Handling some of my basil surplus before it bolts. A bit of basil, some 190 proof everclear that someone donated. This will sit in a dark space for a few months. Basil lemonade is definitely on the menu. Maybe a vodka sauce for pasta.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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Cold fractionation with polar solvents is the best way to prevent degradation of the desirable compounds... IMHO Heat degrades and destroys many of the flavonoids and terpenes that you'd want from an herbal extraction.
Surprised with your background that you never needed that method, but we have found it to be useful for NMR and mass spec work.
When I was working I did more formulation (a.k.a. mixing and titration) and we had an analytical lab which did all of the NMR and mass spec work. Academics was all steam distillation.
It makes sense that heat degrades but that's why I keep it low and slow for extraction. Water baths and keeping everything below 140 °F at most with the ideal between 100-120°F. That is just for oil infusions for lotions and balms. I know for honey extraction you want to keep the enzymes active to keep it at most 100 °F. I do alcohol at room temp.
I will have to try the cold method. Sounds like fun. Any excuse to try something new. Also playing with dry ice is a hoot
I guess it depends on what you are trying to extract from what :) For smells and taste I like cold extractions best.
Didnt say anything about dry ice, but that would certainly be useful to quick freeze the plant material and crush it, more surface area is always good. I usually keep the ethanol around 18f, it still works as a solvent and you can filter out any excess water crystals when you are done if everything is kept below 30.
This method works well for cannabinoid extraction, which is what we were often working with, just fyi
Someone below mentioned that dry ice would be needed to freeze the ethanol but you didn't say you wanted to freeze it. That is partly why I was confused since freezing would damage compounds. Keeping it cold would not
Typically for herbal extractions I want everything from the plant. Herbalism basically says that the mixture works better than any individual compound. If you want to a more focused effect you take multiple plants with similar effects so you want to grab everything.
I have a friend who saved his sticks and stems from his homegrown cannabis plant. I will definitely try this if I want to try to extract from that. I bet that has much more undesirables than something like basis which is edible from root up.