More than ever, people are using e-liquid and vapes over smoking traditional cigarettes – primarily due to the advantages vaporizers have over conventional smoking methods. These days, e-liquids are not just restricted to nicotine and flavors, and new types of e-liquids are starting to increase substantially in popularity. In particular, many people are becoming interested in cannabis e-liquid or THC e-liquid. Not only is it a cool new fun way to get high, but it also helps to kick the nicotine habit.
Some makers of THC and CBD e-liquids will mix in an aroma and flavor to their herbal blends – if you shop around, you will find many different combinations. Usually, extra flavor and aroma are provided by terpenes, the natural aroma compounds found in the cannabis plant.
There are various ways to make cannabis e-cig liquids. It can be a straightforward process if you learn from the right source but can become quite complex the more you refine the process. Here, we’ll go through two of the more simple methods.
The Easy Method of Making Cannabis E-Liquid
To start, we have the number one easy method. This method utilizes a popular product called EJMix, a blend of glycols – which we will touch on a bit later in this article.
Here is what you will need:
- – EJMix (the availability depends on your country).
- – High-quality cannabis extract, preferably winterized Butane Hash Oil (BHO) or quick wash ethanol (QWET)
Here is what you do:
- First, melt your extract with low-temperature gentle heat – either in a microwave for a minute or a minute and a half on a low setting – the lowest will work fine. Another method is to put it in a cup or container and place it in boiling water without getting your extract wet.
- Second, mix the EJMix into your melted extract by stirring with a stainless steel/silicone spatula. Start with a 1:1 ratio of EJMix to extract. You can vary this according to your personal preference if you want a stronger or milder extract.
- When the mixture is thoroughly stirred in and homogenized, please remove it from the heat source and allow it to cool completely.
- You may have just made your first batch of THC e-juice. Test your cannabis liquid now and see what you think – if you find that it’s too dense or too strong, add more EJMix and repeat the above steps. Many people find that a 2:3 ratio of extract to EJMix is a good alternative to 1:1.
So that’s the easiest method, and as you can see, it only takes a few minutes if you have the right ingredients! But not everyone has the option to buy EJMix, as it’s not available everywhere, and even where it is available, it can be pricey. As well as that, you may not have access to good-quality extracts like BHO.
How to Make Cannabis E-Liquid Using Bud, Trim, or Kief
If you can’t obtain the needed items for the first method or prefer to use the plant in its natural form, here is a technique for making cannabis e-liquid from bud or trim. This method should cost quite a lot less but will take more time.
This method will require you to obtain the glycols we touched on earlier in this article – and unlike the EJMix needed in method one above, the glycols are available in most countries around the world. The glycols needed are polyethylene glycol (PEG) and propylene glycol (PG). Additionally, this can work the same with another compound called vegetable glycerin (VG).
You will need:
- – Quality bud or trim
- – PEG400 or PG/VG
- – Food grade alcohol that is at least 190 proof (freeze for 2 hours before starting this)
- – Coffee filters (the white things that go in a coffee machine)
- – A stainless steel tea strainer
- – Silicone or stainless steel funnel
- – Baking sheet
- – Freezer
- – 2 Glass jars that you will freeze 2 hours before starting
- – Heating sources such as a heating pad stove or oven
- – Stainless steel saucepan
- – Precise temperature thermometer
Stage 1 of Bud/Trim Method – Preparation
- – Decarboxylate your herb using the baking sheet. Approx 30 minutes at around 105C (220F) should be good. This is a low enough temp to avoid burning away all the terpenes.
- – Break up your bud to crumbs with your hands. It would be best if you did not use a grinder as this will create powder so fine that it could clog or even go through the coffee filter.
- – Put the herb into one of the frozen jars and place it in the freezer for 1 hour.
Stage 2 of Bud/Trim Method – Making a QWET Extract
- – First, pour alcohol into the jar – enough to cover the cannabis completely.
- – Next, shake the jar side-to-side gently (making sure not to agitate the mixture too much) for a few seconds before placing it back into the freezer.
- – After precisely one minute, take the jar out, shake gently for a few seconds, and place it back into the freezer. Do this again at the 2-minute mark.
- – Also, at the 2-minute mark, take out the second empty jar that’s chilling in the freezer.
- – In the second frozen jar, place the stainless steel/silicon cone funnel, then the coffee filter, then the sieve.
- – After 3 minutes is up, take out the first jar and carefully pour its contents into the second jar through the sieve and filters.
- – If desired, you can repeat the above steps up to 2 more times to extract as much resin as possible. If you do this, you should use a different (frozen) jar for each run, as repeating the steps will extract more chlorophyll, waxes, and so on.
- – The last step of Stage 2 is to evaporate off the alcohol. You can do this with controlled heat, such as a heating pad or in a water bath. It would be best to keep temps consistent and in the 60-80C (140-175F) range, to burn off the alcohol without losing the terpenes.
- – If you are using PEG400, you can evaporate down to the last drop of the alcohol. Using PG/VG, you should retain a little of the alcohol to keep the extracted liquid. You can gently heat at the end to evaporate the last traces if needed.
Stage 3 of Bud/Trim Method – The Final Steps
- – At this stage, your extract should be warm enough to be liquid and easy to mix. If you need to, warm it up again to reach the right consistency.
- – Add your choice of PEG400, PG, or VG and then stir until the mixture is homogeneous. Use a ratio of 1:1 for a reasonably potent extract, or go with a ratio of 2:3 PEG to extract for a smoother, milder effect. Experiment to achieve your ideal results!
- – If you used PEG400, you should be pretty much done by this stage. If using PG/VG, you may want to warm the mixture again and keep it at around 60C (140F) for an hour or so, occasionally stirring, to remove any remaining traces of alcohol.
- – PEG400 blends should remain generally stable. PG/VG blends are much less stable, and it helps a lot to keep them warm and shake them regularly to blend the liquids. Keep your cart in your pocket (where your body heat will keep it warm) and shake it every so often.
Please remember that these are basic guidelines. There are many variations on the same basic principle that you can try.
If you use our methods on this page, please let us know how it worked out for you. Did it work well? Were there any complicated steps? Does anything need more clarification? Let us know, and we will update the sheet accordingly.
We have published a german article about “THC-Liquid herstellen” on our Weedhack page.
Wow! 😱 thank you! Need to try this!
You’re very welcome. Let us know if you have any questions, we’re happy to help 🙂
Would this be okay to do with Keif?
What did I do wrong i did it with alcohol extract added the pg then little vg the next day when I got it but it taste like resin
Do a quik wash, make sure ALCOHOL is ice cold when Soaking the cannabis don’t leave it in jar to long or you will end up with rso (rick Simpson oil) dark smelly resin oil, do a quick wash shake it a couple times and pour it out and burn off it will be Amber color.
I need somebody to walk me through the process totally new to this
Hi there guys . Is there any way I can turn solid cannabis into liquid form for vaping? . Thanks
No
Headline reader, huh.
Are you even reading the shit.
I will give this a try, thank you very much!
Very KuL!!!
Thanx,
The substances this article talks about diluting your shatter with (peg, vg, and pg) substances which have already been widely disputed amongst the vape community in relation to serious health risks. “Popcorn lung” is a good search keyword in relation to this topic. I will say there are a LOT of people that are/are not aware of this that use it anyway, even dispensaries… personally, I have no desire to inhale these substances.
I encourage patients to do their own research in regards to their medicine dosing regimen. I find that when patients understand what’s in what they are using and how it is effecting them, they dose more appropriately, and feel more confident about dosing regularly and consistently.
So, there comes the question of how does one do this. Again, research on your own and don’t just believe any garbage telling you to microwave your concentrates (I mean really?! 😳). But depending on the pen, I think the only reason you’re mixing your concentrate with a solvent is for viscosity and ease of vaporization during hearing. (I think the idea here is that maybe a pen would work harder to heat a snake of shatter stuffed into a cartridge than a more viscous substance. It would take forever to fill, I assume)
I have success with well sourced natural terpenes instead of peg,pg,vg. That works well for me, although can be expensive, and hard to verify safe sourcing.
Don’t even get me started on the alcohol method. That is missing some crucial information! Overall this is a VERY incomplete article and very misinformative.
Good luck, and whatever you do, don’t microwave your concentrates. 😂
Kirsten – first of all, popcorn lung is not associated with inhalation of PG, VG or PEG; it’s associated with inhalation of the flavoring agent diacetyl. We do not make use of diacetyl and do not recommend it to our readers. Second, I would appreciate seeing evidence for any danger at all associated with gently heating concentrates at low heat in a microwave, for a very short time. In fact, where’s your evidence that microwaving extracts is dangerous or wrong, full stop? I’m not suggesting people decarb or even dry their weed in a microwave like some people online apparently do – but using low-energy electromagnetic radiation to gently heat an extract does not have any adverse effects associated with it, from my research. If you have a source beyond your own strident opinion, let me know! Lastly, you’re not helping anyone else here by criticizing the methods mentioned and not even bothering to specify in what way you believe them to be “incomplete” and “misinformative”. Do you want to help others (as I’ve tried to do with this article) or are you just here to be a hater?
Is there any way to buy the liquid I use a vapor I would like try it
Thanks Seshata. Nice response.
Have you tried using the LEVO infuser? I’m experimenting with some luck but wondering if you or a reader as a “recipe” that they know works well.
LEVO hasn’t been helpful even though they are clear that they know (and encourage) it’s use with infusing cannabis.
We’ve tried the more basic vape instructions that had not included the freezer portion you call out. We were unimpressed with the results. Very weak and unusable.
Thoughts?
Thanks
I completely agree with everything you just said and I also think it was generously professional.
You go girl!😋 .have a good day
Popcorn lung…
I lol’d
http://www.snopes.com/vaping-causes-popcorn-lung/
Any way of doing this even a shorter way and just mailing it?
I experimented last time I made some vape oil, the method was once you have a warmed up glycerinel/cannabis oil mix, you can put it in a ultrasonic (jewellery) cleaner (ordinary warm water no solution needed) to homogenise the oil and vg, I left a bit of alchohol in the oil and it mixes easier…
Interesting – so does it stay stable forever or does it eventually separate again with this method?
Guys just store your crumbled bud in pg/vg for 3 weeks or so with a stir here n there.
Last few days i left the jar on a oil heater over night n then the following night.
Use a shitty (well new) yellow cotton cloth to extract the pg/vg from the bud. Squeeze out the remains and voila u got pure bud e-juice.
Ive been doing this for a few months. I get buzzing n me sex life is just wow. The flavour is exactly how the bud smells. Amazing.
You may need to mix ordinary juice to thin it out but that really dependz on your ratio of pg/vg and to the bud.
DO NOT PUT too much pg/vg my max wud be 10-15ml more than the bud visually.
Guys seriously. This is the best way.
Ok but my research suggests that this method is pulling out a lot of terpenes (hence the amazing flavor/aroma profile) but it’s not actually very efficient at all at pulling out the cannabinoids. Take a look at this from skunkpharmresearch for more info… https://skunkpharmresearch.com/glycerin-extraction/
Ok first of all,i do not use any cannabis of any sort mostly bc of my job and drug screening and second of all for the people worried about the popcorn lung deal that some people mentioned above it is the ingredient diacetyl that causes it. PG or VG are not the culprits of it. Do a little research and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I vape ejuice and I looked into this ALOT! Just wanted to inform the people that might be interested in using this method. Good luck. It looks like a fairly simple process. Here’s a website that can lead u to some popcorn lung discussion.
http://www.lung.org/about-us/blog/2016/07/popcorn-lung-risk-ecigs.html
Thank you! 🙂
By the way I mix my own ejuice now so I know exactly what’s going into them in case you were wondering
You’re welcome Seshata
Exactly… I’m experimenting with making my own right now 🙂
Thank you very much for the input Neil, it’s appreciated 🙂
I wish I could use this process. I’m sure I’ll get to trying it one day haha.
Let us know how it plays out 😀
🤔 I need to try Method 2. Will return with an update, great read!
Thank you, keep us up to date 🙂
Let us know how it turned out!
In the second Method, keeping the temperature in check (while burning off the alcohol) is no piece of cake. I did that with a water bath and a cooking thermometer. I think I might have heated it too much and lost a few terps during the process. But the most complicated part is filtration. I checked out the skunkpharmresearch link you gave: several filtration tools are possible but I chose to use the cone funnel and the coffee filter. It’s quite long and the filter tends to absorb the liquid. I had to squeeze some of it out of the filter with my fingers. As a whole it wasn’t that easy but it worked out quite well for me. I’m enjoying it right now :). Thanks a lot !
There’s this device that allows you to control your temperature and they also thought about alcohol evaporation. Filtration seems pretty easy, here’s the video: https://youtu.be/3Ut2bXfcKKo . But I don’t think it’s available yet ☹, They’re planning to do a crowdfunding campaign or sumethin.
Coooool, thanks for the tip man!
Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you got something out of it — and if you find anything that you think I should add, please let me know!
A Buchner flask could speed up the process. It utilizes runNing water to create suction through the fliter greatly speeding up the pull through.
Use a hot plate or coffee hot pad to keep warm for s few days
This will evaporate the alcohol
I am currently evaporating alcohol off at the point on the stove top, I have my “QWET” in a pyrex dish inside of a pot of boiling water.
Temp of the solution was steady at in the mid 150 range throughout the evaporation.
The majority of the 75.5 proof ever clear grain alcohol I used has evaporated and I’m left with a yellowish seemingly slightly thicker liquid. There is a little bit of separation happening though, its brown and when stirred with a fork (more like beating) it breaks apart into little beads and then reforms in the middle and settles at the top.
Everything prior went really smooth and this is a great instructional, but do you have any advice on what is happening and what to do?
My bad its 151 proof which I have read is ok to use. Also the separation that is brownish red once stirred becomes tiny globules and does not settle back together but remains and sticks to the bottom of the pyrex dish.
Hmm yeah I wouldn’t use such a low proof, I stick to 96% grain alcohol. It sounds like some residue from whatever was in that 25% non-alcohol part.
I have to help with this question. I spent a couple hours doing so much research trying to find out why that yellowish milky liquid was on my first batch. This is the water that the alcohol absorbed from the air. I can’t find the Wiki site I eventually found out from though.
I have a question about decarboxylation. Vape heating elements burn anywhere from 175 to over 500 degrees or more (~approximation) so, why the need to decarboxylate the cannabis if its going to burn in the e-juice when you vape? Just want to me make sure I understand this and that I’m not missing something. I think this is a great overview of the process BTW, Thanks!
Hey, it may not be strictly necessary as yes, vaping temperature is enough to kick off the decarboxylation process. But in order to make sure that your cannabinoids are fully activated and as effective as possible, it’s better to go thru a proper decarb step. Vaping is a very quick process, and it doesn’t subject the cannabis to high temperatures for a sufficiently long time to fully decarboxylate, as far as I understand.
Hey, @seshata I have a couple questions.
I’ve been doing some reading and found that THC does dissolve in alcohol over time, so would you get a stronger batch if you first let your bud sit in a freezer in alcohol for a week or so and shook it every day, then started this process and used that same alcohol to do this process with?
Also, I read another article that tells you to begin heating the jar and getting rid of the alcohol before filtering into another jar. Is there a reason you do it the other way around?
Just looking for as much info as I can get!! 😁
Oh and one more question! About how much does this method yield of end product? Just a ball park idea? (Talking about method 2 here, btw)
OH! Sorry I keep thinking about more questions, how strong of an aroma does this put off?? Would it fill the neighborhood? 😅😅
Hey, yes you are right in saying that THC dissolves in alcohol, that’s why we are using alcohol as a solvent to dissolve the THC in this tutorial! In fact, THC dissolves very quickly in alcohol, so there is no need to leave your cannabis to soak in alcohol for any longer that the stated time. If you do, you will start to dissolve other compounds in the plant too, including chlorophyll, and certain waxes, esters and so on. For purposes of making this kind of golden-colored extract that is similar in quality and texture to shatter (when done correctly!), you need to do a quick wash in alcohol. If you do a long soak, you are actually going to make Rick Simpson Oil, which is potentially very useful in medicine, but would not be suitable for turning into e-cig liquid. In answer to part 2 of your question, you should get back 10-20% in weight depending on the quality of your starting material. And no, it shouldn’t be too stinky.
Seshata thank you for the reply!! My cudo’s to you as an article writer!! You seem to be knowledgeable compared to other similar articles and your willingness to stick around in the comment thread and answer questions shows your true quality as a writer! Thank you very much for the information!
I sure would love it if this had measurements… how much alcohol, how many grams or oz of bud or trim, and so on….
You can use as much or as little bud or trim as you like, and you just need to use enough alcohol to cover the cannabis completely. Simple! Though for convenience’s sake, if I’m using a regular sized glass jar, I usually use about 10g of cannabis. Depending on quality of starting material, that should get me back 1-2g of extract at the end.
I read this late and already started a titer a few weeks ago in everclear for juicing. Does this mean I ruined my bud and have no THC?
@seshata
hi,
great article, I love at home experimantations.
for method 2 you said
“If desired, you can repeat the above steps up to 2 more times, to extract as much resin as possible. If you do this, you should use a different (frozen) jar for each run, as repeating the steps will extract more chlorophyll, waxes and so on.”
Could you elaborate, I am unsure what you mean. would we take all the material that was just used and run another fresh batch of alchohol through it and then add that liquid to the existing liquid, reuse the same liquid?
I am a bit confused.
thanks. ~T
-T
Hello Seshata.
I read the other method you posted in the comments. It seems a lot better to use cold and hot together. But I don’t really want to use alcohol. So I might go for the cold method and then heat the vg 160F and 2 min at 170F. Before filtering and then use the used bud or trim again but run the 2nd batch through a fresh bud trim after 60days and keep that one for 80 day. Vibrating them every week 2 times. This should make it fully portent with the 170F for 2 min without loosing too much T and have an easy filtering. Though I would need to use his filtering method as VG is very thick. Tell me what you think. I have not done it yet, but do you think it will give it a better potency when vaping, if I do the 170F Instead of the fully cold method and heating at 150F only to filter easier?
Hey I was just wondering, can I use this method to make dab? Just do the first part of method 2 then leave the peg/pg/vg out?
thanks 🙂
Sure you can… Watched a vid on extraction fir the most part the same way but with 99.9%iso alc to make shatter.
Thanks for some other wonderful article. The place else may anybody get that kind of information in such an ideal means of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am on the look for such information.
I have some qwet ready do i weigh the liquid to hash for the ratio of one to one or how did you go about that? Using ejmix
Hello Seshata , sorry for my poor english.
Firstly , i dont understand the ratio for liquid and cannabis .
For example ; i have medium grade cannabis and i wanna make THC juice.
How much grams cannabis i need for 1ml THC juice ( Thc+VG+PG)
You can send me email or comment.
English is my second lang. sorry 🙂
See you and thank you 🙂
I have had the same exact results as sesamechicken. Everything went smooth until evaporating my QWET in a jar. as it evaporated it started to seperate into brown small bits inside the extract. You can mix it up but as you continue to evap, it congeals more. It ended up with a large glob on my thermometer so I stopped cooking it off at that point. Mixed in my VG (have some PEG400 on order) for my first test batch and continued to burn off any residual but it made it seperate in the VG even more. I stirred and stirred until I gave up and tried it out. The yield was a bit dissappointing. I started with 7G of high quality and ended up with what I would guess to be about 15-20ML of juice. the brown globs I couldn’t get to mix in the solution so I put that in some PGA and broke it back down. Probably use it as a tincture. I do notice some very small particulates (maybe kief) inside the solution that I reduced the brown glob to. I had to squeeze the filter to get the liquid out of the bud so maybe I got some kief inside and that is what is congealing. Trying to figure out what I did wrong and if this yield sounds about right. I appreciate any feedback! @Seshata, thanks so much for posting this recipe and providing support. 🙂
Just wanted to followup on my findings. So I don’t think the initial assumption that SesameChicken’s use of non PGA caused the brown globs. I think that is THC. I broke down the extra brown globs I had in some PGA and it dissolved well. When I got my PEG400 I warmed it back up in a water bath (most the PGA had dissolved, I couldn’t smell it anymore) and stirred it and was back to small brown dots in my extract. Mixed in my PEG400 and it mixed excellently. Thanks again for the great recipe, this absolutely rocks. Oh yeah, and my disappointment in yield was in ignorance. It turned out to be quite strong so careful. 🙂
Hey everyone, I experimented with what this article said but tried using a normal vape juice (60vg/40pg) and mixed it with a wax concentrate (3mg vape liquid to .5 gram wax). It mixed fine at first and worked well, but now it seems to be separating. Any tips on why this is happening? Thanks!
Firstly thanks for this article it’s brilliant!!
Secondly, could I just ask about quantities used in the information above?
Hello guys. I have a question.
How much pge or pg i use for 1 gram of exract?
Lehetne bolti e-liquidet minőségi CBD+kevés THC olajjal símán keverni?
Mivel aromásítani? Lehetne a CBD-THC olajat cigaretta dohánnyal keverni? Carbon filteres hüvelybe tölteni? Köszönöm szépen!
Can 70% iso alcohol be used? If yes, I”m ready.
If no, then I gotta wait until tomorrow. 🙂
BTW: not sure from such a small pic but I think you might be really sexy on top of really smart. 🙂
Hello I have the LEVO OIL infuser and was wondering if I used grinded raw bud instead of a concentrate and PG/VG could I make Eliquid?
So what is the basic yield off of this recipe? Like one gram of extract plus x amount of mix equals x amount of product?
Conversion help please
Making vape juice How much flower for 1 liter of vg/pg 80/20 ?
Thanks
woow I love this
Can you teach me how to make really strong cannabis liquid? Only using buds?
Do you have a video made of the 2nd process? I am a very visual learner so seeing this method in action would be a huge benefit. Thx
I always consider Weed Vape Pens safe when you stay alone because you don’t have kids picking up your vape pen when it might contain some THC Vape Juice. But apart from that, Weed Vape Pen are actually not safe. You can also read similar topic:
Been trying to make this for a while, using various methods . This one worked perfectly – thanks! I double washed my bud in the alcohol and the liquid seemed very similar to the first wash, so I think next time i’ll do it a 3rd time. I got approx 2ml of juice from about 3/4 ounce of dry (mixed 1:1 with PG). Another wash would get me another ~1 ml.
Thank you for the knowledge 👌
Please tell me how many grams of dry herb I need to make a potent gram of liquid?
I REALLY ENJOYED READING ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO HAVE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
When decarbing, I imagine there’s a natural pine smell in the air; Does it linger? How strong is the fragrance on a scale of 1-10??? Am
When repeat steps in Stage 2, do you rpt stage 1 and 2 steps? or just stage 2?
I do not recommend using POLYPROPYLENE GLYCOL for anything. It is antifreeze, and causes cancer. Read all consumable labels like mouth washes , and lotions. Stir clear of them.
Put your shatter in a vaporizer tank and vape.
I am looking to create a quality vapor with full spectrum CBD oil. I have 10 grams and thought of diluting with 100mil of a quality coconut and making a drip for underneath the tongue.
After reading on vaping, I have been unable to find a recipe for what to mix the full spectrum to create a vape and the ratio. Any input and clarity would be greatly appreciated.