On the latest episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast Matt talks to Marielle Weintraub, president of the U.S. Hemp Authority, to discuss CBD vaping safety and how the recent deaths should affect your vaping decisions.
Then Matt talks to Steve St. Clair from Enerhealth Botanical Science about the science behind an ancient form of extraction. Now, if only Matt could pronounce "spagyric" ...
Editor's Note: We're running a giveaway with Charlotte's Web. Enter on our Instagram for a chance to win CBD oil for your dog. -KO
We want to hear from you too. Send us your questions and you might hear them answered on future shows like this one! Send us your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, email [email protected], or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind that phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for Ministry of Hemp should be sent to [email protected].
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you really want to help us out, we’d love for you to rate or review the show.
Thanks again for listening! Contact [email protected] if you’re interested in sponsoring our podcast or other content on our website.
We talked with an expert on hemp quality about CBD vaping safety and hemp certification.
Here's some more articles we've written about vaping and picking safe, quality CBD:
Below you'll find the complete written transcript of this episode;
Matt Baum: 00:04 Hello again. It's Matt Baum. I am your host of the Ministry Of Hemp Podcast, and today on the show we are going to be talking about another type of extraction for our extraction series. This one is called Spagyric extraction and Spagyric from Enerhealth is going to tell us all about it. But before we get to that, perhaps you've heard the news.
Trump: 00:28 Vaping has become a very big business as I understand it, like a giant business at a very short period of time, but we can't allow people to get sick and we can't have our youth be so affected and I'm hearing it, and that's how the first lady got-
Matt Baum: 00:42 According to the Center for Disease Control, six people have died from a lung disease linked to vaping, and a reported 380 confirmed and probable causes have been identified across 36 States and the US Virgin Islands. So today we're going to talk about it. Let's get into it. Is it safe to vape CBD? I'm not going to address e-cigarettes or anything else. We're going to focus here on hemp. That's what we do in this show.
Matt Baum: 01:13 I spoke to Marielle Weintraub last week on the subject. She was at Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore and she was running around trying to find a quiet place. I'm glad. Thank you for letting her in. She's super smart-
Marielle Weintr: And I'm president of the U.S. Hemp Authority.
Matt Baum: 01:25 ... and she's super helpful... Excellent. And today, Marielle, we are going to talk about vaping and how dangerous it is and how many people that's killed and when is the slaughter are going to end.
Marielle Weintr: 01:41 It depends if you put that into comparison of how many people have died from alcohol and tobacco and so on.
Matt Baum: 01:43 Right. Of course. There's been a lot of news recently about six deaths due to somebody tampering or making their own mixtures, and this has led the Trump administration to jump on it right away because six deaths is way too many. We won't even go into gun deaths, but six deaths is way too many, when we've got an outlaw flavored vape liquid and whatnot. What's going on here? What is the real story?
Marielle Weintr: 02:13 So it's an interesting question only because, so I'm president of the U.S. Hemp Authority. We have a certification program for hemp, hemp products, but the way our certification is set up now is we're only certifying food, dietary supplement and cosmetics.
Marielle Weintr: 02:28 And so the reason we have not included vapes at this point is because they're very hard to test and it's very hard to find a good standard to compare to. So food and dietary supplement and cosmetics, we have the FDA's code of federal regulations either 111 or 117 and so on.
Marielle Weintr: 02:49 So we have something to base our original certification on, which is basically guidelines out there from the FDA. It's not exactly the same for e-cigs and vapes because FDA didn't start getting involved with tobacco until I believe it was, [inaudible 00:03:10], I have to double check. I think it's either 2006 or 2009. And then it was a few years later that they started getting involved with vape.
Matt Baum: 03:17 So the FDA waited to get involved with tobacco until it had already killed hundreds of thousands of people, basically.
Marielle Weintr: 03:25 I suppose so. Yes. But then they also waited to start regulating e-cigs and vapes as well. Even past that time. So what's interesting here is, I'm actually worried what will happen if they do decide to outlaw flavors. Right now we're already having an issue where we have fly by night hemp companies that are not caring about the consumer, don't care about quality and are trying to make a quick buck and rolling out all sorts of products that may or may not be validated, may or may not be tested-
Matt Baum: 04:04 Sure.
Marielle Weintr: 04:04 ... and that's before they're on the black market. So just because you don't allow them does not mean they are just going to go away, and in fact I think the problem might get worse. I would rather see the FDA rollout guidelines for us, for hemp and CBD products that allow us to be more accountable, have better quality assurance, have the ability to have GMP certification, and allow us to be on the same level of dietary supplements and food companies when it comes to oversight.
Marielle Weintr: 04:35 The whole reason the Hemp Authority created a certification is because we were worried and these are big hemp and CBD companies in 2016, 2017, 2018 that were worried that someone was going to have a 60 minutes moment and what I refer to it as, and bring down the entire industry.
Marielle Weintr: 04:51 There is one or two or three groups having a 60 minute moment, and now the entire vaping industry is being looked at as terrible human beings. So we're trying to find some in between space where we can have the ability to have quality assurance, testing, standards, things that they have where all other food, dietary supplement and cosmetics products and allow us to show how good and how much quality we can actually build into these programs.
Matt Baum: 05:23 Sure. And like you said, outlawing it is just going to make this problem worse because it won't go away.
Marielle Weintr: 05:28 Yes, it is.
Matt Baum: 05:29 Now that people have learned how to make this stuff, they'll just move to a straight up black market and there's no oversight at that point. Zero.
Marielle Weintr: 05:38 And then there's a serious lack of chemists out there too, so they think you can grab any oil, add some CBD isolet and boom, you've got a vape.
Matt Baum: 05:44 Sure.
Marielle Weintr: 05:44 That is not how this works.
Matt Baum: 05:45 I saw it on YouTube and it was really easy.
Marielle Weintr: 05:47 [inaudible 00:05:48].
Matt Baum: 05:50 So how do you come back then?
Marielle Weintr: 05:51 Awesome.
Matt Baum: 05:52 What do we do? I mean, especially when the people that seem to be looking into this and have the power to ban it all aren't even talking about, well, are we talking about e-cigarettes? Are we talking about CBD? Are we talking about marijuana or are we just using the word vape? And what is the word vape?
Matt Baum: 06:11 I mean, there's pipes that you can put actual CBD flower in or you can put marijuana in and you can vaporize that. Is that part of the issue? I mean, what do we do? How do we combat this?
Marielle Weintr: 06:25 I think we have to give companies a chance to put out quality products. I don't know if everyone has the chance to do that because we don't have the standards built that we need and the testing built that we need in order to assure safety in products.
Marielle Weintr: 06:42 We weren't even allowed to do research on hemp and hemp products until the beginning of this year. So we are behind in comparison to other countries, but that doesn't mean the other countries haven't done research on this. In theory, vapes are different because they're using combustion, instead of... It's a different form of heat and a different level of heat.
Matt Baum: 07:03 Sure.
Marielle Weintr: 07:05 And so in theory you don't have the tar and the other carcinogens that you would get for lighting something up. But what scares me last night is I'm actually at Expo East and someone pulls out a cigarette. I haven't seen a legitimate cigarette in probably six months and goes, "Well, at least I know I'm getting with what with this." And I was like-
Matt Baum: 07:27 Oh my God.
Marielle Weintr: 07:27 ... "Wait. What? No."
Matt Baum: 07:27 Oh my God.
Marielle Weintr: 07:32 I was like, "Okay, well, today's a good day to quit I guess."
Matt Baum: 07:35 Good Lord.
Marielle Weintr: 07:37 But that's scary.
Matt Baum: 07:37 And at least you know you're getting cancer.
Marielle Weintr: 07:37 When someone is taking, there's so much fear mongering that someone is taking a cigarette over vape at this point, and that scares me more than just trying to find a very good way to set up quality assurance programs so that people who choose to vape for whatever reason can have trust in the product they're vaping.
Matt Baum: 07:57 So basically you're just saying, tell us how to be safe and we will do that. As opposed to saying-
Marielle Weintr: 08:04 Right.
Matt Baum: ... nobody gets to do it. Set up the guidelines. Set up the guidelines, tell us what we need to test for, what should be there, what shouldn't be there, and we will do it.
Marielle Weintr: 08:12 And let us prove to you that we can do it.
Matt Baum: 08:15 You have a serious uphill battle.
Marielle Weintr: 08:19 I have been fighting an uphill battle for four years.
Matt Baum: 08:24 And now let me just ask you and in your opinion. I'm not saying that you're a doctor or [inaudible 00:08:28]. But this is purely mass hysteria, right?
Marielle Weintr: 08:34 I think the fact that it's a certain number of people and they haven't really seen this before... So we may or may not be mass hysteria. I do think that the hemp and CBD industries need to realize that we are all under a microphone. Anything that goes wrong is going to be picked at.
Marielle Weintr: 08:52 What's interesting is the FDA did release a statement and in it they were talking about cigarette vaping and or cigarette e-cigs and THC, and interestingly enough they did not put the three letters that they like to put in all their warning letters now, CB and D-
Matt Baum: 09:12 Really?
Marielle Weintr: 09:12 ... into that release. And I don't know if it was left out on accident or purpose. And a lot of it they're questioning, I guess it was vitamin E oil or whatever it is that they are questioning, and I know the vitamin E oil guys who patented this came out saying, "Well, is it synthetic vitamin E because everything we patent is organic vitamin E."
Marielle Weintr: 09:32 So there's questions around actual oil being used, but what we need are standards and a way for people to identify that what they are buying is real. The Hemp Authority Certification has, it's the only third party, independent certification where there is an auditor from where food comes from.
Marielle Weintr: 09:50 They are not a part of us. They get paid a totally separate fee. They have no stake in the hemp or CBD world, and they also do certifications for groups like the non-GMO butterfly and USDA organic.
Marielle Weintr: 10:02 And we want them going in because they are using checklists and guidelines that we have put together with the help of the hemp industry and are going through the audit in the warehouses, in the manufacturing plants, on the farms. So I want people to know that when they see the Hemp Authority Certification, it wasn't a self report that has not been validated. That's not how we roll.
Matt Baum: 10:31 Is that what we're looking for? Is that like I'm going out and I'm shopping right now. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a CBD vape.
Marielle Weintr: 10:37 You won't find it on vapes at this point because we don't have good standards to compare to. So that's unfortunate. And if as soon as we are able to have a good standard and good quality assurance and good testing and good testing standards, then we'll be able to move over to auditing vapes as well.
Matt Baum: 10:55 So what do you think the best way, if you're going to vape CBD, in your opinion, what is the best way to buy? I mean, do you just buy it with it, look for someone who's educated, look for someone with good test results. I mean, how do I do this? How do I stay safe?
Marielle Weintr: 11:12 I would find a company who isn't brand new, who's been on the market, who has a lot to lose if they put out a bad product, along those lines. So find someone who's reputable until you can tell the new guys from the fake guys.
Matt Baum: 11:30 Got you. So the same way that like when you're buying CBD oil, look for companies that report their lab results, look for companies that are doing it the right way, companies that have been around. I mean, we do that at Ministry Of Hemp. We have our top brands and there are people that we know can be trusted. So just look for the trustworthy people-
Marielle Weintr: 11:50 The sheer amount of research you do, consumers need to do as well, until we have legitimate quality standards, like the Hemp Authority Certification, but for vape products.
Matt Baum: 12:04 And it's so funny because it's like there's, it's tough enough for hemp right now. We're just about to get all of this legalized. It's the food and drug administration is finally starting to look into things and put stuff in place, and then something like this happens and it's almost like the public was just waiting to hear that there was something dangerous about vaping and we knew it all along. There it is and we don't care what kind of vaping it is and what it was or where it came from. We know it's bad.
Marielle Weintr: 12:36 It has to be the fault of CBD, THC and hemp.
Matt Baum: 12:39 Of course.
Marielle Weintr: 12:40 It's like when you're looking for something bad, you're going to find it.
Matt Baum: 12:43 We knew it.
Marielle Weintr: 12:44 And there are so many companies out there that are trying to do the right thing, and follow the right standards, and have quality assurance, and quality testing, and all the certifications they can possibly get. And you have a few bad apples.
Matt Baum: 12:58 Sure.
Marielle Weintr: 12:58 And this will happen in every industry. This happens in foods, this happens in dietary supplements. The problem is, is we are under a microscope and we have got to self-regulate ourselves just to avoid one group bringing down the entire engine.
Matt Baum: 13:14 So we don't end up right back in [inaudible 00:13:16] madness. Right?
Marielle Weintr: 13:19 Yes. Let's not do that.
Matt Baum: 13:21 Marielle, thank you for fighting the good fight and thank you for the information. I'm glad you're willing to do that job because that sounds like a real headache, but we appreciate you coming on the show and talking with us.
Marielle Weintr: 13:32 Great. And I appreciate the amount of research y'all do. So please keep it up and if there's anything else I can help with, please let me know.
Matt Baum: 13:37 Most definitely. I will shoot you an email. You've been great to talk to. So again, we're just speaking for CBD vaping here, but on the question of is it safe? Yes. But you got to make an informed decision, you got to know where your product is coming from and there is no better place to do that than the top brands section of ministryofhemp.com.
Matt Baum: 14:02 There will be a link in the show notes to Marielle's information. Again, she was wonderful, super informative. Thank you for that. I can't wait to talk to her again and we will have a link to our top brands page where like I said, you can make an informed and safe CBD buying decision.
Matt Baum: 14:25 Now it's time to put on our lab coats and continue our series on extraction, the science of how they get CBD out of hemp. And today we're going to be talking to Steve St.Clair from Enerhealth, who is using a very interesting form of extraction that I'd never heard of. Steve, introduce yourself if you don't mind.
Steve St.Clair: 14:47 I'm the CEO of Enerhealth, E-N-E-R health Botanicals, and we are in the herbal supplement, nutritional supplement industry.
Matt Baum: 15:00 So tell me what you guys do there exactly.
Steve St.Clair: 15:02 Well, we've been processing herbs for a long time, 25 years. Hemp is Just another for us.
Matt Baum: 15:09 Fair enough. Your company is using a type of extraction I have never heard of before I spoke to you. To be honest, I'm not even confident that I am pronouncing it correctly.
Steve St.Clair: 15:21 I mean, I hope I'm saying it correctly. I have no idea. Spagyrics.
Matt Baum: 15:26 Spagyric?
Steve St.Clair: 15:27 Yes. Spagyric extraction.
Matt Baum: 15:29 Spagyric extraction.
Steve St.Clair: 15:29 S-P-A-G-Y-R-I-C.
Matt Baum: 15:32 And what does that involve exactly? How does it work?
Steve St.Clair: 15:35 It's a traditional ethanol extraction. I mean, we've kind of upped our game on that. It's an ethanol extraction. We use organic ethanol. The Spagyric piece, for example, we process the herb, the hemp at room temperature basically. Under degrees. Because we feel like in our experience with working with other herbs, room temperature, just slightly warm ethanol extracts everything you want from the plant.
Steve St.Clair: 16:08 With a lot of herbs. We actually use what you call the menstruum, which is a blend of alcohol, organic alcohol and water, distilled water. Depending on the herb you work with that menstruum, it could be 60% alcohol or water, just different levels. With hemp we don't use any water, other than the water that's actually in the ethanol. It's 190 proof. So it's 5% ethanol.
Matt Baum: 16:39 So it'll mess you up if you drink. That's what you're saying?
Steve St.Clair: 16:42 You don't want to drink this. It's completely nasty.
Matt Baum: 16:45 Fair enough.
Steve St.Clair: 16:46 That stuff will grow hair on your tongue for sure.
Matt Baum: 16:51 How come you don't use any water in the process?
Steve St.Clair: 16:54 Well, the water solubles are not what the hemp plant is known for. It's known for the cannabinoids. But in the process, I mean, we're not just taking cannabinoids out, we're also taking everything that's in the plant. The flavonoids, lipids, waxes, enzymes, everything.
Matt Baum: 17:17 So the Spagyric extraction is better for a full spectrum basically?
Steve St.Clair: 17:23 Well, the Spagyric part of it, that's just the first part. Just the ethanol extraction. The next part of it is, is we take the spent plant material after it's already been, we've gotten everything out of it, and then we further process that and extract all the minerals and salts out of the plant.
Steve St.Clair: 17:46 Then when we have that, we recombine that with the original ethanol extract. So now you have literally everything that was in the plant back together again, but purified.
Matt Baum: 17:58 Sure. Let me ask you. I know a lot of companies are using ethanol extraction, but yours begins with ethanol and then it comes to the Spagyric extractions. Can you explain that for me. What's the next step?
Steve St.Clair: 18:13 I mean, a lot of people do an ethanol extraction, but that's where they stop. That second extraction, actually there's two more extractions after that. Three actually. So after you finish the ethanol extraction, then you're working with the actual plant matter.
Steve St.Clair: 18:33 And there's a process to get the salts in a form where you can recombine it into the original ethanol extract. And what happens, that actually, that whole process when we were working with it, it actually changed my mind about, the way we actually processed herbs.
Matt Baum: 18:57 Really?
Steve St.Clair: 18:59 Yes. Some herbs are really good with the Spagyric process, some aren't. So we actually process quite a few herbs now using this process because, it actually on your gas chromatography, your GCs, lab analysis of the product, we did a before and an after. Before this Spagyric process just the ethanol, and then after we add the salts back. Incredible difference.
Matt Baum: 19:27 Really? What kind of difference are we talking about?
Steve St.Clair: 19:30 Well, you have the gas chromatography that we used initially was, you had a left axis on your left side of the chart, you had the relative abundance of whatever was in there, and on the Y axis you had, your timestamps. So different times, different elements will show up in the chromatography.
Matt Baum: 20:03 So basically the salts-
Steve St.Clair: 20:04 And what happened was, is it sometimes some of those elements were 10 times more prevalent.
Matt Baum: 20:11 Really?
Steve St.Clair: 20:12 10 times.
Matt Baum: 20:13 And what kind of elements are we talking about exactly? Like more than the cannabinoids obviously, there's flavor-
Steve St.Clair: 20:21 The cannabinoids as well. I can send you a chart of that. But the cannabinoids are on the retention time is what they call it on the Y axis. And cannabinoids usually show up at about 5.35 to 5.4 call it, minutes into the the test. And then you have all this other stuff.
Steve St.Clair: 20:51 You have, your oils will show up later on, and it's just amazing. I asked the chemist that actually did it, what all those peaks were and he went, "Well, that would be a full time graduate student for the next three years." To identify all of those because no one's ever worked with this plan. So it was really interesting because the bench chemist that we sent it to, he's PhD, has a lab-
Matt Baum: 21:21 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 21:21 ... and all that. And when we sent it to him, he's told me nothing would happen because that's the salt is an inert substance.
Matt Baum: 21:31 Right. That's why I was asking. It sounds like, no, there is little evidence that showing that adding it back in is maybe magnifying things.
Steve St.Clair: 21:40 That's like some magic happened. So what happened was, he said, "Nothing's going to happen, but I'll take your money and test it."
Matt Baum: 21:47 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 21:47 So he tested it and two weeks later he calls me up and he went, "This should not happen."
Matt Baum: 21:54 Really?
Steve St.Clair: 21:55 "There should be no reaction. This should not happen."
Matt Baum: But it's not just him. This happens to other herbs you guys work with as well.
Steve St.Clair: 22:01 All the herbs. It doesn't matter what the herb is.
Matt Baum: 22:03 Really?
Steve St.Clair: 22:04 Yes.
Matt Baum: 22:05 So how many herbs are you using this kind of extraction on right now?
Steve St.Clair: 22:08 We're only probably using the best sellers. The herbs that we use in different blends, for example, turmeric, that's one of the ones that is visibly stunning, because turmeric is yellow, right?
Matt Baum: 22:24 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 22:26 And then if you put... we put two one gallon clear jars next to one another. Both of them had the same lot number of turmeric, and then one we started adding the salt. And as you add the salt, the tumeric changes color from dark yellow to blood red.
Matt Baum: 22:44 Really?
Steve St.Clair: 22:46 Yes.
Matt Baum: 22:46 That is weird.
Steve St.Clair: 22:50 And I mean, it changes everything about that. How turmeric can be a little spicy and stuff. This is so smooth, it's like, unbelievable boy.
Matt Baum: 23:00 No kidding.
Steve St.Clair: Yes. But some herbs just are not very good with this process. Some of them they become extremely bitter, extremely bitter.
Matt Baum: 23:13 Well, that would make sense. Because if you're adding salt to flavor, it's going to heighten flavor. And if you have something bitter, then that's all it's going to hit it and bam, it's going to go through the roof. Right?
Steve St.Clair: 23:23 Not entirely true. Some of the herbs are bitter and we use this Spagyric process on it. Does it? It actually calms it down and it's different for every plant.
Matt Baum: 23:32 So you're messing with everything I learned in culinary school now. Geez.
Steve St.Clair: 23:35 Yes. It's pretty wild. Well, because there's minerals, the interaction of the minerals and the sauce with the chemical components of the plant and there's such a wide variety that you have to expect some randomness.
Matt Baum: 23:53 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 23:53 I guess. As far as we're concerned, it'd be random. Right?
Matt Baum: 23:56 Right. Chaos theory if you will.
Steve St.Clair: 23:58 [inaudible 00:00:23:59]. But it's very interesting and our working hypothesis is that, the salts are actually exploding the cellular structure of the molecules.
Matt Baum: 24:14 I guess that makes sense. That's what salt does. It reacts with the cellular walls, breaks them down and releases the liquid on the other side. Right?
Steve St.Clair: 24:22 What the working hypothesis is, it's fractionalization of the cell structure.
Matt Baum: Fair enough. It's the same reason salt food.
Steve St.Clair: 24:30 You'll hear a lot of people talk about nano particles and water soluble is actually nanoized particles of CBD or whatever. [inaudible 00:24:40]. And then they encapsulate it with some emulsifier so that it... It's a magic trick. Slight of hand. It looks like it's water soluble but it's still an oil.
Matt Baum: 24:52 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 24:54 Oils and water or not conducive. There's no water solubility. It's just you make the particle size so small, you can't see it. And the way that they do the nanoparticles is a pretty, intense process. But the chemist that worked on this, he said, "I think that somehow it's exploding the cell. So you have the same amount. I mean, you have the same potency, but you have a proliferation now of molecules."
Matt Baum: 25:31 This is basically the same idea in cooking. You season a piece of protein, like a chicken or something. And then when he hits a hot pan, that salt reacts, breaks down the cell walls and the flavor grabs the salt. The liquid, pardon me, grabs the salt and pulls it into the muscle.
Matt Baum: 25:47 The same type of thing is happening here. You're adding the salt theoretically. I'm not a scientist. But theoretically the salts that you're heading back in are hitting the, we'll just say cannabinoids, but I mean, everything that's in there and literally breaking down the molecules so it delivers better.
Steve St.Clair: 26:04 Right.
Matt Baum: 26:04 And that-
Steve St.Clair: 26:05 I mean, that's one way to look at it. But we also think that there's actually asters being formed. Asters are something that, you have two elements and you put them together and all of a sudden you have something new. Which is, it's a chemical reaction and we think that something along the line of what they call a Fischer esterification process has happened.
Matt Baum: 26:33 Just went over my head with that one.
Steve St.Clair: 26:36 So it's just interesting because there hasn't been a whole lot of research done on this particular process and what the eventual structure is one of my chemist, he has a theory that said, "Man, if we can prove this, it's changed the world."
Matt Baum: 26:54 Fair enough.
Steve St.Clair: 26:54 [inaudible 00:26:54].
Matt Baum: 26:56 Fair enough.
Steve St.Clair: 26:56 And from our, just our anecdotal evidence of people that have used this product. I mean, we get pretty amazing stories.
Matt Baum: 27:07 Just so we can sum it all up. From what I understand and tell me if I'm wrong. Say it again. Spagyric, spayrin.
Steve St.Clair: 27:11 Spagyric.
Matt Baum: 27:11 Spagyric. I don't know why I can't say it. Spagyric extraction is basically starting with ethanol to extract the cannabinoids and flavonoids and then further extracting the minerals and salts and then combining them back together.
Steve St.Clair: 27:34 Right.
Matt Baum: 27:36 Now I know. Because I was reading about it and looking at it and not that like your [inaudible 00:27:40] doesn't do a good job as filling this out. I was just not following. It's like, well, how is this different? I don't get it.
Steve St.Clair: 27:47 That's what makes our secret sauce.
Matt Baum: 27:51 Fair enough.
Steve St.Clair: 27:51 That's what it is. I mean, it takes a lot longer to do.
Matt Baum: 27:55 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 27:56 Because we've got actually four extractions going on through the process instead of just one. So it's an interesting process and it's been around for thousands of years. I mean, it's been around.
Matt Baum: 28:11 But obviously not using ethanol, using other types of alcohol I guess.
Steve St.Clair: 28:15 Wine. Alcohol of the day, usually wine of some kind.
Matt Baum: 28:22 I assume the potent the alcohol, the better the extraction.
Steve St.Clair: 28:25 Absolutely.
Matt Baum: 28:26 Make sense.
Steve St.Clair: 28:27 Absolutely.
Matt Baum: 28:27 Okay.
Steve St.Clair: 28:28 Absolutely. What you find with a lot of the cannabinoids, and I mean, this just kind of getting a little too deep in science, but if there's too much water in it, a lot of those cannabinoids will fall out of solution, crashes because there's too much water. Water and alcohol are an azeotrope, they can stick together until you take away too much alcohol and then they separate out. Right?
Matt Baum: 28:56 Sure.
Steve St.Clair: 28:57 Water crashes out.
Matt Baum: 28:59 Which is why they bind it with fat typically. And to put it into, like you said, capsules or an extract or whatever because it's almost an oil and it's like making a dressing. If you don't bind it together, it's going to separate and you've got your oil on top and your vinegar on the bottom.
Steve St.Clair: 29:16 There you go.
Matt Baum: 29:18 Steve, this has been great and honestly I don't think you could have spelled that out better. Sorry, I can't pronounce it, but thank you.
Steve St.Clair: 29:24 Hey, no problem man. It's was a pleasure.
Matt Baum: 29:37 Again, I want to say a huge thanks to Marielle for coming on and talking about vaping and Steve St.Clair for setting us straight on how to pronounce Spagyric and how Spagyric extraction works. Of course in the show notes, there will be links to his site. You'll also find a complete written transcript of the show there for those of you who are hard of hearing.
Matt Baum: 30:00 Thanks again to everybody that regularly calls us at (402) 819-6417 with your hemp questions. We're going to do another hemp Q and A next with Kate and I. These shows have been so much fun and I can't thank you enough for the fantastic questions that you guys have.
Matt Baum: 30:18 You can also email your questions to [email protected] or shoot them to us on Twitter, @MinistryofHemp, or Facebook\Ministry of Hemp. We love to hear from you guys. And hey, if you're enjoying the show, please go to iTunes, go to your app, give us a rating. It really does help us to get this information into the ears of other people that want to learn about hemp.
Matt Baum: 30:41 The Ministry of Hemp Podcast is written and produced by me, your host, Matt Baum. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take care of others, and make good decisions, will you. This is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast, signing off.
Get ready for the new Ministry of Hemp Podcast hosted by Matt Baum! Each episode Matt digs into the world of hemp to explore...
Where can you buy hemp fabric and why isn't it easier to find? What's coming in the future for hemp plastic? It's another episode...
In episode 16 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, we meet a "CBD specialist" and learn about nano-encapsulated CBD. Our host Matt interviews Ambary...