If you are looking for a table top herbal infuser with state of the art built-in sensors, the Noids may be the device for you! Noids Green Website
Read our reviews, thoughts on cannabis products here: Maryland Connoisseur Blog
OPERATIONS
The Noids herbal infuser allows its users to decarboxylate and infuse butter or oil with your herb of choice. For those looking for specific therapeutic benefits, the Noids has dedicated CBD functions to ensure CBD is extracted properly. Full Spectrum Extract can also be easily made using the evaporation function, without wasting costly ethanol.
HOW TO
By using the decarb function, the built-in sensors will ensure that the plant material is kept at the appropriate temperature throughout the duration of the decarboxylation process. For THC dominant strains, the listed duration is 1.5-4 hours, while the CBD function is listed as 1.5-2.5 hours.
Once plant material has been decarbed, add oil or butter to the vessel, making sure not to surpass the max fill line. The infusion process is listed as taking around 2.5 hours for THC strains and 3 hours for CBD strains. Once the infusion process is complete, users can filter their end product from the plant material using the included filtration set. A pipette is included so that every last drop of oil can be used.
If concentration is more your speed, the unit can also be used to evaporate ethanol from tinctures to leave behind Full Spectrum Extract. The included condenser reclaims the alcohol vapors meaning you can reuse the ethanol after the extraction.
THE NOIDS
On the surface, the infuser is a sleek black cylinder with discreet markings that takes up no more room than a roll of paper towels. This makes it an ideal countertop device to have running in the background and not interfering with daily activities. The unit itself blends right in with my other kitchen appliances and I was able to store the accessories in a kitchen drawer. The physique of the unit allows the user to leave it out on display even when houseguests arrive without the worry of intrusive questioning.
Diving into the specifics, each unit comes with a glass set, a filter set, a condenser, and a brush for cleaning.
GLASS
The glass set features a beaker style glass vessel equipped with built-in sensors to ensure the product is kept at the correct temperature at all times. The vessel contains measurement markings so the user can determine the volume of product and solvent. The top of the vessel is frosted and outfitted with a silicone grip that allows the user to pick up the glass while it is still hot without the risk of burning themselves, while also providing grip. The glass should be topped with the included silicone dish lid. The lid acts as a cover to lock in vapors while infusing, as well as an evaporation dish for further evaporation of ethanol from the end product, if needed.
FILTER
The filter set acts similarly to a french press. A filter disk is inserted into a silicone funnel at the bottom of a spout. By pushing the filter unit down, the walls of the funnel will collect any solvent on the sides of the glass and pushes the solvent up the spout, separating plant material from solvents. Simply pour your finished product into another container for storage.
PIPETTE
A unique feature of the Noids is that users are able to get every last drop of oil from the filtered leftover plant material. Connect the included pipette to the spout using the provided silicone ball, add warm water to leftover plant material, wait for the residual oil to rise to the top, and gently push down on the filter to collect every drop of oil.
CONDENSER
Perhaps my favorite accessory to the device, the condenser offers users a way to reclaim ethanol that is evaporated during the evaporation cycle. Ethanol vapors that would traditionally be wasted by evaporating into the open air are, instead, collected and channeled through a cooling condenser tube and deposited as liquid ethanol in the container of your choice. Up to 95% of the ethanol used for extracting can be reclaimed and used again!
MY EXPERIENCE...
Once I gathered an array of my favorite herbs, I began prepping for the decarb function. At the advice of the guide provided with the unit, I broke up the plant material into uniform, small buds in order to decarb the product fully. I used around 7 grams of choice buds for my initial run. I enjoyed the fact that I was decarbing the plant material in the same vessel that I would be doing the infusion in.
No extra parts to mess around with or clean later makes this similar to a one-pot recipe. Great for those of us that prefer to do less dishes!
I put the glass beaker into the device and secured the lid on the top. After setting the Noids to the Decarb function the display LED turned green and the device chimed, indicating that it was starting the process. During this time I was able to walk away and take care of other tasks around the house.
It took around 1.5 hours to complete the decarb cycle and then entered a cool down mode. The cycle change was indicated by the LED turning a white color, although the cooldown fan keeps running until the device is below 50 ℃ or 122 ℉. I removed the vessel before the cooldown timer was over and the fan stopped.
For this particular infusion, I added a quarter cup of unsalted butter directly into the vessel with the aforementioned decarbed material. Then I put the lid on, returned the vessel to the unit, and initiated the infusion process. After losing track of time, I came back to the device around 2.5 hours later and found that it was on its cooldown cycle. As the glass itself was cool enough to work with, I was able to remove the glass beaker utilizing the silicone grip at the top of the beaker. I found this advantageous because you can work with your oil or butter while it is still warm without the risk of burning yourself.
From there, I separated the butter from the plant material using the filter set and pouring my butter into a Pyrex measuring cup. I like how the filter works to scrape down the sides of the glass beaker meaning I didn’t have to fumble around with a spatula.
I wanted to attempt to use the optional pipette function to get all of the butter separated from the plant material so I added warm water to the plant material and let it sit until the butter rose to the top. I attached the pipette to the spout of the filter and gently pushed down but I wasn’t able to get the butter completely separated from the water I added in; so, I wound up discarding the mixture. I am not sure if it was user error or if this feature would work better with oil instead of butter. However, I tried again with oil but received the same results. This was the one downside I found, nevertheless, I took this to mean the majority of the oil had been successfully filtered out.
Using another 7 grams of decarbed flower, I did a quick 15 minute wash by mixing the bud with 95% ethanol, shaking gently every 3 minutes. Then I strained the infused ethanol into the glass beaker. By attaching the condenser to the filter spout and using the evaporation function, I was able to make Full Spectrum Cannabis Oil and reclaimed most of the ethanol that was used. I found this to be a feature that sets this device apart from similar infusers.
All in all, this process took around 5 hours to complete and I was left with about 0.75 g of extract. It was a bit liquidy still, so I let it evaporate on a hotplate. They suggest letting the residual ethanol evaporate on the silicone lid at room temperature, but I can be impatient! It only took another half hour to get it at the consistency that I desired.
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FINAL PRODUCTS
The butter, oil, and extract all came out looking as it should. As I am used to a standard time and temperature for traditional oven decarbing, I was a bit skeptical about the amount of time the device needed to decarb. I trusted the built-in sensors, because I knew they would be more accurate than my kitchen oven.
The Noids website provides a dosage guide for the end product that I found to be fairly accurate. I got the desired effect out of my products, which reassured me that the sensors of the device work well. I enjoyed being able to easily strain the oil from the plant material and, although there was a bit of residual in my final products, but I was easily able to filter it again using cheese cloth.
By being able to reclaim the ethanol, the device will pay for itself in savings. Overall, I feel that the Noids provides a nice, “set it and forget it” style of infusion that is easy to use and takes up minimal counter space.