I can't see anything dangerous in here, short of conventional kitchen hazards such as hot oil, and I would pit the end product against burning tobacco in any safety test one can come up with.
So here it is, a kitchen chemical AcidBase extraction, with no concentration of nicotine to dangerous levels at any point.
Gear
- small metal or glass pot. size determined by the batch you wish to do.
I was working with 20g of tobacco at a time, so a small pyrex measuring cup makes a great 'pot'
- coffee grinder,
- 10ml syringe with a blunt tip needle.
-large turkey baster (60 ml)
-coffee filters.
-spatula
ingredients.
- good rolling tobacco, not 'reconstituted leaf'. or better yet use uncured leaf tobacco if you can get it. (no TSNA's)
-baking soda
-light mineral oil USP
-cream of tartar
-propylene glycol or glycerin
-tumeric (optional)
-salt (optional)
-distilled water
step1.
- boil a few (50) ml of distilled water, and dissolve the baking soda into it until no more will dissolve. This is your alkaline solution to free the salts in the tobacco and is about pH 11
- saturate a few ml of distilled water with cream of tartar. room temperature is fine, this will be used at the very end.
step2.
- measure out 20g of tobacco. this is about 3/4cup loose settled tobacco.
- grind up the tobacco into a powder, and add about 0.5 to 1 drop per gram of the solution in step one. You want the tobacco barely moist and not wet at all. (in my case with 20g I added about 12 drops, depends on how dry the tobacco is in the first place)
-let this moist powder sit for about 30 min. this allows time for the salts to convert, as well as the cell walls to break down, releasing the alkaloids.
-optional to step 2, bake some baking soda at 400F for an hour to convert it to sodium carbonate, and add a gram of this to the tobacco while grinding. Still, ensure the tobacco is moist.
step3.
heat 20 ml of mineral oil to about 212F and add the tobacco powder to it. Let this sit and steep for about 30 min to an hour
step4.
take off the squeeze bulb and stuff a small piece of coffee filter into the small end of the turkey baster. If you can't find a large enough baster, a 60ml HDPE syringe works great. spoon the oil/tobacco mixture into the baster, Set the baster vertically over a small cup to catch the filtered oil dripping out the end. Very little if anything will come out at this point. (caution, remember this is HOT oil)
step 5. heat up another 30ml of mineral oil to about 200F, and pour on top of the oil/tobacco powder in the baster.
step6. Wait....leave for 24hrs or longer. The viscosity of the oil, and the fineness of the powdered tobacco really slows things down. There is an advantage to doing it this way, as we end up with a very concentrated oil, with a minimal number of extractions. The clean oil seems to create an interface and slowly displaces the oil in the tobacco as it drips out. A bit like column chromatography or IX dedeuteration.
***The first time I did this, I didn't heat the oil up first, or mix it with the tobacco. I just poured the oil onto the top of the dry powdered tobacco. It took 24hr's just to saturate the tobacco, and another 4 days to get 25ml back.
you should now have about 25-30 ml of dark amber oil in your catch container. And we will optimistically 'assume' about 200mg of alkaloids. There will also be some very small fines that got through the filter, as well as some carbonates from the baking soda that made it through.
step 7. (optional, but really cleans things up a lot)
take 25ml of distilled water, this to the oil, and shake well for a few minutes. Let settle and separate into layers. (may take 10-20 min) The oil will be lighter in colour now, more yellow than amber. There will be some small loss of alkaloids in this step, but because the water will become quite alkaline from the contaminants it absorbs, the alkaloids should still be preferentially dissolved in the oil.
Keep the oil by siphoning off with a syringe and discard all the water and any emulsions that formed.
step8.
add a tiny 'pinch' of cream of tartar to the oil and shake well.
it won't dissolve in there, but that is not what we are trying to do.
we are just attempting to displace any of the leftover baking soda particulate with the cream of tartar, so that in the next step, the acidic polar solvent won't be neutralized by any remaining baking soda.
Let the particulate settle, and pour off the oil into a clean container.
Step 9.
add a drop of the cream of tartar water you made in step one to your PG or glycerine, 1 or 2 drops per 10 ml is enough.
- add 10ml of the PG to the oil, shake well, let separate, and extract the PG with the syringe.
- add 10ml, shake well, let separate, and extract the PG with the syringe.
- assuming there is 200mg of alkaloids in the oil, you would add 10ml of PG to get 20mg/ml.
This stuff is way stronger than any nic juice i've tried, so I kept adding 10ml at a time, until I had 40ml. (5mg/ml assuming)
So, either I am way off in my guestimates of extraction efficiency, or the WTA is Very synergistic.
- next batch, I will just add the 40ml of pg to the 25ml of oil all at once and simplify this step further.
Step 10... dripped my homemade WTA into a fresh atty and ... wow. Warning... going back to straight nic is going to be tough.
this whole process is just an age old "acid/ base extraction", but with the advantage of using the PG as the final solvent, one avoids ever having to concentrate nicotine to dangerous levels.
Nonetheless, there is NO recommendation on my part that anyone try this themselves. This is just a writeup of my own experiments and results.
Extra stuff...
Step 7, 9 and step '11', can be 'monitored' for accuracy by the use of Turmeric (curcamin), It will change from yellow to red at pH 7.5-8.5.
Step 11, if you so choose (I think it unnecessary) is to add baking soda to your WTA juice to neutralize it. Take 1/2 ml (10 drops) and add to a few ml of distilled water and turmeric.
Dilute some of the baking soda solution from step one 10:1 and add it drop by drop until it turns red. (one drop did it for me so maybe try 20:1) Then use that ratio to neutralize the PG/Glycerine. Or, if you like curry flavoured juice, add the Turmeric to the juice, and add the sodium carbonate until it turns red.
Play safe, and use common sense.
