Someone was asking about double boilers

[BaronS]

and having one in the cupboard I thought I'd give it a go.

 

The saucepan underneath is about 2/3rds full of water.

The stove is on the lowest setting it can go, which keeps the water in the saucepan on a gentle simmer/boil.

 

I 'stumbled' across the double boiler pot doing the washing up one day. Noticed it fell into the saucepan and had a nice snug fit. Double boilers do not need to fit so snugly but doing so decreases heat/evaporation loss from the bottom pot, allowing for minimal heat input to maintain the (low) boil.

 

I've put a couple of glasses of water and maybe ~100g of butter into the top pot along with a good handful of trim that has been dried for a few days but was not yet smokable.

 

I'll leave the heat on for the next few hours then turn the heat off but leave it alone while I get some kip. Heat it up in the morning to stew for a few more hours. By that time most of the THC should be extracted and I'll squeeze the juice out of the 'flesh' which will be discarded.

 

Chill it and the butter should form a skin on top of green water. Discard the water and replace with fresh, simmer a few minutes so that it extracts any further water soluble material, get out the cookie recipe.

[BaronS]

OK, a few hours later and half the water is gone from the lower saucepan, top it up.

 

Due to the gentle simmer only maybe 1/3rd of the water has evaporated from the top. Pretty disgusting looking stuff at the moment.

 

I'm throwing some cold water in the top, bring to boil and then I'll turn it off and catch some Z's.

[BaronS]

DAMN!!! Glass section has cracked. Must be cheap and nasty.

 

Pretty sure it will hold together long enough to get a result. Pot has cooled overnight, gas is back on to bring to simmer again.

[Chronmasta]

Ya dont need to do it in glass mate, you can use stainless steel

 

 

 

[BaronS]

no shit sherlock.

 

The glass was only used because it 'fell' in the pot one day washing up.

 

Worse part is that I think I've SNAFU'd. Had to do some work this morning and left the pot on when I went out. Morning job turned into an all dayer. Came home to an almost dry lower saucepan and not a lot of liquid in the glass section.

 

and I forgot to get some new cheesecloth, gonna have to use the sieve.

 

OH WELL, it's been on the simmer a LONG time (20 or so hours all up), I expect the veg will almost pass through the sieve.

[Chronmasta]

Well considering i`ve made butter more times than than you`ve had naughties, i thought i would offer some helpful advise ... if ya dont like it, dont take it!

nah you go right ahead and eat your half cooked shlops ...... im sure it will stone your little mind

[BaronS]

I can understand why you may be upset but please realise I did not mean my comment to be taken as snipy, more jocular.

 

Yep, I broke the glass bit. Not sure whether it cracked when I topped up the water (didn't notice anything at the time) or overnight as it cooled. Really, I simply think that it was coincidental that it fit snugly in the top of the pot and wasn't designed for this purpose.

[BaronS]

However, I have a Moccona jar full of green water and butter. The flesh has been removed using a simple sieve (large tea-strainer like thing).

 

The idea now is to pour the water off and replace with fresh, heat only enough to melt the butter and allow the remaining water soluble parts to leach out of the butter.

 

I'm gonna have a fair bit of particulate in the butter, might try to grab some cheesecloth today to better clean it. Got some jobs to do though and am not particularly worried about it.

 

This is the 1st time I've done this double boiler trick and the thing that immediately sticks out is that the volume of butter is not reduced as much as when I've had it over direct heat, something about the more gentle heating perhaps?

[Chronmasta]

cool mate, cheers for clarifying

when you topped it up did you use boiling water out of the kettle? that could be the cause

 

i use double the weight of trim to the amount of butter

eg: 1kg trim to 500g butter

and for best results i cook it for 48hrs.

 

 

you can still continue to cook it if you like.....i also found that when it comes time to strain it really helps to poor boiling water over it while pressing it with a potato masher ......this gets out the best bit imo.

 

 

 

keep at it,

 

 

 

 

Me

[BaronS]

Nah, when I added the water I just slowly poured cold water into the mix. Knew enough to not do it quickly and didn't notice the crack at the time but this may have been the cause.

 

I figure I would have got a fair bit more than 3 dozen pipes out of the amount of trim. The resulting amount of butter looks about right for a dozen of my Peanut Butter Cookies.

 

The butter's melted and the fresh water now has a significant green tinge, back into the fridge to cool and I think I'll do this again.