Apple method nicotine extraction experiment #0001

[Kibey]

I'm assuming that this e-smoke thing won't last long in many countries. Governments seem to be afraid of it. So I want to start making my own stuff (I like to be independent). I'm going to start with making my own e-liquid and then have a go at making home built e-cigarettes with nichrome wire. I'll document my experiments on this forum.


WARNING: Purified nicotine is DANGEROUS! A few drops on your skin can KILL you.


Here's the start of my first experiment.

Apple method nicotine extraction experiment #0001

What I've learned from others.
Nicotine is soluble in water. If you put tobacco in water the nicotine will leach out into the water. If you filter out the tobacco and boil off most of the water, you will end up with a concentrated nicotine solution.

The problem.
How do you filter out the tobacco?
When tobacco gets wet it swells and turns into a gluggy mess. Other peoples experiments have shown that coffee filters are inadequate to filter out the tobacco mess from the nicotine.

The solution.
A finer filter.
I will be attempting to use the skin of an apple and the natural process of osmosis to extract the nicotine from the gluggy tobacco mess.

What is osmosis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis

How does this apply to nicotine?
The tobacco solution has a high concentration of nicotine.
The apple has a low concentration of nicotine (none to start off with).
Nicotine easily absorbs into plants.

When the apple is submerged into the tobacco liquid, nicotine will filter through the skin into the apples water content. The apples nicotine concentration will rise and the tobacco solution nicotine concentration will fall until they equal out. Once the apple and tobacco liquid have equal levels of nicotine concentration, osmosis will stop.

What to do with the poison apple?
The apple will be removed from the liquid. Then the skin will be washed thoroughly and the apple will be chopped up and blended. The juice will be extracted then heated and most of the water content will be boiled off leaving a very high nicotine concentration of apple juice.



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EXPERIMENT BEGINS
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I took about 50 grams of roll your own type tobacco and immersed it into 250ml of plain tap water.

I then brought this to the boil (barely simmering) and turned off the heat and allowed the solution to cool.

I placed an apple (approximately 250cc in volume, so that is fairly equal to the volume of the solution) into a smallish container and covered the apple with the tobacco solution. (Note. I have left all the tobacco solids in the solution)

The smallish container was covered and put safely away where is will do it's osmosis thing for one week.

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EXPERIMENT CONTINUES NEXT WEEK
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[TropicalBob]

Kibey: If you don't post next week ... we'll think you killed yourself!

Good experiment. I had come across the apple-osmosis theory in researching how to extract nicotine and tobacco flavor. Glad you're doing a real-world test.

Now ... how do you accurately determine the strength of the extracted nicotine, so you don't overdose? Good work.

P.S. Do wear latex or rubber gloves as you work with the apple.

 

[dnakr]

I read this too and was going to try it but decided to wait until someone else tried it because of this quote:

Next, I took one drop and put it on my skin to make a patch. Whow! One drop turned out to be a overdose. I started showing all the signs of a small overdose.

If I try it - it will definitely be with only 1 can of tobacco.

Keep us updated on how it goes. It would be wonderful if it worked and if it does, I wonder if a potato could be used instead of an apple.

 

[accordeur]

VERY interesting!!! Let us know how it works out!!!

 

[bishybob]

Or Celery!
Anyone ever do that thing when you're a kid where you put celery in water with food coloring and you can see where it travels up the stalk...

We could have all different fruit flavored e-liquid.

mmm sweet potato flavored liquid. With a bit of smoke flavoring.

 

[jdrancor]

It sounds good. I'm very excited to see your results!

My only concern is the sugar content of the apple, and the resultant caramelization upon heating. But I wonder if this will even be a problem.

Please keep us posted! VERY EXCITING.

 

[Kibey]

Day 1: Trapped on a tropical island. The native women seem friendly. The apple is still an apple.

I expected the apple to be all nicotine stained or something. But no, it appears to be the exact same color as before. I wonder what it looks like inside? I just have to wait.


Accurately determine the strength of the extracted nicotine?
I have no idea how to do this. I'll have to do some more researching. Any ideas anyone?

I think in theory this should work with any kind of fruit or veg matter. The Thai here have some kind of parsnip-looking vegetable. They soak this veggie in very salty water for one week, then chop it up and dry it. The dried veg thing is then used as a salt substitute in soups. Nicotine is a type of salt so it should work well. I think I'm gonna try it for the next experiment.

I used an apple and plain tap water this time so I'll have something to compare my other experiments to. This is kinda like the control experiment.

 

[accordeur]

I am really interested in this. Please keep us updated. The only problem I can see (if the apple indeed absorbed nicotine) is how you will be able to filter it enough not to clog and ruin atomizers. I sure hope it works. I triple filtered smoke juice and mixed it with pure PG from Bickford's. Here is a picture. Most of the particulates seem to have settled at the bottom. I wonder if it would be safe to use the top part.

 

[dnakr]

Try it. It appears yours is even lighter in color then mine was after I filtered. See what happens and let us know.

 

[TropicalBob]

I'd certainly use it. If you feel your atomizer is dirtied after vaporizing this, give it a bath at the end of the day. I was happy to read Ludo's suggestions elsewhere on maintaining our hardware.

 

[accordeur]

Well I just tried it and you can really taste the tobacco!!! Don't know how much nicotine, but I think there is some cause I can feel it.

By the way I filtered the smoke juice using 2 coffee filters stacked on top of 3 plys of white cotton material. I just cut-up an old t-shirt, washed it and rinsed it completely. Next time I will let the particulates sink to the bottom for a few days before adding the PG. I guess I can say I am now making my own smoke juice.

 

[TropicalBob]

Congratulations! About all I can contribute further is that coarser tobacco is probably the best base tobacco. Someone somewhere had suggesting brewing the tobacco just like coffee. Grind it up, filter hot water through it and collect the liquid. I didn't want to do that, but tried very fine nasal snuff for my first batch. It's almost like dust. And it was a flop. That stuff is so small that filtering was just impossible. I tried multiple times. The remaining batches have been with pipe tobacco, about as coarse as we can buy. It was much easier to filter out the tobacco particles.

I'm thinking if I could get a tobacco leaf ... perfect. Simmer leaf in water and voila!

 

[dnakr]

Congrats. Sounds like you did good. With my experiments I used chewing tobacco. Not to difficult to filter - just a pain because it filters so slow. Next time I will try TB's suggestion.

 

[RatInDaHat]

TB,

I know you've mentioned Vegetable Glycerin as a base for the finished liquids. Where are you finding it? i looked at whole foods and wild oats, but think i didn't know where to look and the staff was no help at all.

I'm gonna run down to the vitamin/health store in town and see what i can find.

Thanks,
-Dusty-

 

[TropicalBob]

I had to ask a clerk for it. Normally, he said, they stock it, but were out that day. I got it within 4 days. It's the same as the image someone posted from Amazon.com.

 

[leaford]

I am wondering about chemical additives. If you're using processed tobacco, won't it be chock filled with synthetic "goodness"? Won't that be leeching out along with the nicotine? And into the apple?

 

[TropicalBob]

Depends on the tobacco source. I've settled on inexpensive burleys for my cooking. Those are pure as the driven snow. I use Carter Hall now, but Prince Albert would do fine. Avoid any "aromatic" blends like Sail or Cherry Blend or even Mixture#79, as it will have gooey additives. Earlier, I used a bit of Frog Morton, but it's WAY too expensive to use for cooking. Carter Hall is $2.39 a pouch -- which is enough for several cooking experiments.

Trivia: Brands like Carter Hall, Half&Half and Prince Albert are called "codger burleys," 'cause our grandfathers smoked them! Also called "drugstore tobaccos" 'cause you can buy them anywhere. If I wanted to spend a little more, I'd try pure Louisiana Perique, which is grown exclusively on a few acres in Louisiana and has about the highest nicotine hit of any pipe tobacco. It's never smoked by itself, but is blended with sweet Virginias, latakia and Balkan tobaccos. It can be bought for home mixing, however. More expensive than other tobaccos, but talk about maximum nicotine! It's the only tobacco I know of that is made into liquor, in England. Terribly expensive and almost always sold out.

 

[Kibey]

I am wondering about chemical additives. If you're using processed tobacco, won't it be chock filled with synthetic "goodness"? Won't that be leeching out along with the nicotine? And into the apple?

The tobacco I'm using is very cheap locally grown stuff. So cheap they can't afford to put additives into it.
But I do wonder about the other couple thousand naturally occurring chemicals already in tobacco.
Unfortunately I don't know where else I can get nicotine from, apart from pesticides and I really don't like the idea of using that.

 

[TropicalBob]

Wonder, but don't worry about your tobacco. After all, there are a few thousand chemicals, many hazardous, in the air we're breathing now. In the food we'll eat today. We have a filthy world, do we not?

It's a dirty life, but somebody's got to live it.

 

[accordeur]

My sister -in-law works for Health Canada in the department that offers all the programs to quit smoking. She tells me that Canadian tobacco companies DO NOT add anything to their tobacco, it's an urban legend. All the toxic chemicals that come with tobacco are when you burn it. The combustion is what is bad. I used "Drum" tobacco for my juice and I can really taste it when I add it to PG. I am very confident that there is no danger of chemicals because no combustion occurred. Just thought I would add this info. I know that one store here carries leaf tobacco, so that will be my next experiment. Good luck to all.