My NET Experiments -- Microwave Heat Extraction

[odysseysteve]

How did it turn out? I hope the top of the stove wasn't too hot.

As it turns out the stove was indeed too hot. I noticed this about a half hour in so I placed the bottle on a small ceramic plate. Then I continued to read through this thread and decided to put the bottle inside of a ceramic coffee mug filled with water that I placed on the wood stove. Much better. I let it go over night in this fashion and remove from the heat this morning. Opened the bottle - smells pretty good. Let it cool down - still smells nice. I did add about 5ml of water as it had turned to a sludge and the extra water loosened it up again. I do not have proper straining equipment on hand so I am going to give her another "cook" this evening.

 

[odysseysteve]

Good result! This morning after the second "cook" I am smelling more deep notes. After the first cook I got that grass or hay aroma with a decided lack of the lower notes. Now I am wondering - geez, if it improved that much during the second cook, what would a third do? I will find out tomorrow morning.

 

[Chinook]

Glad to hear about the aroma! Indeed, I wonder about how long to cook these extractions. I'm sure there is a sweet spot somewhere.

I've been slow "cooking" mine periodically in a closed jar in a pot of water. Kind of similar to what Bill wrote, but I keep mine in a pre-warmed oven after the pot of water heats up. When the water heats up in the pot, I put the jar with the maceration in it, close the pot's lid and then everything goes into the warmed (turned OFF) oven. The extract has a beautiful dark brown tobacco color to it. I'll do the filtering tomorrow and smell it for the first time. Fun times

 

[billherbst]

I don't know if there's a "secret" to hitting the sweet spot, but water baths only (rather than direct heat) and long, slow application of minimal heat (just below a simmer) work very well for me. My opinion---and my experience---is that macerations can be "cooked" almost indefinitely with no harmful effects as long as I'm very gentle with them.

 

[Chinook]

I don't know if there's a "secret" to hitting the sweet spot, but water baths only (rather than direct heat) and long, slow application of minimal heat (just below a simmer) work very well for me. My opinion---and my experience---is that macerations can be "cooked" almost indefinitely with no harmful effects as long as I'm very gentle with them.

I'm doing my maceration along these lines. Warm periods in a water bath and then cooling off. No direct heat this time... I'm looking forward to opening the maceration jar tomorrow

 

[yellowsnow]

My machine I use for my extraction just uses a 100 watt light bulb as the heat source so it is a very mild heat.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

 

[odysseysteve]

So after the third hot water bath last night I am now done with the heat extraction. It smells wonderful. After straining through a very, very fine wire mesh strainer it has a rich brown color. There are no visibly detectable particulates present. When aroma testing the high notes and low notes are more muted and seem more blended now. They no longer jump into my nose and the notes seem more mature somehow.

So of course I had to vape some, right?

I will mix some stand alone juice with this extract in the future but in the interest of "I gotta try this stuff right now" thinking I grabbed a pipette and dropped 3 drops straight into the bottle of juice I am vaping and shook it up and then vaped. Ahhhhhh....

Here's what was already in the bottle and the effect. I vape a Reo Grand so I have a 6ml bottle on board. There was about 2ml of juice left in there and I added 3 drops of the NET. The juice already present is a mixture of VG and VG nic base and a light flavoring that comes out to 24mg. When mixing this 6 ml bottle juice originally I added 1 ml of an organic pre made juice that I use as my flavoring. It is a combination of Chocolate Caramel, Orange and a hint of coffee. Makes for a really nice, lightly flavored vape that does not get cloying.

What did the addition of the NET do for this juice? It added a floor or base for the flavors. It tastes amazing. I do not know if it is a placebo effect but after I take a couple toots I feel a relaxation that is very nice. This did not happen before. I could be wishing for a WTA effect or I may have achieved it. Don't really care which it is - either way I like this a lot.

 

[Chinook]

Sounds like you had a good extract there! I filtered and bottled mine today -- it was very relaxing even to do the lab work! It has a very inviting aroma--I'm vaping mine later today!

 

[odysseysteve]

Sounds like you had a good extract there! I filtered and bottled mine today -- it was very relaxing even to do the lab work! It has a very inviting aroma--I'm vaping mine later today!

I am interested to hear how it vapes.

 

[Chinook]

The extract turned out the darkest one so far. When I filtered it, it smelled like crushed fresh tobacco with some oily notes to it.

I mixed up a juice with 25% extract and 50/50 VG/PG with 9 mg/mL nicotine. I filled up a 2.4 mL tank with it and I vaped it three separate times. The first time, it was slightly bitter and had decent tobacco notes in it. The second time, it was perfect, fuller body with more pronounced tobacco notes and no bitterness. It was very satisfying, almost like the real thing but with no burning smoke notes. Third time, it was like the first vape... I don't think it's changing back and forth -- it's probably my nose getting clogged with the heat on now at my place.

I'm expecting it to gain more intensity and extra notes in the coming days. In summary, it turned out to be a smooth and enjoyable vape. I'm looking forward to coming days and see how it progresses.

I also decided to keep my cold extract for a full month. Its color is much lighter at two weeks than this extract now.

 

[Chinook]

My cold extracted ASO juice is vaping pretty good after a week of steeping. The tobacco was macerated in PG for 36 days at room temperature. I decided to increase the % extract in the juice to about 60% after some initial testing. The maceration had about 2 grams of tobacco (2 cigarettes) in 30 mL of VG. Some initial test vapes showed clean coils after vaping about 1.5 mL juice.

Similar 60% extract heat extracted ASO juice is vaping well too and it's pretty robust. But it gunks the coils after vaping 1.5 mL juice. I need to verify the gunking factors one more time for both of these juices.

I need to steep the cold extracted juice some more to compare cold vs heat for overall flavor and aroma. The heat extracted one has been steeping for almost a month now. But I just added more extract to increase its strength to 60% NET so that one will need to steep some more too.

I'm very curious about how the initial tobacco concentration in PG might effect the final ratio of "tobacco flavor compounds" vs coil gunking compounds that don't enhance the flavor and aroma of the vape such as chlorophyll and plant cell material.

I just started a new thread about the potential effects initial tobacco concentration in PG here:

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...tobacco-flavor-coil-gunking.html#post11818984

 

[Chinook]

I'm very happy with my cold extract's coil gunking performance so far. I vaped about 1.5-2 mL a juice from that extract and there was no visible gunking on the coils. My usual vendor NETs cover my coils with black gunk at this point!

I started my second batch of room temperature PG soak: Tobacco from 7 American Spirit Organic cigarettes in 70 mL of PG. This is 50% more concentrated than my first batch.

 

[billherbst]

I decided to increase the % extract in the juice to about 60% after some initial testing.

Chinook,

60%!!!! I've never heard of anyone DIYing an NET at that percentage before. I have read a couple of posts that mentioned 50%, but yours takes the prize.

I generally use two extract percentages for my heat-assisted home-brews: 13% for subtlety and nuance, and 18% for more in-your-face flavor. 25% is as high as I've ever gone, and that wasn't as tasty as 18%.

Now, don't let my shock about 60% deter you. I don't mean to rain on your parade. if 60% works for you, ignore my reaction, by all means.

To the extent that we can generalize from anecdotal experience (always a bit risky), the implication of your post seems to be that lower-concentration cold-process maceration produces a much lighter extract (in all the ways we use "lightness"---lighter in flavor, lighter in color, lighter in body).

The caveat I need to add is that, even though my extracts produce about average gunking for macerated NETs, I've never cared about it much. I do dry burn my 28 ga. microcoils and change cotton/hemp wicks fairly often on my rebuildables, but not religiously or fanatically. I simply haven't experienced the dreaded flavor loss and degraded vapor production that many people talk about, at least not as quickly nor as severely. Maybe I'm not paying attention, but I think it must be something else, like a temperamental insensitivity, perhaps. I understand that I'm in a small minority on this issue, so I imagine that your efforts to discover how to maximize flavor while minimizing gunking will be appreciated by many Netizens.

 

[billherbst]

I started my second batch of room temperature PG soak: Tobacco from 7 American Spirit Organic cigarettes in 70 mL of PG. This is 50% more concentrated than my first batch.

For my gentle-heat-assisted maceration of American Spirit Organic last July, I used an entire fresh pack of 20 cigarettes in 150mls of 75%pg/25%vg. That's about 1/3 more tobacco per ml of extract than you used for your second batch, so it's logical that my extract would be more concentrated (and probably darker, too, since it was heat-assisted rather than cold-processed).

 

[Chinook]

Chinook,

60%!!!! I've never heard of anyone DIYing an NET at that percentage before. I have read a couple of posts that mentioned 50%, but yours takes the prize.

I generally use two extract percentages for my heat-assisted home-brews: 13% for subtlety and nuance, and 18% for more in-your-face flavor. 25% is as high as I've ever gone, and that wasn't as tasty as 18%.

Now, don't let my shock about 60% deter you. I don't mean to rain on your parade. if 60% works for you, ignore my reaction, by all means.

To the extent that we can generalize from anecdotal experience (always a bit risky), the implication of your post seems to be that lower-concentration cold-process maceration produces a much lighter extract (in all the ways we use "lightness"---lighter in flavor, lighter in color, lighter in body).

The caveat I need to add is that, even though my extracts produce about average gunking for macerated NETs, I've never cared about it much. I do dry burn my 28 ga. microcoils and change cotton/hemp wicks fairly often on my rebuildables, but not religiously or fanatically. I simply haven't experienced the dreaded flavor loss and degraded vapor production that many people talk about, at least not as quickly nor as severely. Maybe I'm not paying attention, but I think it must be something else, like a temperamental insensitivity, perhaps. I understand that I'm in a small minority on this issue, so I imagine that your efforts to discover how to maximize flavor while minimizing gunking will be appreciated by many Netizens.

Bill,

Indeed, I haven't heard about a 60% extract juice either But having read some other posts about cold extracts and after tasting my 25% cold extract juice, I decided to 2.5x increase the extract percentages in my juices. Some of the other posters are mentioning about 25-30 grams of tobacco in 100 mL of PG which about 3-4x times the tobacco concentration in my first batch. And they seem to be happy with a 20-25 % extracts in their juices.

I still need to steep these some more for my final evaluation... So far the cold extract juice is vaping well, it has well defined notes in it. Although I can't really describe them. But it is a satisfying vape... Hopefully, it won't be to much after steeping some time...
I'm also steeping a heat extracted one done similar to slow cooker and your methods. It definitely has a darker color. But the cold extract color was fantastic when I first filtered it, darkish blonde with some reddish tint to it.

I'm still using T2 tanks which from what I read usually gunks up faster than well built RBA/RDA coils. I definitely get the burnt taste initially and then the vapor production and taste drops off fast.... I have to confess that I do like the initial "burnt stuff" which almost feels more like smoking. But I started stopping at that point. I can definitely feel it in my lungs later if I don't stop...

 

[Chinook]

For my gentle-heat-assisted maceration of American Spirit Organic last July, I used an entire fresh pack of 20 cigarettes in 150mls of 75%pg/25%vg. That's about 1/3 more tobacco per ml of extract than you used for your second batch, so it's logical that my extract would be more concentrated (and probably darker, too, since it was heat-assisted rather than cold-processed).

My heat extracted one is definitely darker then cold one, more like dark brown. As I wrote above, the 36 days cold macerated one had a darkish blond color with reddish tint to it. Very beautiful color. It also smelled different, definitely more like fresh tobacco. The heated one had a nice aroma too but it was more like lit cigarette with some ashy tones to it. And I get these similar flavor profiles when I vape them. It'll be interesting to see how they change after a month or so.

Are you doing any room temperature macerations these days? It'll be good to get your observations too since you have quite the experience.

 

[billherbst]

Are you doing any room temperature macerations these days? It'll be good to get your observations too since you have quite the experience.

I've never done one. I started my very first maceration---Skydancer Native American All-Natural cigarettes---as a "cold-process" or "room temperature" steep, but, when I saw no color change in the all-PG base after two weeks, I gave in to impatience and cooked it. That led to the refinement (which makes it sound like I know what I'm doing, but that's not true, of course) of my gentle-heat-assisted two-day "cook," with the six-hours-on, six-hours-off alternation in a water bath just shy of simmer. One probable reason that I like my process is that it's easy and not much work, but it still gives me the sense of participation in a ritual that feels well-informed, even if it isn't.

I haven't tried another non-heat-assisted maceration since that first one, mostly because I've been so happy with the results as I've been doing them. LOL.

 

[Chinook]

Bill, my room temperature maceration also had "weak" color and aroma after two weeks. But after 4 weeks both the aroma and color were more robust. Still the color wasn't as dark as the heat macerated one.

If the room temperature ones give me both decent flavor and coil gunking performance, I'll be happy with them. For the current logistics I have here, cold maceration is easier for me at this time.

Maybe you should put aside a cold maceration aside and forget about it for a month It'll be great to get your input and comparison between the cold and heat extractions.

 

[billherbst]

Maybe you should put aside a cold maceration aside and forget about it for a month It'll be great to get your input and comparison between the cold and heat extractions.

All right, I'll try one. I should tell you, however, that my ignoring the maceration for a month will probably be uncomfortably similar to the dilemma of a little kid who knows where the Christmas presents are hidden. Like telling someone to forget about that elephant in the living room. LOL.

If this were a science experiment, I'd do a repeat of one of the extracts I've already made where I still have half an ounce of tobacco left. That way, I could compare the same tobacco as cold-processed versus heat-assisted. I will, however, leave the science to you, Chinook. My preference is to make a new extract, so I'll use my one-ounce sample of Hearth & Home House of Lords, an English pipe blend of three different Virginias, one Turkish, and lots of Latakia.

 

[Chinook]

For the "elephant in the room", you can check the color, perhaps smell and gently roll it everyday. That keeps the experiment fun I hope it turns out a good extract.

Cheers.