Attempting a cigar extraction

[warmturkey]

I'm a big fan of tobacco vapes, and I've wanted to make my own cigar flavored juice for a long time now. I've read through a number of extraction threads in this forum and I wondered why most people seem to to be just steeping their tobacco directly in PG or VG instead of doing an ethanol extraction and then thinning it out with PG/VG, which in my mind seems like the best way to do it. The closest thing I've been able to find is a youtube vid where a guy does a quick isopropyl alcohol extraction and then, after filtering, evaporates the alcohol using a hot plate, before thinning out the resulting sludge with PG and VG. He claims great success, but I don't really like the idea of using ISO alc, I feel like heating the extract to evaporate it could impact the taste of the juice in a negative way, and the short time he allowed the tobacco to soak couldn't possibly be long enough to get the full flavor profile of the cigar.

So here I'm going to share what I plan to do, what I've got going so far, and try to get some input from anyone who has done something similar, knows what I can expect from my finished product, or can give suggestions as to how I should go about doing this if you feel my plan is flawed in some way. I've done alcohol extraction on a few various plants in the past, but never on tobacco.

My plan is to soak a ground up cigar in 190 proof ethanol (everclear) for several days, strain, repeat, strain, filter, then allow the solution to evaporate for several days until most, if not all, of the alcohol is gone then add PG and VG to my desired ratio.

So, with my humidor being filled with sticks I don't really want to waste on a possibly failed experiment, but not wanting to use a nasty machine rolled cigar, I picked up a pack of 3 Hampton Arms cigars from my local CVS. Hampton arms is an inexpensive cuban seed, Hand rolled, Nicaraguan long filler cigar with a Sumatran wrapper. The construction is poor but pretty much the same kinds of tobaccos used in many Premium cigars. They're basically factory rejects. I've smoked a few of them before, and although it's nowhere remotely close to the best smokes out there by any means, and they usually burn cockeyed most of the way down, it's a surprisingly tasty medium bodied smoke with a rich earthy flavor and aroma. From the taste of it, it's kinda hard to believe it's only $6 for a pack of 3 Churchills.

So, having acquired all my materials I sat down to work. First I weighed the cigar on my scale to get an idea of what I was working with. This one cigar weighed out to roughly 14 grams, or half an ounce of tobacco. Next, I put on a pair of rubber gloves and broke my cigar up as fine as fine as I could by hand, while removing as many stems and veins as I could find. After I got it down to what seemed like a good consistency, I placed all my tobacco in 2 small mason jars and and then poured just enough everclear to cover the leaves. I then resealed the jars and have been shaking them periodically for the past 3 days. Tomorrow I plan to strain the alcohol from both jars into another jar then re soak the tobacco for another three days. At the end of the second pull, I will filter the resulting liquid through several coffee filters to remove as much plant material as possible (not the best thing to filter with I guess, but I'm going for simple and low budget here) The filtered liquid will be poured into a glass baking dish where it will be allowed to evaporate for the next few days at room temperature. Once the solution is reduced to a dark brown tar with little to no left over ethanol, I'm going to thin it out with PG and VG.

That last part is the tricky part for me as I'm not really sure How much PG/VG to add (plan on making it a 80/20 ratio, but I'm not sure what I should make my total volume), I kind of just planned on diluting slowly until it looks like the right color and Constancy of a healthy natural tobacco juice, but I feel like someone must know a better method to do this. From what I understand It probably won't be very potent nicotine wise, since it only has the nicotine of one cigar spread out over the vape equivalent to several cigars, and that's fine as I'm mainly interested in the flavor, but I don't want to spread it too thin and have it taste watered down.

Anyone with some useful info, advice, or comments please feel free to chime in.

 

[DFDF]

I think most people use a PG/VG extraction to avoid pulling unwanted plant fats. With alcohol you are pulling all alcohol soluble materials on top of terpenes and any flavor compounds/essences that you are targeting. The plus side to the alcohol extract is you will be getting those minor alkaloids and should notice a difference in the way it makes you feel over a chemically flavored tobacco vape. I do anyways.

 

[mwa102464]

wasting your time with using cigars in my opinion, you need to use whole cured tobacco leaf,, available at leafonly.com, order the 1/4lb samples from the left column these go a long way, and they have some really good cigar leaf, Havana, Nicaragaun Seco Cigar and a bunch of other great tobacco's,, I sent you a PM

 

[Los Marauder]

I used to smoke stogies too. I am down to DIY 0% nic, so I probably won't try your expieriment, but am truey interested in how it goes. Best of luck. By the way, I always liked Dominican filler, and my brother likes Honduran. Is Nicaraguan filler close in taste of similar quality Honduran? Christmass on its way and all, it would be nice to get my brother a nice stogie he doesn't already smoke. Wish I could get him on Vapes, but oh well.

 

[warmturkey]

Nicaraguan is very similar to Hondoran, a little more earthy and sweet I think. Not as much of a peppery taste as Honduran or especially Dominican. This is what I can tell from the cigars I've had anyway.

Thanks for the link, mwa, I've actually checked out that website before. if this goes well I might order some Nicaraguan leaf from there and try that out.

DFDF, I figured that was a big reason people didn't use alcohol, that and the process being slightly more involved and potentially dangerous. I'm not worried about about pulling the extra chems out for health reasons, as I'm sure inhaling them in vapor form can't be any worse than actually smoking them as a whole cigar. And if the full alkaloid/poison profile gives me that relaxed yet stimulated feeling I get after smoking a good cigar, I feel like that will only add to the experience. I'm more concerned about the extra stuff making it taste like .... or killing my attys if anything, I know dark/tobacco juice can gunk up your attys fast. That's why this will only be an "occasional vape" just like I only occasionally smoke cigars. I'm a big fan of W2V's Blondie, but I try to only vape it every now and then.

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll keep you updated on how everything goes.

Can anyone throw me some advice on how much PG/VG I should add to to an alcohol extracted tobacco concentrate made from a 14 gram cigar?

 

[warmturkey]

Ok, so I've got my filtered cigar extract in a glass bowl up on a shelf. From the look of it, the last of the alcohol should be evaporated by tomorrow evening and I'll be ready to add my PG and VG to it. If it tastes half as good as it smells right now I'll be a happy boy

 

[purelyscientific]

I've found that the "pan evap at room temp" Takes wayyyyyyyyyy longer than just doing a hot water bath evaporation.

I lined a pot with a cloth, put my alcohol extract in a beaker and into the pot and evaporated it down to 8mL in about an hour and a half. The pan method took me damn close to 3-4 days to finish.(technically it wasn't finished, I called it off in fear of getting some type of mold growth) The hot water bath method came out better too.

I used cheap bottom shelf crystal palace vodka for the extraction.^^

Don't ever even think about using isopropyl for an extraction, whoever did that is a stupid (insert extremely bad word here).
It is Denatured alcohol. Which means it contains stuff that can kill you/make you blind/sick.
Don't use it to clean atty's either for that matter.

I'm pretty sure the crystal palace is actually cheaper than iso so you/he/I have no excuse to be using it.
Unless of course he was under 18, in which case he shouldn't be doing this kinda stuff anyways...

 

[DFDF]

Isopropyl is its own entity, it is not denatured in and of it self but it is unsafe to drink. Ethyl alcohol is denatured when something is added that makes it unsafe to drink. Isopropyl can be used as an additive when denaturing an ethyl alcohol.

 

[purelyscientific]

Ahh sorry, I should have been more clear. When I said isopropyl I meant isopropyl alcohol.
Either way anything with iso is not safe to use imo.

 

[Kurt]

DFDF is right: ethanol will probably pull out too much plant biomolecules (fats, proteins, sugars). I made that really clear in my original post, and is the reason I did not use an alcohol or PG (less polar than VG). I wanted the flavors, not biomolecules that might thermally decompose into God knows what upon inhalation. Then again, I've not done any analysis on my PTE, so it might contain all sorts of stuff besides the flavors.

As for evaporating off isopropyl alcohol, how do you know it is all gone in the end? I would guess some of it will be held by the biomolecules and not evaporate. Unless you pull on it with a vacuum and heat, it is hard to remove it all from a bio-sludge. If you feel you must use an alcohol, stick to ethanol...but then again, I don't think ethanol is a good idea either.

 

[warmturkey]

Just to be clear I used drinkable 95% pure grain ethanol in the form of everclear I purchased at a local liquor store. I would never use Isopropyl alcohol.

All the ethanol evaporated in about 2 days, leaving behind a completely dry greenish brown residue. I realize using a heat source would've sped up the process but I was in no hurry for one thing. The bottle of PG I ordered took longer to get to me than expected. it should be here today according to the tracking.

So all these extra plant fats and sugars, are they going to make my finished product taste bad? gunk up my coils quicker? or are they just not that healthy to inhale? regardless I plan to try soaking tobacco in PG for my next experiment, as so many have suggested. I'm off to work for now, tonight when I get home at 8 I'll mix this stuff up, give it a whirl, and report back with my results.

 

[xMackx]

I just did some PTE and Cigar extractions myself, couple with PG and one with VG so far. I ended up using real pipe tobacco which was one of my favorite brands, not cig tobacco sold as pipe tobacco.

The real PTE extract taste really good but it makes my atties sluggish, a day of vaping on a new wick/coil and it gets sluggish. PG is easier to filter as it's less viscous but I can't handle much PG.

On the other hand my cigar extract turned out great. Vapes like any other juice mix.

I tried a cold extraction, to get flavor with less nic/alkaloids. It worked very well, but I only made about 1ml as an experiment. I'll try another cold extraction with a little more using VG later today. Let you guys know how it goes!

 

[warmturkey]

Ok, so My PG came in today, and I just finished mixing up the juice with my cigar extract. I Have to say the results are kind of disappointing.

I filled a 15ml bottle with roughly 80% PG and 20% VG and poured that into my bowl containing the dried cigar extract residue. Using a spoon, I stirred it around the bottom of the bowl so the residue could dissolve into the PG/VG. I instantly saw the problem of using an alcohol extract, The residue wouldn't completely dissolve, and super small globs of tar were suspended in the liquid. I guess some of what's soluble in the ethanol isn't soluble in PG/VG. I attempted to remedy this by applying heat but this seemed to just separated the tar and oils further. after stirring it up for a good 15-20 minutes it became apparent that the tiny tar globs were not going to dissolve completely, so I decided to filter it through a coffee filter. After filtering I was left with a super cloudy dark brown liquid. Feeling that it wasn't going to get any better, I sucked it back up into the bottle and dripped a few drops onto a 510 atty to test it out....

NOT what I was expecting at all. It doesn't taste that bad, but it doesn't really taste that great either. There just isn't a whole lot of flavor for a juice this dark, and what is there only faintly resembles a cigar vape. Kinda sweet, almost like burnt honey mixed with a a bit of a "green leafy" tobacco. I guess that's all the plant sugars and what not I was warned about. Virtually no throat hit either, but I wasn't expected much with no nic added. Like I said it doesn't taste THAT bad, but it also doesn't taste good enough to justify gunking up any of my attys for. Maybe it'll taste better after a few weeks of steeping but I'm not gunna hold my breath. Back to the drawing board.

Next I'm just gunna soak some tobacco in some PG for a couple weeks, filter and see what I get, since others seem to swear by this method.

Thanks everyone for the input!!

 

[xMackx]

Ok, so My PG came in today, and I just finished mixing up the juice with my cigar extract. I Have to say the results are kind of disappointing.

I filled a 15ml bottle with roughly 80% PG and 20% VG and poured that into my bowl containing the dried cigar extract residue. Using a spoon, I stirred it around the bottom of the bowl so the residue could dissolve into the PG/VG. I instantly saw the problem of using an alcohol extract, The residue wouldn't completely dissolve, and super small globs of tar were suspended in the liquid. I guess some of what's soluble in the ethanol isn't soluble in PG/VG. I attempted to remedy this by applying heat but this seemed to just separated the tar and oils further. after stirring it up for a good 15-20 minutes it became apparent that the tiny tar globs were not going to dissolve completely, so I decided to filter it through a coffee filter. After filtering I was left with a super cloudy dark brown liquid. Feeling that it wasn't going to get any better, I sucked it back up into the bottle and dripped a few drops onto a 510 atty to test it out....

NOT what I was expecting at all. It doesn't taste that bad, but it doesn't really taste that great either. There just isn't a whole lot of flavor for a juice this dark, and what is there only faintly resembles a cigar vape. Kinda sweet, almost like burnt honey mixed with a a bit of a "green leafy" tobacco. I guess that's all the plant sugars and what not I was warned about. Virtually no throat hit either, but I wasn't expected much with no nic added. Like I said it doesn't taste THAT bad, but it also doesn't taste good enough to justify gunking up any of my attys for. Maybe it'll taste better after a few weeks of steeping but I'm not gunna hold my breath. Back to the drawing board.

Next I'm just gunna soak some tobacco in some PG for a couple weeks, filter and see what I get, since others seem to swear by this method.

Thanks everyone for the input!!

After several different methods I found one that works very well. Chopped up cigar in a shot glass, added equal amount of PG. Then microwave for only 4 seconds (not enough to boil but around tea steeping temperature) and stir for a few minutes. Then I pull the plunger out of my juice syringe put a piece of cotton in the bottom and pour the cigar/PG right into the syringe tube and replace the plunger and squeeze the extract out filtering through the cotton.

Best method I have used so far, I will try the 2 week steep as well.

 

[scarf-ace]

Warmturkey, you might want to try the slow-cooker method. I have a thread about it in this forum, and it works really well. I've tried cigar, pipe and RYO cigarette (all high quality). Great results.

 

[gordk]

Hey! Newbie to ECF (today) and vaping (1 month in any way that matters, after 3 months of BS). Been reading LOTSA stuff here for six weeks. Have a bunch of Cuban Rejects I no longer wish to apply flame to, and I might just try a few of these ideas for fun. Or toss them or give them to a friend who loves them.

I already did a DIY that was great... until my tongue started recovering; then eh, not so much.

YES ! I'm careful. Good info. You guys ROCK!

gord

 

[Ohio Points]

After several different methods I found one that works very well. Chopped up cigar in a shot glass, added equal amount of PG. Then microwave for only 4 seconds (not enough to boil but around tea steeping temperature) and stir for a few minutes. Then I pull the plunger out of my juice syringe put a piece of cotton in the bottom and pour the cigar/PG right into the syringe tube and replace the plunger and squeeze the extract out filtering through the cotton.

Best method I have used so far, I will try the 2 week steep as well.

OK, I'm interested in trying this and primarily try to do only VG ( have you done the flavor extraction using VG instead of PG or does that not work as well because of VG consistency?)...

After the extraction what's the next step, do you treat it as a super concentrate and then add you nic ( I've read the extraction may contain 1-3 mg. of nic already?) and then VG/base or is it vapable as is?

Also I'm seeing your ratio as approximately one part tobacco (dry and crumbled) to one part base (PG) is this correct?

Thanks in advance.

 

[schotzky]

I did a cigar extraction using rubbing alcohol. Tried it on a Back Woods, tasted just fine. I shredded up the Back Woods, soaked it in a alcohol solution for about 6 hours, stirring occasionally. I strained out the tobacco with a mesh filter and some coffee filters. I then placed the Pyrex glass dish on a grittle with a little water in it, the stove was on a lower setting. I proceeded to cook the alcohol out slowly, didn't want it catching on fire. What was left was the tobacco flavoring remnants. I added some VG and mixed it up, dropped it in an atty and it tasted just like a Back Woods. It didn't have a throat hit, I'm assuming the nicotine level was very low. Worked fine for me, no foul taste.

 

[t.d]

I did a cigar extraction using rubbing alcohol. Tried it on a Back Woods, tasted just fine. I shredded up the Back Woods, soaked it in a alcohol solution for about 6 hours, stirring occasionally. I strained out the tobacco with a mesh filter and some coffee filters. I then placed the Pyrex glass dish on a grittle with a little water in it, the stove was on a lower setting. I proceeded to cook the alcohol out slowly, didn't want it catching on fire. What was left was the tobacco flavoring remnants. I added some VG and mixed it up, dropped it in an atty and it tasted just like a Back Woods. It didn't have a throat hit, I'm assuming the nicotine level was very low. Worked fine for me, no foul taste.

uhhh Im like 99.99% rubbing alcohol isn't safe to use as an extraction base.

 

[Skypea]

After several different methods I found one that works very well. Chopped up cigar in a shot glass, added equal amount of PG. Then microwave for only 4 seconds (not enough to boil but around tea steeping temperature) and stir for a few minutes. Then I pull the plunger out of my juice syringe put a piece of cotton in the bottom and pour the cigar/PG right into the syringe tube and replace the plunger and squeeze the extract out filtering through the cotton.

Best method I have used so far, I will try the 2 week steep as well.

I agree! That is how I do it and it's fast and easy. Only difference is I use my turkey baister to suck up the liquid to put into the syringe. And I must have a lower watt microwave because for me it's 13 seconds.

Great for beginners and those who don't have a lot of time! If you are new to this and want to try, go down to the corner market and get a .75 cheap flavored cigar. Grape, vanilla whatever. They are great for practice and to understand how the flavors leech into the pg. Don't waste money on something more expensive yet. Break it open and throw away the paper wrap. Add the pg, stir, microwave, stir again, strain, steep. That's it. Easy Peasy. You don't cook it. Just a quick zap and done. Totally vapeable, totally enjoyable at around 10-20% mix and cheap! 20ml of flavoring for about a dollar. (Cigar, pg and gas for the car)Works with tea, and coffee also. It takes me 3 minutes and done.

Right now i'm vaping a cheapo grape cigar extract. It may not be an exquisite tobacco, but I enjoy the heck out of it compared to the fake tasting tobacco flavorings from some companies that cost 3 times as much.