Making dextrin
(A "The Green Hatted Men" tutorial)
Making dextrin is a very simple and cheap.Bought in dextrin is $7 for 454 grams (1 pound) from http://www.pyrodirect.com/ however I got my corn starch for $2.99 for 454 grams, so it is quite a bit cheaper, and there isn’t any shipping time!
So you are going to need
1.) Corn/potato starch (I personally use corn starch)
2.) Empty container
3.) Paper, I use News paper
4.) Oven mitts
5.) Cookie sheet, it is nice if it has sides so that you do not have so much spillage
6.) Screen, any thing from 10 to 100 mesh should work, 40 mesh would be a good size
7.) Oven, sometimes the corn starch will start to smell while it is being cooked so a oven that is outside can be nice at times
8.) Timer
9.) Spatula
The corn starch
First pre heat your oven to
200 Cel
Smoothing it out
sius (400 Fahrenheit).
While your oven is heating up take your corn/potato starch and dump it onto the cookie sheet, and smooth it out with the spatula, about one centimeter thick.
Once the oven is heated to the above
temperature place the cookie sheet with the corn/potato starch in the middle rack, and set the timer for 20 minutes.
20 minutes
After 20 minutes it should look like this.
Pull it out, stir the corn starch, smooth it out again, and stick it back in for another 20 minutes, repeat about 8 times, or until it is golden brown. I suppose you would get a better binder (although I wouldn’t think it would be a noticeable amount) if you took it out and screened it, who has the time though.
40 minutes
After 40 minutes it should look like this.
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1 hour
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After 1 hour it should look like this.
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1 hour and 20 minutes
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After 1 hour and 20 minutes it should look like this.
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1 hour and 40 minutes
After 1 hour 40 minutes it should look like this.
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2 hours
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After 2 hours it should look like this.
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2 hours and 20 minutes
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After 2 hours and 20 minutes it should look like this.
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2 hours and 40 minutes
After 2 hours and 40 minutes it should look like this.
At 2 hours and 40 minutes I called it good. Note that my oven waits until it is heated up to turn on the timer so it actually took longer; only about two minutes each time though, so about 16 minutes on top of the 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Dumping dextrin into the screen
Then take out the cookie sheet and let it cool.
Screening the dextrin
Once the cookie sheet has cooled off,
dump the contents into the screen, and screen it out over the paper, repeat until you have an evenly colored powder, 4 times should be fine.
The finished product
Throw away the lumps that don’t go through the screen.
Put the stuff you just screened (which is now dextrin) into your container and you now have dextrin!
Notes:
1.) If you burn it slightly it may still be usable just make sure to screen out the burnt chunks.
2.) If you burn it really bad it will swell up several time the original size and turn into a dark brown solid mass, and is now useless.
3.) If you under cook the corn/potato starch it will be a weaker binder but still work.
4.) Remember that you will lose some while cooking it do to spills and such so make more then you need at the moment.
If you have any questions or comments you can send the auther a message in two easy steps, first join Pyroguide forum and then send member Adam a personal message
Written by Adam Macdonald
Written for www.Pyrosource.com
All equipment and chemicals supplied by
The Green Hatted Men