How to Make Full-Extract Cannabis Oil (FECO)

Have you heard about a powerful plant medicine called FECO, also known as full-extract cannabis oil? Did you know it is easy enough to make at home? Yes, even for beginners! Here, you will find step-by-step instructions for making your own at home, followed by all of my favorite ways to use this powerful cannabis plant as a potent tincture, topical, or edible final product.

Why You Will Love This Guide

For many people in my Well With Cannabis Community, FECO is the holy grail in the world of cannabis extractions. 

Full extract cannabis oil, also known as FECO, RSO oil, or Phoenix tears, is a cannabis extract made by soaking the cannabis in a solvent like alcohol. 

The alcohol is then evaporated, leaving behind the concentrated plant oils that contain important cannabinoids like THC and CBD. 

This method is one of the best ways to extract a full spectrum of cannabinoids, which may have therapeutic effects when consumed.

This is also one of the few concentrates that is easy to make at home; it is versatile and can be used in so many different ways, from edibles and topicals to tinctures and capsules.

Are you excited and ready to get started?

My best advice is to read this entire guide first before getting started.

Then follow my step-by-step instructions for making FECO at home with helpful tips for how to do it safely so you end up with nothing but the purest plant medicine in the end. 

What is Full-Extract Cannabis Oil?

Before jumping in, let’s break down a few important things about full-spectrum oil before starting.

If you’re already familiar with cannabis oil, you know that regular cannabis oil is an oil infusion made by soaking the cannabis plant in oil.

The fat in the oil helps attract the cannabinoids we want, like THC or CBD.

This process is different.

When we are making FECO, we use alcohol as a tool to remove the cannabinoids from the plant material. 

We then remove the alcohol, leaving behind the cannabinoids in a concentrated full-spectrum extract.

Alcohol is very efficient at extracting not only the major cannabinoids but also minor cannabinoids, terpenes, and other chemical compounds. 

These constituents come together to produce a full-spectrum, whole-plant extract, which contributes to what is known as the entourage effect.

When we consume FECO, this is a powerful concentrated cannabis extract that interacts with our endocannabinoid system. 

The resulting oil can be extremely potent, making FECO an excellent choice to be used for medical purposes. 

Members of my Well With Cannabis Community report using cannabis for chronic pain, managing symptoms through cancer treatments, and managing certain medical conditions.

Once your FECO is prepared, it truly is one of the most versatile cannabis products that can be used in so many different different ways, from tinctures, topicals, and edibles. 

FECO utilizes food-grade grain alcohol, which is considered a safer solvent than isopropyl alcohol or naptha used in the RSO method.

• Isopropyl alcohol, rubbing alcohol, like the kind you would find in your medicine cabinet, IS NOT SAFE TO INGEST. 

In this guide, we are making full-extract cannabis oil with a tincture made with food-grade grain alcohol, which is safe for human consumption.

If you are having problems finding high-proof, food-grade grain alcohol, check out this guide to help you access safe products.

Step #1 – Decarboxylate

Before jumping in and pouring alcohol over your cannabis flower, you must ensure you don’t forget this crucial step – decarboxylation. 

Without decarboxylation, you may not experience the full range of effects from activated cannabinoids like THC or CBD.

When we decarb, we heat the cannabis flower at a low temperature over a specific period of time to allow for complete decarboxylation without destroying the other beneficial compounds, such as terpenes or flavonoids. 

Decarboxylation can be done with the traditional oven or in the Instant Pot. 

Time Note

The time and temperature should be adjusted depending on whether you are working with THC flower, CBD flower, or even CBG flower. 

Use this guide to decarb at the right temp for the type of flower you have:

Step #2 – Make a Tincture

The second step is to prepare an alcohol-based cannabis tincture. Using alcohol is a very common way to make herbal tinctures at home.  

You can follow the long-soak, Green Dragon, or Golden Dragon freezer methods. This can also be used to make CBDA, THCA, or root tinctures.

Either option works. I ran lab tests to compare the efficacy of each method, and the results are posted here.

According to the results, the Green Dragon method produces a more potent tincture. However, this method produces a stronger-tasting tincture with more residual plant matter like chlorophyll. 

Some people believe chlorophyll is an important part of a full-spectrum extract, while others don’t appreciate the taste.

Your Next Steps

Once your tincture is made, you have many choices on what you want to do with your tincture. 

You can stop the process here, not evaporate, and enjoy an alcohol tincture to be used in cocktails like sangria.

You can also pour the tincture over sugar to make cannabis sugar or use it in some of your favorite recipes, like gummies made with tincture. 

You can also move on to step three, where we evaporate off 95% of the alcohol to make our cannabis oil. 

Step #3 – Evaporate

Remember when I said at the beginning of this guide that we were going to use alcohol as a tool? 

By now, the tool has served its purpose, extracted the medicine we want, and now it’s time to get rid of the alcohol.

By evaporating the alcohol, we are getting rid of the dreaded burn, concentrating the volume, and creating a high-potency, full-spectrum oil that contains all of the medicinal benefits of cannabis. 

But before getting started, there are a few safety concerns to keep in mind before evaporating the alcohol from your tincture.

• We are using high-proof alcohol, which is EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE. 

That is why we want to be careful about how we evaporate the alcohol.

If you introduce high temperatures to an open flame while trying to evaporate the alcohol, you risk starting a fire or, even worse, having an explosion.

• I never recommend evaporating the alcohol over an open flame or gas-burning stove. This is dangerous and unnecessary.

Thankfully, I have safe evaporation solutions outlined here and have shared the two most popular methods below.

Evaporation At Room Temperature

You can allow the alcohol to evaporate just by allowing the tincture to sit at room temperature uncovered.

It is the safest option but can take a very long time. 

Below is a picture of a shot glass I filled with 1 ounce of tincture. It took around 3-4 days for the alcohol to evaporate completely. 

The black oil you see left behind in the glass is the FECO. If you use this method, use glass whenever possible.

I recommend adding a coffee filter or other breathable material to the top of the jar to prevent contaminants from getting in.

If you prefer this method of evaporation, you can also use it to make easy tincture-infused gummies.

Evaporate Alcohol With Heat

To help speed up the process, we want to introduce heat to help evaporate the alcohol faster – but without an open flame. 

My favorite safe and easy solution is to create a water bath with this mini-warming crockpot. 

This is a perfect solution because the mini-crockpot does not heat above 160° F, meaning it won’t destroy any cannabinoids. 

You want to ensure you do not have the lid on the jar during this process, as this will prevent any of the alcohol from evaporating.

I recommend doing this in a room with good ventilation, keep the windows open, or use a fan to keep the airflow moving. 

The evaporating alcohol has a strong odor that may be unpleasant in a small, confined space.

If you don’t have or want to use a mini-crockpot, I have many more ideas in my guide for safely evaporating alcohol from tinctures.

What You’re Looking For

The evaporation process is how you get from a liquid tincture to your final FECO oil end product. 

When you have successfully evaporated all of the alcohol, you will be left with a small amount of very dark, thick, sticky, molasses-like oil.

This is your FECO, full-extract cannabis oil. Only a very small amount of this oil will be left at the end.

Many people think they may have done something wrong the first time, but this is normal. 

Remember, we are concentrating only on the things we want – plant medicine compounds – and getting rid of what we don’t – plant matter.

At the end, when you have evaporated all of the alcohol, you will be left with a small amount of concentrated cannabis oil. 

• Note that the alcohol will leave the container through evaporation, and your volume will drop significantly. 

Don’t worry; this is normal. The good stuff is what is left behind.

A rough guesstimate expects to use 1 cup of tincture and collect only approximately 3 milliliters of FECO.

Step #4 – Prep for Storage

From here, there are many ways you can collect the FECO and store it for long-term use.

Properly made and stored FECO should last at least six months, often longer if kept refrigerated.

One of the most simple ways to store it is to keep it in an airtight glass vessel of your choice. 

However, FECO can be sticky and hard to work with, which is why I recommend using these reusable glass locking syringes to collect the small amount left behind.

Not only are they a great way to store your medicine without making a mess, but they contain mL labeling, which helps make dosing easier. 

Keep in mind collecting FECO may be difficult due to its sticky nature. Be sure to collect the oil while it is still warm. 

If it is too thick to draw into the syringe, add a few drops of either more alcohol or carrier oil of choice, like MCT oil, to thin it out, as outlined below.

Mix with a Carrier Oil

Many people prefer to mix in a carrier oil because of the sticky, molasses-like texture of FECO products.

This step will help to dilute the FECO and make a more viscous, tincture-like oil. 

One of the most popular carrier oils to mix FECO with is MCT oil, a form of coconut oil that is liquid at room temperature. 

Other options include olive oil, coconut oil, or butter.

If you want your final product to be more like an oil-based tincture, I recommend mixing 1mL of FECO with 29mL of oil for a 30mL infusion. 

Note: You may need to heat them together slightly to get them to combine. 

If you do have to heat them together, do NOT heat them in the microwave. 

Combine the oil and FECO in a double boiler or use one of the gentle methods suggested here.

Put into Capsules

Another way to consume FECO is to put it into capsules that can then be swallowed or used as a rectal or vaginal suppository. 

Check out my guide to making and filling cannabis capsules to make FECO capsules that can be swallowed.

Step #5 – Dose & Consume

At the end of this process, depending on how much cannabis you started with, you may only have a tiny bit of FECO, so small it needs to be measured in milliliters.

This is normal, but you must keep in mind that all of the same mg of THC are now concentrated into one very small amount.

Typically, you will hear people say to take a rice-grain-sized dose.

This is because even just a little bit of FECO, the size of a grain of rice, can be very high in THC.

These higher concentrations mean you only need a very low dose to get the desired effect.

• The most important thing when working with FECO is to follow the golden rule: start low and go slow. 

You don’t want to accidentally take a higher dose than your body can handle and end up feeling unwell.

Even just a single syringe of RSO or FECO can contain upward of 900mg of THC, so be careful. 

The most common side effects of overconsumption include fatigue, anxiety, and hallucinations. 

While I don’t want to scare you, I want you to be aware that there are different concentrations for different types of products, and this is one of the most potent.

If you wrote down how much cannabis you started with in grams at the beginning of the process, you can use the edibles dosage calculator to calculate the potency of your final product.

How to Use FECO

Okay, now, finally, the fun stuff.

Once your FECO is prepared, it can be used in many different ways and application methods.

From sublingual tinctures to homemade topicals and, yes, even edibles. 

It can be as simple as adding a drop to your favorite lotion to make a potent topical or adding a drop to your favorite food recipes like brownies.

• Again, it is not recommended to use FECO for inhalation or vaping. 

If you are new to using a concentrate like FECO in recipes and edibles, check out my guide to making edibles with cannabis concentrates.

Frequently Asked Questions