This report was written by Susan Meehan.

Download the “How to extract THCA” guide in PDF format here.

Supplies for THCA/THC/CBD Extract

1. Mason Jars – Mason jars are amazing. The best ones are the straight edged ones used for asparagus or pickle spears with the old fashioned two part jar lids. Don’t fall for those plastic lids!

Prepworks from Progressive International CKC-300 Regular and Wide Mouth Canning Funnel

2. This funnel is the next best thing I ever bought (next only to mason jars!).

3. Set of 4 Tub Mesh Sink Strainer, Stainless

4. Fancy scraping tool OR an “exacto knife” with a removable blade. Remove the blade and replace with a single edge razor blade. This is till the best and least expensive scraper.

5. Mason jars of various sizes all the way down from the 1 ½ pints to the jelly jars. Somewhat optional, but these can help you avoid scraping resin. If you have never scraped resin, you have no idea how joyous avoiding this step can be.

6. Isopropyl alcohol to wash down things of their manufacturing machine oils.

7. 1.5 oz Mini Glass Jars for Jam, Honey, Wedding Favors, Shower Favors

8. Mason jars: 1 pint, ½ pint jelly jars down to the tiny jelly jars above – a few of each.

9. A vegetable dehydrator that goes from a no heat setting to a high heat setting will help speed up your process a lot.

10. Unbleached coffee filters

11. Nitrile gloves! Do not forget the gloves – especially when working with active meds, you will find out first-hand (ha ha) about skin absorption! Both cannabinoids and alcohol are very skin-absorbable.

12. Small food processor type grinder (electric) dedicated to mj.

13. Gram scales – I have both a sensitive one to measure to the 100th gram of resin and a less sensitive one that can handle the jars (up to a kilo).

14. Organic MCT or Organic Grapeseed Oil

15. syringes (1ml) www.gohcl.com carries my favorite 1ml syringes that withstand alcohol sterilization and come with a tightly locking cap.

16. Freezer space (or the great New England outdoors in the winter).

17. ETHANOL, also known as Everclear 190 Proof, or Graves Grain Alcohol 190 proof to soak the mj.

18. Pyrex No Leak Lids 3 Cup Rectangle Baking Dish with Plastic Lid – if you choose the scraping method.

Directions for THCA (Tetrahydracannabinol Acid) Extracts

1. Freeze alcohol and marijuana overnight.

2. Grind mj in food processor. To get all your mj, resin and kief, rinse the food processor with Ethanol from the freezer and pour it over your mj in the step 4. (Between strains wipe out food processor with isopropyl and a dry cloth.)

3. Using the wide mouth canning funnel, place mj back in Mason jar.

4. Pour ETHANOL (Everclear, or Graves Grain, 190 proof) alcohol right out of freezer over mj. Cover mj by at least 1 ½ to 2 inches. Place extra alcohol back in the freezer.

5. Shake the mj and ethanol vigorously. Place alcohol soaking mj in freezer. I freeze overnight. Some folks insist alcohol is a polar solvent and needs only minutes in the soak. I freeze overnight, a minimum of 4 hours in a pinch. Extracts I have done with the fast soak yield less than overnight soaks, and cannabinoid percentages are also lower.

6. Strain mj out using the stainless steel mesh screen inside the wide mouth canning funnel into a clean jar. The full jar will sit right inside the lip of the funnel conveniently. I love this funnel.

7. Place the still cold strained neon greenish alcohol in freezer for at least a few hours.

8. While that is getting back to freezer temp, clean out the wide mouth canning funnel and wipe it down with a clean cloth. Put the now useless mj in the compost pile.

9. Setup the wide mouth canning funnel on top of a clean mason jar with a mesh strain stainless steel screen and a double layer coffee filter. (Sometimes I do one straining with the coffee filters in place at step 6 – but it is critical that the straining be done IN THE FREEZER for this straining. This winterization process is important to strain out water, chlorophyll and other plant components that will cause upset tummies.)

10. If you can work IN the freezer (or outside in a New England winter), it is best to strain in the freezer. This winterization filtration is a very important step! DO NOT SKIP IT! It is here that you will avoid green-at-the-gills, sick tummy reactions because you are freezing out and filtering out water molecules, chlorophyll that cured on dried plant matter for the last couple weeks, and other stuff that will make sensitive stomachs sick.

11. In the freezer as much as you can, pour the mj alcohol through the filter. It may go fast at first, but as residue builds up, it will slow down.

12. PUT ON YOUR NITRILE GLOVES. Trust me, put on the gloves. After all liquid is strained, and still in the freezer, glove up and squeeze the messy coffee filter over the second layer coffee filter. Get what you can quickly, but do not squeeze for more than a few seconds as your hand’s heat will melt the stuff you just winterized out of the liquid and put it back in. Another option is to avoid squeezing at all, and do a rinse with some fresh stored in the freezer ethanol. This bumps cost a bit and bumps evaporation of ethanol.

13. Discard gloves and coffee filters.

14. Optional life-saving tip: Add a measured amount of MCT or Grapeseed Oil to your alcohol mj mixture. I add 1ml for each ounce of mj extracted. This will dilute your final resin, but it will make it PHENOMONALLY EASIER TO HANDLE! Instead of a sticky tar like substance, you will be left with oil that is about 65% to 70% cannabinoids. The resin without the added ml of oil would have been about 75% cannabinoids.

These next steps must be done with an open window and a fan exhausting alcohol fumes.

15. Without a dehydrator, this is a lot harder task. You will need a small, desk-sized, personal fan with a curtain to hang over your fan and pan and edge of the table so alcohol fumes are blown outside.

16. A flat vegetable dehydrator that is deep enough shelves to hold your glass pan. For THCA, it is important that you use a no heat, fan only setting for extracts intended to make THCA. When THCA is exposed to heat and time, it converts to THC. Get your dehydrator ready, and pour your neon green liquid into the flat pan on a shelf in the dehydrator. AIR/FAN ONLY FR THCA. (Heat and time, heat and time!)

17. Once the product left in the jar smells like mj and not like alcohol you are done. Alcohol has a very strong and very distinct odor – you should notice when it is gone. The resin, FECO or medicine that is left is usually a sticky, black, syrup to pine-tar consistency essential oil of cannabis!

18. Weigh an empty jelly jar and write down that number. Using razor blades transfer your resin into the jelly jar. Weigh your jelly jar full of mj resin! Subtract the weight of the empty jar and there you have the weight of the resin you have extracted. The usual average is 5 to 8 grams of resin per oz of marijuana. Measuring right into 1g sized into the jar you intend to mix final dilution medicines in saves time and loss of product due to repeated transfers.

19. Store THCA products in the refrigerator or freezer. Remember, time and temperature convert THCA to THC. Label with product name and date of extraction. 20. Lab test and / or dilute to desired concentrate! Voila!

Interesting Notes about THCA

THCA America:

The trend in America is to dilute in MCT oil or Olive Oil in a formulation of 1gram of resin to 30ml of MCT oil. Starting doses are at 0.1ml or a few drops, 3 times a day with a double dose at bedtime.

THCA Australia:

In Australia, the resin is reconstituted in 100ml of “spirits” or an alcohol, and then to dose at a few drops 3 times a day, with a double dose at bedtime.

Australian advocates have reported a lot of success with this micro dosing. I am unsure whether this success is due to the alcohol base, the micro dose or both. At some point, I plan to step back and give this micro dosing a try, perhaps in a “spirit” based alcohol base. I am just not sure yet.

Activating for CBD High Strains

After your extract is completely done, dilute according to your need in MCT Oil, Olive Oil, Grapeseed Oil, or your choice of oil. Dilute right in the bottle you intend to dispense the medicine – a GLASS, brown medicine quality bottle preferably. Mix well, shaking, warming in a pocket, shaking.

Heat oven to 275F. Remove the cover and place bottle in a glass casserole dish in the oven. After 10 minutes, shake well and return to the oven for one full hour. This will maximize conversion of CBDA to CBD. This will also convert any THCA to THC in your medicine. Remove from oven, cool on stovetop, cover and shake well.

Activating for THC in THCA high strains

After your extract is completely done, dilute according to your need in MCT Oil, Olive Oil, Grapeseed Oil, or your choice of oil. Dilute right in the bottle you intend to dispense the medicine – a GLASS, brown medicine quality bottle preferably. Mix well, shaking, warming in a pocket, shaking.

Heat oven to 250F. Remove the cover and place bottle in a glass casserole dish in the oven. After 10 minutes, shake well and return to the oven for one full hour. This will maximize conversion of CBDA to CBD. This will also convert any THCA to THC in your medicine. Remove from oven, cool on stovetop, cover and shake well.

Activating for closer ratios of CBD:THC

After your extract is completely done, dilute according to your need in MCT Oil, Olive Oil, Grapeseed Oil, or your choice of oil. Dilute right in the bottle you intend to dispense the medicine – a GLASS, brown medicine quality bottle preferably. Mix well, shaking, warming in a pocket, shaking.

Heat oven to 265F. Remove the cover and place bottle in a glass casserole dish in the oven. After 10 minutes, shake well and return to the oven for one full hour. This will maximize conversion of CBDA to CBD. This will also convert any THCA to THC in your medicine. Remove from oven, cool on stovetop, cover and shake well.
Meehan Extracts Page 5

To Be Discussed with Your Doctor

THCA or CBD FECO (Fully Extracted Cannabis Oil – meaning the alcohol has been fully evaporated and the cannabinoid resin is left) are diluted in a base oil of MCT Oil or Olive Oil or Grapeseed Oil (parent preference) in a ratio of 1gram of FECO Resin to 30 milliliters of selected base oil. Without lab testing every batch, it is impossible to say for sure what milligrams of the various cannabinoids result from this practice, but if the same grower provides clones from the same strains, extracted by the same person, by the same process, results are likely to be fairly consistent. In batch transitions, I always try to mix the last few milliliters of the old bottle with a few milliliters of the new batch, to ease the transition. When lab testing has been available, this concentration usually yields about 20mg of cannabinoids per ml from a 18% to 20% plant bud extract. In other words, Mob Boss buds test at about 20% THC, and a FECO resin from Mob Boss buds, diluted at 30ml MCT Oil to 1g of FECO resin, typically has 18mg to 22mg THCA per ml.

A typical dosing schedule would be:

Things that indicate an increase are the typical: starting to have breakthrough seizures, increasing number of seizures or intensity of seizure — the typical culprits. Sometimes, parents have reported children doing better at a lower dose and dropped back to a prior week’s dosing. Base you dose changes on how the person is responding. If the person is doing well, you are heading in the right direction. If the person is getting worse, you need to change something.

At day 7 to 14, if other pharmaceuticals are involved, I would recommend a level check, especially for P450 channel meds. There are far fewer issues with toxicity on the acidic preparations than there are on CBD-high activated preparations. That said, I would strongly discourage rapidly raising the dose. I have read case after case of increase in seizures after too rapid a dose increase or after starting with too high a dose. I would recheck levels on pharmaceuticals with any sudden seizure increase outside of illness or other clear trigger.

After stabilization and week 6, if things get bad (increased breakthroughs with no underlying illness?), sometimes a system reset is in order.

This information based solely on personal experience and listening to other parents experiences dosing with cannabis for pediatric epilepsy (Dravet). This is only information parent to parent, and does not replace your doctor. Please work with your doctor for any patient specific issues/questions. This is no way substitutes of replaces your doctor’s advice.