I'm trying the whole soaking your own tobacco in vg and I have one question? How should I strain it? Some people have said coffee filters but I don't know if the vg will drain through the paper and just make a mess.
thanks dan!
I've seen a lot of concern on here and my sample has already been curing for 16 hrs or so and looks promising but should I really be that concerned? I'm a little curious how bad it could be. In the purist thread others have said they can notice a high amount compared to a lower so I could aways cut it right?
You will need litmus paper, acid (such as "muriatic" [hydrochloric] or sulfuric), base (lye is good), and a nonpolar solvent (benzene, toluene, or xylene are all good.)
This is a simple acid/base extraction that is pretty standard for alkaloids (of which nicotine is one.) It will yield pure crystal nicotine HCl. If you use sulfuric acid then you will get nicotine sulfate. Both are salts of nicotine and are pharmacologically similar. The average cigarette contains 1 milligram of nicotine, so keep that in mind when dosing your final product with crystal. Nicotine is a very potent drug! It only takes a few milligrams to make someone sick.
Here it is:
1) Take tobacco and mix it with distilled water. Make the tobacco water acidic to litmus paper (only a few drops of HCl needed.) Pour off the water and save it. Repeat this two or three more times, until the water is not so dark. Combine all of the water extract. Now the acidic (protonated) form of nicotine is in the water. There is also a lot of other crap there, too.
2) Add lye-water dropwise to the acidic tobacco water until the water is alkaline to litmus. Now the acidic form of nicotine has been converted to the "free base" form (deprotonated.) It is now more soluble in a nonpolar solvent than water.
3) Add about a half volume of nonpolar solvent (benzene, toluene, xylene) to the alkaline water and gently mix. If they are mixed vigorously you will get an emulsion, which is a nightmare to separate if you don't have a centrifuge. Anyway, mix gently, such as slowly inverting the mixture in a closed bottle repeatedly. As long as two distinct layers are forming when the bubbles settle down you are in business. Pour off the top layer (the solvent.) Repeat this two more times. Combine the solvent. Now the free base nicotine is in the solvent and is relatively pure. But we need the salt of nicotine, not the free base.
4) Take about 2 volumes of distilled water and make them acidic by dropwise addition of acid. Use this water to extract out the nicotine from the solvent. By mixing the water with the solvent in the same manner described above the nicotine will now dissolve preferentially into the water. Extract out the nicotine with the acidic water 3 times. Combine the water. Now (slowly!) add dropwise lye water until the pH is neutral (7). Evaporate the water. The yellow crystals left behind are pure nicotine HCl. Protect them from light when storing as nicotine is photosensitive. Have fun!
I would strongly advise you don't attempt to isolate pure nicotine from the tobacco, but you can use it to produce a weaker infusion of tobacco flavouring with nicotine that is suitable for vaping. It'll taste horrible if you don't cure it first, so first read this, and cure your leaf. I have to admit that despite several attempts, I have never managed to produce anything palatable from homegrown tobacco.
Then (or if that looks too much like hard work, you can use regular shop-bought RYO tobacco,) you need to grind it up (I mill it down to snuff in a food processor,) and soak it in a solvent. Water will do, but vodka will capture more of the essential leaf oils that give tobacco its flavour. Don't use too much - just a little more than enough to cover it is plenty. Leave it for 48 hours (with occasional shaking,) in a dark place, and then press the water/vodka out of it (wring it in cheesecloth over a bowl is easiest I found by trial and error,) and filter it through a coffee paper to get residual solids particles out.
This juice seems (by subjective effect,) to be about 10-30mg once cut 50:50 with glycerin (depending what tobacco you use.) It doesn't taste very nice though, and is pretty runny at that strength, so I'd advise using it at <10%, mostly for flavour and a small nic boost, rather than as the main ingredient in a juice.
It's messy work, it never tastes as nice as commercial juice, your atomizer may not thank you much, and the nicotine level will be wildly unpredictable, but it's a bit of fun 'mad science', and safe enough I think for kitchen experimentation, since you're never dealing with a very concentrated solution (though obviously follow all the safety precautions laid down for e-juice - keep away from children and pets, do not drink, keep locked up, etc.)
But don't try to extract pure nicotine - that's just a tragic (and headline-grabbing) accident waiting to happen anywhere outside a hazchem lab.