Dreammethodtool
Rising Star
Hello, this is my first post as a full member, and I thought it would be most practical to make it one of a contribution to the community.
I know that many folk use IPA or acetone for making their 10x caapi and the like, and it works fine I'm sure.
For those who wish to use high proof ethanol alcohol like Everclear, but don't want to evaporate off the high cost of a bottle, one can utilise an easy
home made still.
Using a greater volume of fluid, and multiple soaks of alcohol, ensures as much of the actives are extracted from the plant as possible.
This also lends itself to larger batches, where a greater volume of alcohol is desired.
For the still, use a basic round crock pot, and find a lid that has a reasonable taper to the middle.
Place your strained/decanted alcohol(post soaking in plant matter) in the crock, and place a suitably sized mason jar in the center,
just under where the peak of the lid would be.
Place the lid on upside down, put some ice in the hollow of the lid and turn on the crock(low is preferable, especially when the fluid volume becomes low in the vessel).
Make sure that the lid is water tight, so none drips down into the alcohol.
I used a glass lid from a larger pot, that has a screwed on plastic handle. I replaced the handle with a stainless steel screw and wing nut, with a rubber washer on the water side to prevent leakage.
This makes a nice small point for the condensed alcohol to drip from.
The lid from the crock may work fine, though it may not offer a very large space for ice to melt.
The heat will evaporate the alcohol, which will condense on the surface of the cold lid, run down to the center along the taper, and drip into your jar.
You will need to siphon out the water and add more ice, but otherwise it just does its thing.
This will recover most of your alcohol and concentrate the actives into a much smaller quantity of liquid, which is more cost effective to evaporate over the leaf being infused.
*An option is to do this in a pot on the stove on a low heat, using ELECTRIC ELEMENTS ONLY! Open flame around alcohol vapors are dangerous!*
Hope this is helpful!
I know that many folk use IPA or acetone for making their 10x caapi and the like, and it works fine I'm sure.
For those who wish to use high proof ethanol alcohol like Everclear, but don't want to evaporate off the high cost of a bottle, one can utilise an easy
home made still.
Using a greater volume of fluid, and multiple soaks of alcohol, ensures as much of the actives are extracted from the plant as possible.
This also lends itself to larger batches, where a greater volume of alcohol is desired.
For the still, use a basic round crock pot, and find a lid that has a reasonable taper to the middle.
Place your strained/decanted alcohol(post soaking in plant matter) in the crock, and place a suitably sized mason jar in the center,
just under where the peak of the lid would be.
Place the lid on upside down, put some ice in the hollow of the lid and turn on the crock(low is preferable, especially when the fluid volume becomes low in the vessel).
Make sure that the lid is water tight, so none drips down into the alcohol.
I used a glass lid from a larger pot, that has a screwed on plastic handle. I replaced the handle with a stainless steel screw and wing nut, with a rubber washer on the water side to prevent leakage.
This makes a nice small point for the condensed alcohol to drip from.
The lid from the crock may work fine, though it may not offer a very large space for ice to melt.
The heat will evaporate the alcohol, which will condense on the surface of the cold lid, run down to the center along the taper, and drip into your jar.
You will need to siphon out the water and add more ice, but otherwise it just does its thing.
This will recover most of your alcohol and concentrate the actives into a much smaller quantity of liquid, which is more cost effective to evaporate over the leaf being infused.
*An option is to do this in a pot on the stove on a low heat, using ELECTRIC ELEMENTS ONLY! Open flame around alcohol vapors are dangerous!*
Hope this is helpful!
