking, you will have to enjoy the gasoline aroma :)

Anesthetic ether (diethyl, sulfuric, medical) is a pretty dangerous thing... Very volatile, very smelly and very explosive! When working with it, there should be no open flames in the room, no smoking and good ventilation is needed. But it gives the best results, because like petroleum ether it is non-polar and is usually very pure. It evaporates even faster than acetone.

Others - regular gasoline, household solvents with numbers, etc. cannot be used, they contain a lot of dirt and evaporate slowly. Solvents such as toluene, etc., mentioned in the "laboratory" process are not recommended for home use.

2. Preparing the herb for extraction

First, if you are making a chemical mixture from weak grass, then immediately throw away the burdocks, leaving only the cones. If the grass is good, then you can use the burdocks. Then thoroughly dry the grass if it is damp. This is especially important when using non-polar solvents like ether - otherwise a lot of cannabinol will remain where it was, and when the solution is evaporated, you will get not resin, but snot :( A good, and most importantly, a quick drying method is to heat up the oven, then turn it off (!) and put the drape laid out on a baking sheet in there. If it is not dry, repeat until the leaves crumble easily. Now the grass needs to be crushed. It is enough to simply "beat" it with your hands and sift it - any extreme methods like a coffee grinder are completely unnecessary. There is one subtle point here - the finer the grass, the more complete the extraction and less solvent is needed. On the other hand, the finer the grass, the more likely it is to "gurgle" when boiling (this is when instead of normal boiling it stands for a long time, and then "gurgles" - and half of all the swill is already on the stove). Naturally, for the "cold" process this does not play a special role.

3. Extraction

It's time to finally decide what process we will use - "cold" or "hot". If cold - then you will need a jar of suitable volume with a tight lid. For a volume of several boxes of drape, a bottle from "Tussin" or "Bronholitin" is perfect. You just pour the grass in there, pour in the solvent (so that 5 ... 10 mm of solvent remains above the grass when it settles). And periodically shake vigorously during the day ...

And this is what the cold method looks like using a magnetic stirrer. Flowers from wild male plants are extracted in a mixture of medical alcohol and ether 2:1. How to make a magnetic stirrer with your own hands will be discussed soon...

Hot methods are a bit more complicated. First of all, I highly recommend doing this on an electric stove with a closed spiral - the risk of fire will be significantly reduced. Also, never try to use anything other than alcohol for the hot method! One of two things: either you'll sniff the fumes until you're completely high, or it will explode. By the way, the "Anarchist Cookbook" recommends using wood alcohol - so don't even think about it! Wood (aka methyl) alcohol is toxic. You can use almost any vessel for extraction, as long as it's the right size and doesn't burst. Stainless steel, porcelain, and heat-resistant glass work great. You can use regular glass - but it needs to be heated only in a sand/salt bath, and even then there is no guarantee that it won't burst :( Actually, the ideal solution is a conical flat-bottomed flask made of heat-resistant glass - it can be heated directly over low heat and everything boils out of it much more slowly. You need to boil it all for about an hour, then cool it.

The main problem with the hot method is the gradual evaporation of the solvent. Of course, this is not relevant for the "laboratory method", where the solvent circulates in a circle and practically does not leave the apparatus... However, the glass needed for such tricks is expensive and difficult to obtain. In an attempt to come up with something simpler, this design was born (on the left). A round-bottomed flask is taken, a rubber stopper is selected for it. A hole is drilled in the stopper and a glass tube with a diameter of about 10 mm and a length of 50-60 cm is passed through it. Raw materials are poured into the flask, alcohol, acetone or Zippo gasoline (the latter is best, since it condenses well and almost does not fly away) are poured in and the flask is immersed in an oil bath standing on an electric stove (a stupid saucepan with sunflower oil). The glass tube works as an air reflux condenser - solvent vapors condense on it and flow back. Such a refrigerator works much better if you put a fan nearby that would blow on it... A gas stove is not recommended, the flow of warm air from the flame will reduce the benefit of the reflux condenser to zero! To prevent the flask from bursting, the oil level should be slightly below the level of the slop inside it. The stove should heat so that the mixture in the flask slowly boils (if the stove is too powerful, you can put a sheet of asbestos under the bottom of the pan).

4. Extraction

There are no special subtleties here, although it is as easy to dry out as at any other stage of the process :) If a small volume of drape was used (maximum 1...2 boxes), then it is best to squeeze it out with a twenty-cubic-meter disposable syringe. It looks like this: first, drain as much solvent as possible, and then stuff the remaining wet pulp into the syringe and squeeze it out with all your might with the piston. For large volumes, this method becomes pretty awesome, and it is worth using gauze, cotton (!) fabric or mesh. How to squeeze through them probably does not need to be explained, almost everyone once boiled milk :))

5. Solvent distillation and drying

Here the course of action again depends on the volume... If you have up to 10-15 milliliters of extract, then you can safely pour it into a shallow container, plug the hair dryer into the socket and start blowing it into the cup. After fifteen minutes, a layer of greasy green-brown oils will remain at the bottom. If you have more extract, then breathing in this solvent will be harmful to health and scary in terms of burning. Therefore, feel free to drag the jar and hair dryer to the balcony, also drag an extension cord there to turn on this hair dryer, and off we go...

There is one unpleasant moment here - the oils are so liquid-sticky-viscous that even scraping them completely out of the jar is very difficult. There are two possible options - either wipe them off the cup with tobacco, or add some filler before starting the distillation. Personally, I prefer the second option, and it is most convenient to use the same cake as this filler. 1/10 of the total amount of cake will absorb the oils almost completely and those show-offs that still stick to the walls of the vessel are easily erased by it. It turns out interesting if what you get after this can be rolled into a ball - it is pleasant to look at and easier to store :)) And the main thing - dry the oils really well, then they smoke better and flow better.

Here it is, my dear :) About 3 wagons of average grass were finely crushed, 60 ml of methyl alcohol was poured in and it was stirred on a magnetic stirrer for 24 hours. Then the alcohol was drained, the pulp was squeezed out, the solution was poured into a porcelain cup... Tobacco from one cigarette was poured into the solution and left for 3 days. During this time, the alcohol had completely evaporated and the result was quite suitable for smoking by five people.

6. Fighting the Golyas

I offer you a very simple and convenient way of such a fight... When the situation is completely desperate, take a dry (or top of a wet) bulb with a fairly long track record. Screw on the lid, turn it upside down and pour 5...10 cubes of alcohol through the "grabbing" hole (do not use other solvents, otherwise it is quite possible that you will have to smoke plastic). If you are working with a dry one - just shake it for about 10 minutes so that the alcohol washes the most "oily" areas, if it is wet - rub the walls from the inside with your finger, wetting it with alcohol dangling inside. When the walls become transparent and the alcohol - black, pour it out and go to point 5, i.e. to drying the oils.

Individual methods of preparing chemicals

Here I will give several methods that do not fit into the basic scheme described above. Khimka "at home" is extremely easy to make, actually, this is a description of how Python and I made khimka for the first time in our lives :) Khimka "on wet" is obtained by a completely different principle, I myself have not tried the results, but people say that it is a very good process... Its main advantage is that it uses ordinary tap water and it is designed for very large volumes. Khimka "in the laboratory" requires the presence of some laboratory equipment and reagents, but in the end it produces more gushing cannabinol than was in the grass (!).

1. Khimka "home-style"

We take grass (preferably dried, preferably only the tops). Then we take vodka (cheap and nonsense, as long as there are degrees). Pour vodka over the grass and boil for an hour, adding more as it boils away. Then we drain the solution, squeeze out the grass and let the solution evaporate, and pour fresh vodka over the grass and boil again for an hour. Then we drain again, squeeze out, and add the resulting second portion of the solution to the partially evaporated first (the main thing is that the first portion does not boil away completely by this time). Now we evaporate almost all the way... Until it becomes thick and viscous (this is best done in a water bath). Pour tobacco into this thick muck (a little bit, the volume of tobacco is half the volume of the solution), mix well, and into the oven. Bake at < 200 C until the consistency of plasticine. The main thing is not to dry it out! And - voila! - hash is ready. True, not as strong as the “branded” one, but very good.

P.S. The process from "The Anarchist Cookbook" by J. Powell was taken as a basis, later greatly simplified :)

2. Khimka "on wet" (author - Balu)

...A very interesting and simple process. You, about four people, go to the smash with a canister of water, taking a bucket for each person. At the smash, you pour the water into the buckets, trim the tops off the grass and "wash" them each in your own bucket. That is, you do the same as if you were trying to wash a stain out of fabric, only with grass... Each portion of grass must be "washed" until it turns white, as thoroughly as possible, then take another grass - and gradually so many useful substances will go into the water that it will darken and stop dissolving anything. Then you pack up, pour the water back into the canister and go home. We've arrived. Now do the following: pour water into the bucket (with useful substances :) almost to the top, put the bucket on the stove and wait until it starts to boil. When it starts, you need to quickly collect the floating flakes of foam with resins with a spoon and throw them into another container. By the way, what settles to the bottom of the bucket is also quite a propulsive thing ;) When the useful substances are extracted from all the available water, they are collected together, poured into a rag and squeezed out. Now, if you press the sediment remaining in the rag in the door, you will get quite decent hash!
3. Obtaining chemicals in the laboratory

Here is a synthesis from "Psychedelic Chemistry", M.V. Smith:
Delta-1(6) THC from Cannabidiol HCA 52.1123(1969)

Reflux 1g cannabidiol, 60 mg p-toluenesulfonic acid (or 0.003 M trifluoroacetic acid) in 50 ml benzene for 1 1/2 hours. Evaporate in vacuum to get about 0.7 g THC. Alternatively, add 1.8g cannabidiol to 100 ml 0.005N HCl and reflux four hours. Proceed as above to get about 0.5 g THC (cf. JACS 94.6159 (1972))

And here is the adapted Russian version with hyperlab.org :

The cartridge of the straight-through extractor is loaded with carefully (!) dried plant material, a liter of heptane is poured into the flask and 10 grams of toluene sulfonic acid is thrown in. A reflux condenser is attached to the top of the extractor cartridge. The whole thing is boiled until the draining extract has a greenish color. It has become colorless - change the contents of the cartridge. If you are tired of it - cool it down, wash it with soda to remove the sulfonic acid, distill off (preferably under a vacuum with a water jet) the heptane. They say that in this way, quite a lethal material is obtained from the most useless rubbish. And the chemistry here is such that toluene sulfonic acid is a catalyst that causes the splitting off of hydroxyl groups from inactive cannabidiols and the isomerization of the splitting products into highly active delta-eight and delta-nine-tetrahydrocannabinols. That's how it is. But by the way, one more fact remained unnoticed. Namely, the flask with the boiling extract must be in a constant acidic environment. And since the draining extract gradually neutralizes the toluene sulfonic acid, you have to periodically check the pH and add new portions of sulfonic acid. Just don't forget to rinse it with soda - toluene sulfonic acid is a pretty smelly thing when smoking :))

Heptane cannot be replaced with alcohol or acetone (they mix with water, into which TSC will immediately pass). It can be replaced with octane, isooctane, gasoline. The best are toluene or xylene (any - ortho, para, meta, or a mixture of isomers). In general, any solvent that does not mix with water (non-polar).

4. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) test

In other words, this test allows you to find out whether this green grass is cannabis (and whether it is high :) ...

0.1 g of crushed grass and 5 ml of petroleum ether are ground in a mortar and left for 15 minutes. Filter and carefully add 1 ml of the extract to 2 ml of 15% HCl solution in absolute ethyl alcohol. The red color at the border of the two layers indicates the presence of THC. After shaking, the upper layer remains colorless, and the lower one turns pink-orange. The lower layer becomes colorless after adding 1 ml of water. (all reagents must be anhydrous, otherwise the test will not show anything!)

Another way to do this is to evaporate the extract and add the residue to a 5% solution of KOH in ethanol. The purple color indicates the presence of cannabinols. The latter test is simpler, but gives less reliable results.

From "Psychedelic Chemistry", M.V. Smith

From the website www.rastamans.com.