Making your own extract

[MikeB]

I'm very curious about the process of making my own extract - by that I mean the sort of clay-like substance that has highly concentrated kavalactones and which GHK used to sell. I've heard things about people doing this, and I'm very curious if there might be any clever way to do this with homemade equipment that doesn't involve buying a supercritical CO2 extractor.

I thought that if you were clever enough, a basic lipid extraction with coconut oil or something similar might be a good first step. Unfortunately, since we don't live in an atmosphere of coconut vapor, coconut oil doesn't evaporate. :-(

There's a really successful thread about making your own instant, which spurred a lot of good ideas, and I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts over here. God damn it I will do anything to get my hands on some Mo'i extract... anything. O_O

 

[verticity]

I experimented with using liquid coconut oil in this thread. The result was a bit weak, but it was kava extract. You may get better results extracting at the boiling point of water for a longer time using a double boiler or something:
DIY coconut-kava "paste"

 

[verticity]

IMO, there is nothing really special about CO2 extraction vs. other solvents, except for the fact that the CO2 harmlessly disappears, because it is a gas. Gas-phase coconut oil would be extremely hot lol

 

[MikeB]

Hmm, interesting. I think the weak step here is in the straining at the end. Kavalactones dissolve in oil, right? So the "oily makas" that you talked about probably had tons of kavalactones dissolved in it...

 

[MikeB]

Reading through that thread, there are some really interesting ideas there... the dual alcohol/coconut oil extraction method seems really great. The idea is to do the ethanol extraction first, then dump that into the coconut oil to create a kava-alcohol-coconut oil mixture, and then boil away the alcohol. I'm just kind of concerned about using alcohol because I know that alcohol extracts may be implicated in some of the bad liver effects people talk about.

Someone mentioned the possibility of doing a "lecithin extraction" later on in the thread. Interesting concept, but not sure how that'd work... I guess the lecithin could dissolve the kavalactones, and then on top of that, it could dissolve itself in water, but I don't see what to do from there...

 

[verticity]

Hmm, interesting. I think the weak step here is in the straining at the end. Kavalactones dissolve in oil, right? So the "oily makas" that you talked about probably had tons of kavalactones dissolved in it...

No, you squeeze most of the oil out. The volume of oil that you can't squeeze out is much smaller than the volume that you can. Also, maybe you could use a larger volume of coconut oil vs. kava for better efficiency, or do multiple "washes". I didn't experiment with it much to optimize the process. The makas are a bit oily, but that was mostly a joke: @shakas talks about selling his special "shakas makas"

 

[MikeB]

Interesting. So why do you think it was so weak? Do you think the kavalactones basically ended up trapped in the makas or something?

 

[verticity]

Someone mentioned the possibility of doing a "lecithin extraction" later on in the thread. Interesting concept, but not sure how that'd work... I guess the lecithin could dissolve the kavalactones, and then on top of that, it could dissolve itself in water, but I don't see what to do from there...

Drink it?

 

[verticity]

Interesting. So why do you think it was so weak? Do you think the kavalactones basically ended up trapped in the makas or something?

I think I should have used a higher temperature, and longer time. Like let it sit in a double boiler for an hour or so maybe.

 

[verticity]

All I did there was literally microwave it for a couple minutes, stir it and let it cool off.

 

[MikeB]

@verticity: if you're just mixing the kava with water and lecithin and drinking it, in what sense is it an extract?? I was putting a pea-sized amount of GHK's stuff under my tongue and it had the effect of maybe 0.5-1 Tbsp of micro Mo'i...

 

[verticity]

@verticity: if you're just mixing the kava with water and lecithin and drinking it, in what sense is it an extract?? I was putting a pea-sized amount of GHK's stuff under my tongue and it had the effect of maybe 0.5-1 Tbsp of micro Mo'i...

It's not an extract, it's traditional prep in water. It's an emulsion. I don't think lecithin by itself would make a very good solvent.

 

[verticity]

The melting point of lecithin is 231 C, so definitely not suitable.

 

[MikeB]

If you mix it with water, then the lecithin dissolves, so I don't see "obtaining liquid lecithin" as being a problem. You could always then just boil off the water later. But I guess I'm still wondering if lipid extraction will dissolve unwanted things along with the kavalactones, rendering straining useless.

Maybe it makes sense to try this with an instant or micro instead of med grind.

 

[verticity]

If you mix it with water, then the lecithin dissolves, so I don't see "obtaining liquid lecithin" as being a problem. You could always then just boil off the water later. But I guess I'm still wondering if lipid extraction will dissolve unwanted things along with the kavalactones, rendering straining useless.

Maybe it makes sense to try this with an instant or micro instead of med grind.

If you boil off the water you would have instant kava mixed with lecithin, not kava extract.

The oil will not dissolve the hard makas--you would need sulfuric acid or something to dissolve those--but I have no idea what other chemicals it might extract from the plant (such as FKB, etc.) On the other hand, I have no idea of the answer to that question for CO2 extraction either (and I have looked into it a bit to try to find some data)

 

[MikeB]

Maybe we're miscommunicating. My understanding is that "extract" is far more potent by volume than "instant." At least, the CO2 Mo'i GHK extract I tried certainly seemed to be the case. Is that correct?

 

[verticity]

Maybe we're miscommunicating. My understanding is that "extract" is far more potent by volume than "instant." At least, the CO2 Mo'i GHK extract I tried certainly seemed to be the case. Is that correct?

That is correct, in general. But an extract just means extracting the active chemicals from something with a solvent, as opposed to water prep. But the fact that something is an extract does not necessarily mean it will be super strong. There are various techniques you can use to increase strength: increased temperature and time, recirculating CO2 etc. Of course with CO2 extract, the solvent (CO2) evaporates so you are left with only what is extracted. This will not be possible with coconut oil: coconut oil "extract" might better be described as "coconut oil tincture" because the coconut oil will remain mixed with the kavalactones, so you would need to eat more of it for it to be effective. (It actually tastes OK) This is possible with alcohol extraction--you could evaporate off the alcohol--but I'm not really a fan of alcohol, simply because I used to have a problem with drinking too much of it..

 

[MikeB]

I too would like to avoid alcohol. Thanks for clearing up the difference between an extract and a tincture!

So let's make it simple and assume we're starting with an instant. An instant has no makas or anything like that. Is there any way to use coconut oil to end up with something more concentrated than you started with? I'm not sure there will be much to "strain" afterwards, basically...

 

[verticity]

I too would like to avoid alcohol. Thanks for clearing up the difference between an extract and a tincture!

So let's make it simple and assume we're starting with an instant. An instant has no makas or anything like that. Is there any way to use coconut oil to end up with something more concentrated than you started with? I'm not sure there will be much to "strain" afterwards, basically...

No, I think you would only dilute it by adding coconut oil. It wouldn't really be an extract, it would just be instant dissolved in coconut oil. The straining step is essential to separate the extracted chemicals from the plant material.

 

[MikeB]

So what's in instant besides kavalactones, exactly?

Is there *any* way to end up with something more concentrated than instant, without having to buy a CO2 extractor? There must be something clever one can do at home...