I had wanted to start into DIY juice and also found that I needed a 0-nic flavor for the evenings. Too much vape after 10pm, combined with ECF browsing and "ohh, pretty, shiny" distractions were keeping me up until 2:30am. I needed a "sleepy-time" vape. I found scarf-ace's thread: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...57599-slow-cooker-extraction-tobacco-tea.html and had my start point. I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes this time through and I haven’t yet tried my finished product, so I wouldn’t recommend that anyone try this verbatim.
Ingredients:
4 tea bags Yogi Bedtime tea
additional Aveda Comfort tea to bring the total material to 15g.
Propylene Glycol
Vegetable Glycerin
Equipment:
Electronic Pressure Cooker
Cheese cloth/Spice bag/Jelly bag
Mesh sieve
Wide-mouth canning jar and lid
Unbleached coffee filters
Small funnel
Process:

Ingredients:
4 tea bags Yogi Bedtime tea
additional Aveda Comfort tea to bring the total material to 15g.
Propylene Glycol
Vegetable Glycerin
Equipment:
Electronic Pressure Cooker
Cheese cloth/Spice bag/Jelly bag
Mesh sieve
Wide-mouth canning jar and lid
Unbleached coffee filters
Small funnel
Process:
- Emptied the tea bags and dumped the loose tea in my ex-coffee-grinder-now-spice-grinder and ground until fine.
- My spice grinder is on its last legs and the motor is starting to get gunked up. I'm going to have to invest in a small, mechanical grinder.
- Combine material and 1oz each of PV and VG into a small wide-mouth jar and stir until blended.
- I chose to do the cook & water bath steps with the lid on the jar
- I didn't get my lid sealed tight enough at the start and had more evaporation than expected. Next time I will try to vacuum seal the lid first and see if that helps.
- I’m further diluting the final product so evaporation isn’t a huge deal
- Into the electronic pressure cooker
- Trivet on the bottom so the jar isn’t resting directly on the heat source
- Fill with water so it comes up to a level even with the top of the mixture in the jar
- Pressure cook
- My cooker has a Low setting of 6PSI ~220° and a High setting of 10PSI ~235°
- I cooked on Low for 60 minutes. Twice. I now think this is WAY too much heat. In the future I may do a really short cook at Low pressure, or not at all.
- Hot Water bath
- The Keep Warm setting on my cooker is about 135°
- I left the jar in the hot water bath for about 3 days. I would check on the water level and give the jar a shake a few times a day
- Strain
- Cool the mixture just enough so it easy to handle. While warm it is a bit thinner and easier to work with.
- Empty contents into cheesecloth (or cotton spice bag or jelly bag)
- Squeeze into a second jar. Gloves are recommended as this can get messy.
- Get as much liquid out as possible. Press the bagged contents into a mesh seive. Try a french press (if you have enough material that the strainer mesh presses down into the material). I tried a hand-levered citrus press too but it was messy. Tincture presses are available, but not cheap. It is also fairly easy to create a press with a c-clamp and 2 metal jars or canisters that fit inside each other, with some holes drilled into the inner bowl or canister. I’ve also looked into a chinois and a wooden pestle – I’m sure that is a tool I would use around the kitchen so the investment wouldn’t be limited to a single purpose.
- I did my additional research after my “overheating” but my final product did not smell bitter or burnt. It had the nice liquorice and floral nose of the Aveda tea that I love so much.
- Bottle
- Line a funnel with a filter and insert a second bottle or jar. I was working with a very small amount so mine went directly into a 30ml glass dropper bottle
- Pass the liquid through the filter. I made the mistake of having my filter folded to fit the funnel and doubled up so my thick liquid just sat there. I may also try to thin with the PG before filtering and then add the VG after it is filtered. (I just re-read the thread linked at the top and saw that one of the extractions took 4 days to filter - so be patient.)
- Repeat a couple of times with a new filter to be sure to remove impurities – especially since starting with a ground mixture.
- Mix
- Since I was working with a 0-nic end product I wasn’t concerned the final nicotine level which made things a LOT easier. I just topped off my bottle with PG & VG to fill the bottle and get a nice consistency. It will be easier to work outside the final bottle so I have a better idea of the final consistency.
- When I move on to tobacco extracts there will be more calculations involved to mix in a nicotine PG/VG and consider the nicotine level in the extract.
- Steep
- Sealed bottle is sitting in the cool dark basement for 2 weeks.