So - are we getting it or are we not - nicotine

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slopes

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No problem. 212F is 100C btw. So one could heat the oil by placing within simmering water for a while; without water being able to get in of course.

Very helpful thanks (I bought a thermometer today).

This may be a mad idea, but I was wondering if forcing boiling water through a (prepared) ground tobacco mixture in an espresso coffee machine (as in making a shot of espresso) would result in a liquid usable for WTA?
 
Very helpful thanks (I bought a thermometer today).

This may be a mad idea, but I was wondering if forcing boiling water through a (prepared) ground tobacco mixture in an espresso coffee machine (as in making a shot of espresso) would result in a liquid usable for WTA?

I have considered that too. Would be quick - maybe too quick. I would stop it as soon as the tobacco was wet with steam, wait a minute or two then continue. Might be worth a try, for comparison; though of course this is just a simple soak, like Virk's approach - a different quality from true WTA (just alkaloids) a la DVap and tceight's methods.
 

tceight

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tceight's method (of 08-24-2010 05:19 AM):

"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"

and then...
"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"

EDIT: The Purified water says "(Conductivity under 30 µs) Non Sterile".
sorry so late getting back. Just replied in the other thread to your Q's Slopes.
if that's what I wrote, it should read "converted baking soda" ie the sodium carbonate.

distilled is rare to get,
for all practical purposes, deionized is the same. It can also be called demin (demineralized) and double demin.
Instead of boiling/condensing... the water is run through filters for particulate, GAC (granulated activated carbon for organic compounds) and anion and cation resins to remove dissolved ionic impurities. It's far cheaper to make this way, so will be what you probably will find.
"Synonyms for Deionized Water are DI Water, DIW, Demin Water and Demineralized Water.
Sometimes Deionized and Demineralized are spelt with a ‘s’ as in Deionised Water , Deionise, Deionised, Deionisation, Demineralised Water, Demineralise, Demineralised and Demineralisation. "
 
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DVap

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Purified water is probably deionized water. The resistivity of high quality deionized water is 18.2 million ohm-cm. This would suggest an extremely low content of dissolved ions, but doesn't say anything about purity relative to non-ionic organics. Usually, any good quality deionizer will contain an activated carbon cartridge for organic removal.
 

slopes

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Thanks tceight _ I'm glad I caught the 'sodium carbonate' misunderstanding in time. It's good to know deionized water can be used too - I found plenty of that on sale today.

I plan to grind the tobacco in a coffee grinding machine. I wonder if pounding the ground tobacco with a pestle and mortar afterwards would have any further benefit?
 

DVap

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Here's some recovery data on the WTA I just made from the Thunder Extra Stark loose that I was sent.

Amount of snus extracted: 95 grams
Stated nicotine content: 16 mg/g
Theoretic nicotine available for extraction: 1.52 grams
Alkaloids recovered: 0.93 grams
Theoretical recovery (based on stated nicotine content): 61%

The purified alkaloids were again a deep copper color, and the 30 mg liquid is light gold colored. It's a little darker than the liquid I get from American Spirit Tobacco, but not too much darker. Taste is typical for my more recent WTA extractions (which is to say it's excellent), and there's really little or nothing immediately apparent to distinguish the snus WTA from American Spirit WTA.
 
Here's some recovery data on the WTA I just made from the Thunder Extra Stark loose that I was sent.

Amount of snus extracted: 95 grams
Stated nicotine content: 16 mg/g
Theoretic nicotine available for extraction: 1.52 grams
Alkaloids recovered: 0.93 grams
Theoretical recovery (based on stated nicotine content): 61%

The purified alkaloids were again a deep copper color, and the 30 mg liquid is light gold colored. It's a little darker than the liquid I get from American Spirit Tobacco, but not too much darker. Taste is typical for my more recent WTA extractions (which is to say it's excellent), and there's really little or nothing immediately apparent to distinguish the snus WTA from American Spirit WTA.

Excellent, DVap. 62% recovery is not bad. Interesting that snus and the AS tobacco are so similar - in effects as well as taste ?

Which one is best would you say? swedish snus for lower TSNAs ? Which is cheaper (snus at 1.6% nicotine) ?
 

tceight

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Thanks tceight _ I'm glad I caught the 'sodium carbonate' misunderstanding in time. It's good to know deionized water can be used too - I found plenty of that on sale today.

I plan to grind the tobacco in a coffee grinding machine. I wonder if pounding the ground tobacco with a pestle and mortar afterwards would have any further benefit?
one of my previous careers, I used to make demin water at a rate of 150l/s 24/7 so am quite familiar with the process. :)

The more I think of it, the more I see the fine grinding as crucial, both for the reasons DVAP mentioned before about attempting to rupture the cell walls to release the alkaloids, and also for simple contact surface area. This is an inefficient process/solvent, so we are attempting to use as little oil as possible to gain as high a concentration as possible. the higher density of tobacco, the better.
When you add the carbonate solution, if you 'wet' the tobacco, you have used too much. We want the water totally absorbed in the tobacco matrix, so the oil is not displaced by water and we get the maximum amount of contact area for transfer.
 

DVap

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Excellent, DVap. 62% recovery is not bad. Interesting that snus and the AS tobacco are so similar - in effects as well as taste ?

Which one is best would you say? swedish snus for lower TSNAs ? Which is cheaper (snus at 1.6% nicotine) ?

Snus would generate a liquid with far lower TSNA content, though we've got at least a bit of evidence to suggest that we might lose the TSNA's during the WTA cleanup. As far as cost, snus is by far cheaper tobacco-wise, however, solvent is by far the major cost item.
 
Here's some recovery data on the WTA I just made from the Thunder Extra Stark loose that I was sent.

Amount of snus extracted: 95 grams
Stated nicotine content: 16 mg/g
Theoretic nicotine available for extraction: 1.52 grams
Alkaloids recovered: 0.93 grams
Theoretical recovery (based on stated nicotine content): 61%

The purified alkaloids were again a deep copper color, and the 30 mg liquid is light gold colored. It's a little darker than the liquid I get from American Spirit Tobacco, but not too much darker. Taste is typical for my more recent WTA extractions (which is to say it's excellent), and there's really little or nothing immediately apparent to distinguish the snus WTA from American Spirit WTA.

If 20g / day that would be 5 days use.

930mg / 30 = 31 ml of 30mg liquid. At 3ml / day that's 10 days use :)

At 2ml per day, 15 days use (3x longer).

~~

ps : just realised that the baccy cost is not the main cost involved in making WTA, so would choose based on other factors.
 

slopes

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The more I think of it, the more I see the fine grinding as crucial, both for the reasons DVAP mentioned before about attempting to rupture the cell walls to release the alkaloids, and also for simple contact surface area. This is an inefficient process/solvent, so we are attempting to use as little oil as possible to gain as high a concentration as possible. the higher density of tobacco, the better.

I thought the pestle and mortal might have some small effect because I was reading about bead-beater's on the net yesterday as a method for rupturing cell walls. Those machines are expensive though.
 

tceight

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kin... regarding freezing to rupture cells.. I did some quick research on cryonics, and it turns out that cell rupture from freezing is a bit of a myth. Unless the freezing is done rapidly enough that the rate of crystal formation exceeds the rate of osmosis, the cell will not rupture. Not sure what this rate has to be. i.e. Plant seeds in nature can freeze without apparent damage and be viable in the spring. Long term freezing temperatures, and cycling freeze/thaw cycles will cause tissue destruction.
 
one of my previous careers, I used to make demin water at a rate of 150l/s 24/7 so am quite familiar with the process. :)

The more I think of it, the more I see the fine grinding as crucial, both for the reasons DVAP mentioned before about attempting to rupture the cell walls to release the alkaloids, and also for simple contact surface area. This is an inefficient process/solvent, so we are attempting to use as little oil as possible to gain as high a concentration as possible. the higher density of tobacco, the better.
When you add the carbonate solution, if you 'wet' the tobacco, you have used too much. We want the water totally absorbed in the tobacco matrix, so the oil is not displaced by water and we get the maximum amount of contact area for transfer.

Absolutely - it is not like making tea, the mix would be more like a paste.
 
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