After harvesting your medical marijuana, and trimming down to the bud, you are left with 2 piles. One of beautiful buds, and another pile of everything else (leaves, stems, tiny pistils, etc.).
For those who don’t know, the buds can be smoked 
However, what is less obvious, is what to do with the rest of the cannabis plant. The entire plant is full of delicious, and potent resins, but sticks and leaves taste bad, so we just have to remove them from the equation. There are many ways of extracting cannabinoids from plant material. Cannabinoids do not dissolve in water, but they do dissolve easily into fats, alcohols, or other organic solvents (Butane, Hexane, etc.), this interesting set of criteria present a plethora of ways to extract the leftover resin.
1. CannaButter – Cannabinoids dissolve easily into fats. Grind up your trimmings, and bring a couple sticks of butter to a low simmer on the stove. Add the ground up marijuana to the boiling fat slowly. Butter boils around 115°C (239°F), THC boils around 155°C (311°F). Since the butter won’t let the cannabinoids burn, it is recommended you allow them to simmer (with a lid on, but slightly askew) for 3-4 hours to ensure a full extraction. Afterword, allow the solution to cool, and strain out the plant material. You will be left with butter that almost glows green, and will be sure to medicate anything you choose to cook.
2. Bubble – This process isn’t an extraction, so much as a physical separation. A series of bags with screens in descending sizes designed to separate the trichomes by size. All the bags are placed one inside another in a large plastic container half full of water. Trim is placed inside the top bag (the one with the largest screen), then top off the container with ice.
This freezes the trichomes on the surface, causing them to stand on end. Then stir, mix, beat, snap, and agitate the bag for 15-20 minutes. Make sure the bag stays cold, add more ice if necessary, the lower the temperature, the better. Let everything sit for a few minutes to allow the trichomes to settle.
Then lift the bags out of the water one by one. Each screen will be covered in a layer of wet extract, as we go down through the layers, the quality of the hash increases. To dry your concentrate, you can use a food dehydrator (remember to keep the temperature low), or just leave it out for a couple of days on a piece of cardboard to air dry.
3. BHO – Butane Honey Oil, despite the chemical name, does not rely on butane as a solvent. This is another physical separation, the pressurized gas becomes very cold as it expands, freezing all the oils, and breaking them away from the plant with pressure.
WARNING: Butane is very explosive, so whenever using it, make sure to do so outdoors with good ventilation, and away from anything that could ignite it (hot water heaters, washer/dryer, lawnmower, cigarettes, the list goes on, so be careful!). I once purged a batch of BHO in a pot of boiling water on a gas stove-top. The stove ignited the gasses, the flames reached the ceiling, melting the face off the microwave oven. Instinct says pour water on it, however with an oil fire, water only makes it spread. We finally placed a larger pan onto the fire suffocating it. Fire needs Oxygen. I have been told Baking soda will also suffocate an oil fire. We got off lucky, I know a guy who had his foot blown off when a water heater switched on and turned his extractor into a giant hand grenade.
So please, be careful if you attempt this. The concept is to fill a large tube completely with plant material, cap one end, and drill a hole in it the size of the butane nozzle. Be careful to avoid plastics, brass, steel, and galvanized steel, Butane will slightly dissolve any of these materials contaminating the oil. Stainless steel seems to be OK. Also try to use the cleanest gas you can find, at least 5x filtered, any contaminants in the gas will also come through into your oil. Cover the other end with 2 coffee filters, first place a rubber band, then place a worm gear clamp on top of the rubber. Place the rig over a Pyrex collecting dish. Press the can of butane upside down into the capped end. You might want to wear gloves for this part, Butane evaporates at -0.5°C (33°F), so the tube will get quite cold. As the frost on the outside of the tube approaches the other end, you will begin to see a liquid dripping through the filters onto the plate. If your can runs out, but there is still an amber hue to the liquid dripping out, remove the can, wait 15 seconds for the tube to depressurize, then put the next can in it’s place. Once the liquid begins to flow clear, all of the oils have been removed from the surfaces of the plant. Set the Pyrex dish in a bath of boiling water. Make sure not to get any water in the oil, it will be hard to remove. The oil will bubble as the gas evaporates away, after 20-30 minutes all the bubbles should be gone. Make sure to purge butane thoroughly, harsh on the throat, and when burned becomes Carbon Monoxide, which is toxic, and blocks your cannabinoid receptors. Your left with a brown residue on the bottom of the dish, scrape it up, this is your BHO. I must warn you, any chemical processing of medical marijuana has been deemed illegal in California… I don’t know how the other 49 feel about it.
4. Solvent – Many solvents can be used to extract the essential oils from cannabis. Pretty much any of these with a boiling point lower than 150°C will do the job, however some of them (Isopropanol, Acetone, and others) will add an unpleasant taste to your final product. I recommend Ethanol, Cyclohexane, or Heptane, they are relatively stable, and less combustible than butane, although all the same precautions should be taken with any flammable gas. For this extraction you want to grind up the trim. Add equal parts trim and solvent in covered stainless steel pot. Slowly heat the pot until you can feel it bubbling from the outside, and keep it there for half an hour. Boiling agitates the molecules in the solvent, helping to speed up the process. After boiling, allow it to return to room temperature, then cover the pot with cheese cloth, and strain the solution into a new container. Place the new container in a pot of boiling water, make sure the container is elevated off the bottom of the pot or it will not be protected by the water. Purge until you start to see smoke rising from the solution, and smell a pleasant woodsy scent reminiscent of incense. This means you have begun to burn off cannabinoids, but it is way better to waste a little than to smoke solvents. Since Butane only removes oils from the surface, anything run with butane could then be run again with a hot solvent, and will produce more extract. However, as I stated earlier, any chemical extraction has been ruled illegal by a California judge. Despite legal access to both medical marijuana and the solvents, the chemical processing is forbidden. Be sure to check out the legality of these processes in your area.
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