Anyone here have a Levo II machine?

[treefarmercharlie]

I made an impulse purchase today, because I’m tired of putting off making infused oils and honey, and it seems to get great reviews. I was originally planning on just getting the newest Magical Bitter machine, but the Levo II decarbs, infuses, and filters out the plant material so I went with that instead. Found a discount code online, too, so I got it for $225 shipped. Only issue is that they aren’t shipping until after Christmas. I doubt I’ll use it for butter, but I think it will be great for infusing oils and honey. I haven’t seen if you can do alcohol tincture in it, but I can’t see why not, unless the maybe the alcohol could damage seals or parts. Here’s a link to the product for those who haven’t heard of it. https://shop.levooil.com/collections/all/products/levo-ii

 

[H.A.F.]

Nice.

The dacarb part is the most important - after that you can infuse stuff on the stove if needed. I love the NOVA, and figured there had to be competitors popping up eventually. The price on the NOVA is similar, for the smaller one, so hopefully we'll see prices drop as competition rises.

It looks easier than the NOVA for the infusion and draining, but not sure about clean-up. The NOVA is a snap. Also looks like the capacity in the little chamber for weed is small. Spread the word if it rocks.

The magic butter machine is just an old school percolator coffee pot (essentially) and doesn't decarb anything.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Cleanup looks dead simple. The weed chamber just gets emptied/washed and the pot inside comes right out and can go in the dishwasher. The chamber doesn’t hold a ton but people who own them found that a 4” French press filter fits perfectly in the pot and then you can put your flower straight in the pot instead of the chamber. I like that it has a magnetic stirrer, too.

 

[H.A.F.]

I watched the video - like I said, it 'looks' great. Hope it is. My mom bought cooking things off of infomercials that performed miracles on TV

I would try eating a dose of the decarbed bud before infusing anything. See if it packs a punch. That is the part that is going to make the difference in 'performance'. The rest is mostly convenience - which mine doesn't really have.

 

[SJ_Distiller]

I have the Ardent FX, and highly recommend it for decarbing. I had been decarbing is a sous vide which was a real pain. It is expensive, but it makes decarbing an absolute breeze--just load it up, turn it on, and in about an hour you have fully decarbed weed.

 

[H.A.F.]

Here's a good test to see if the decarb part works well.
20% THC weed contains 200mg of THC per gram.
A gubmint dose is 10mg.
A decent edible buzz for me is about 50mg.
Couched out for a bit when it kicks in is about 100mg

Basically you should be able to just eat a chunk that weighs anywhere from 0.05g to .25g or up to .5g based on your tolerance, and see if it worked.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

It took a month to arrive, but it's finally here! Going to try it out this weekend and will let you all know what I think of it. First impression is that it is built really well and feels solid. It powered right up and was super easy to get on my WiFi and connect to the app that you can use as another way to control it, get notifications when it completes cycles, or see how much time is left on each cycle.

 

[inthetrees]

I can't wait to see how this thing works out for you dude. Looks purdy

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Ok, so I'm currently working on my first batch with this machine and I really like it so far.

One thing I really like it is doesn't start the actual timer until the temp gets to where it needs to be. Decarbing was stupid simple and the smell from it was about 1/4 what I'm used to when decarbing in the oven. The smell during infusion is barely noticeable.

I started out with 10g of coarsely ground GPS Banana Orange Daiquiri


The app they have seems to have a lot of issues, but it is not needed to use the machine. The issues I've noticed so far is it seems to lose the connection to the Levo II pretty often, but still shows it as connected when it really isn't. It also doesn't seem to connect to it unless you are on the local network, even though they say an internet connection is required to connect to it. I'm hoping they are just having server issues today because the app has some nice features like keeping track of settings you've used so you can tweak things with future infusions as well as sending push notifications to your phone when it finishes a cycle.

Here are some screenshots of the app during the activation and infusion cycles




Here's a picture of what the actual infuser looks like during a cycle. This was during the activation (decarb)

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Ok, I really like this thing! Is dispenses pretty much to the last drop on its own. I pressed the flower down in the container to get the last bit out and cleanup was stupid simple. The pot Joe’s out of the machine and a rinse in soapy water was all it needed.

Ok, so here’s the numbers...let me know if I’m estimating the potency wrong.

I used 10g of BOD, which I’m assuming is around 20%THC, so a total of 2,000mg of THC.

If I got 100% extraction into the 6oz of MCT oil, then that would come to I wound up with 2000mg in it, of which I used 5oz in my gummies.(1,666.65mg THC) into 267ml of finished gummy material, which would come out to 6.24mg/ml. Does that sound about right?

The square gummies are 8ml each and the round ones are 2ml each.

 

[H.A.F.]

6.24mg/ml. Does that sound about right?

The gubmint dose is 10mg, so for your 2ml gummies that's there. I do the math backwards - from the number doses I'll make and that total volume back to the total mg of THC needed to get the mg/individual dose.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

I was a dumbass, because I didn’t use the perfectly good immersion blender I have, and the oil separated. I added another teaspoon of lecithin, just to be safe, blended it up real good, and they came out great this time. I lost some in the process so I only had enough to do the 8mL squares. Here they are finished and dusted with a mix of cornstarch, powdered sugar, and citric acid.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

They definitely came out nice and strong. Last night I ate the small overfill bits I trimmed off the corners, which probably equaled about 2-3mL, and i was feeling it good the whole night. My wife ate 1/4 of a gummy (2mL), to help her sleep through the night (she usually wakes up at 2-3am), and she was out for the night and slept until about 6am. I have a buddy with a pretty high tolerance so he’ll be the real test.

 

[H.A.F.]

I make a lot of budder, and I have found that you can do all the THC math you want - the first test is what determines how that batch was - and what future doses from that batch should be

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Just finished a batch of honey. I also used 10g of Banana Orange Daiquiri for this but infused it for 2 hours at 105°. It didn’t change color at all but you can really smell the weed in it.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Was the return on the honey as much as the oil?

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Was the return on the honey as much as the oil?

I lost a little more honey than I did oil, because I really couldn’t squeeze it out of the ground up bud, but there was still very little lost.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Since I made that honey for my friends wife I decided to make a new label that didn't have a sexy woman on it.
Thankfully the "Stoner Bee" I found online and used on the first label was hi-res so I used him to make this label for the honey.

 

[H.A.F.]

Stoner thinking - what if you were to infuse alcohol (with already decarbed stuff) and mix that with the honey - then let the alcohol evaporate? Or opposite and let it evap to mostly oil first, then mix it? You would probably only need to warm the honey enough to make it less viscous.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Stoner thinking - what if you were to infuse alcohol (with already decarbed stuff) and mix that with the honey - then let the alcohol evaporate? Or opposite and let it evap to mostly oil first, then mix it? You would probably only need to warm the honey enough to make it less viscous.

I'm sure that can be done too. The honey was only warmed in the machine to 105 to ensure it didn't change the structure of the honey while making it thin enough to mix with the herb. The only issue I had was the dispensing tube isn't very wide, and it is about 2"-3" long, so even the warm honey takes forever to flow through it. What I'll probably try next time will be to plug the dispensing tube and just pull the whole pot out of the machine so I can pour it out.