Extracting used vape carts using ethanol

Check out my vape store: https://cartandpod.com
I don't recommend you actually do this, this is just an experiment for fun.

I go through a lot of Carts and pods, as you can see here.

I'll be showing you another method on how to salvage the extra oil out of your used Carts, pods, and containers.

The first step is to get some isopropyl alcohol and clean the outsides of each pod and cartridge to make sure there are no contaminants or bacteria.

Here I have my lovely assistant cleaning each of them and tossing them into a beaker, be sure to remove any bits of silicone or plastic.

Once all the pods and containers are wiped off and cleaned, high-proof alcohol was poured into each container to sit for a bit.

I then poured some high-proof alcohol into the beaker.

For each of the jars that had some concentrate really stuck to them, I gave them a quick scratching with a glass stir rod before pouring them into the beaker as well.

I then used the rod to stir the contents of the beaker, then put it on a hotplate at a low heat to help the alcohol dissolve all the thc it can.

After stirring and heating for about 10 minutes I strained the liquid through a coffee filter.

I then poured the solution into a larger flask to begin boiling it off.

This took quite some time to accomplish. I could have collected the vapors but my water pump was broken so I had to let them just go into the fume hood. Be extremely careful whenever you are evaporating alcohol such as this as the vapors are highly combustible and may explode if not properly ventilated.

Please don't try doing anything with explosive vapors such as this unless you are aware of the dangers and have appropriate safety gear.

As the alcohol content lowers are the water content rises, you can see some THC starting to separate out of the solution entirely. It also started to get pretty cloudy, this is due to the high water content compared to alcohol content.

I transferred to a beaker at this point as I wanted to ensure ease of collection once it started to boil down to a concentrate.

I took some extra alcohol and swished it around in the flask to get all of the concentrates. As I pour it back in you can see that the white cloudiness disappears as the alcohol content rises compared to the water content.

I proceeded to finish boiling off the rest of the alcohol in the beaker until there was about 20ml or so left.

I then poured what remained into a small glass jar, and set up a little rig so I could use a heat gun to remove the concentrate that was stuck to the beaker.

I poured some alcohol into the beaker and scratched at it with a stir rod to ensure I collected everything into the glass jar.

I placed the jar onto a hotplate and let it stir for a bit at low heat, before letting it settle for a while so I could remove the water with a syringe.

The water is cloudy because of the ouzo effect, when you add water to alcohol certain oils are no longer soluble, and they come out of the solution in the form of microdroplets that make the solution look cloudy like this.

One of the most important steps when dealing with concentrates and solvents is to ensure you do a proper vacuum purge. Here I am using a vacuum pump I made in a previous video along with some rubber adapters to use the jar itself as a small vacuum chamber. This allows me to heat the concentrate more easily and also ensures a more effective vacuum as there is less total volume, but using a regular vacuum chamber would be fine.

After that I was left with nice clear amber oil, I poured it out onto parchment paper and used a heat gun to get it all out of the jar. After letting it cool down, and it became a nice shatter consistency.


Instagram - @johnbrowncannabis -   / johnbrowncannabis  
Twitter: @JohnBrownCanna -   / johnbrowncanna  
Discord:   / discord