I feel while scaremongering can be important to keep idiots safe it was not the case with this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/bc1n6u/whats_the_verdict_on_home_coffee_extracts/
According to this study on the lipid content of coffee: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8477916/ you can only get 44 micrograms per ml of extract at most.
But on to more important matters.
Lipid pneumonia has only been recorded as having been caused by inhaling unvaporized droplets of long chain lipids, specifically mineral oil (or sometimes animal fats ie cholesterol), and has only been seen in people who aspirate large unvaporized droplets of this mineral oil regularly; people on respirators and divers whose equipment is lubed with mineral oil, or in the severely obese where cholesterol builds up in the lungs because everywhere else is already packed.
The reason they get lipid pneumonia is that these mineral oils (and cholesterol) have hugely long carbon chains, which make them too large an heavy for the lungs to absorb, and if large unvaporized droplets are inhaled, these drops can stick inside the alveola and prevent them from exchanging gases. Since the body can't clear them out, if enough droplets are inhaled, lung function suffers and becomes a pneumonia. Plant based lipids, on the other hand, have small carbon chains and are small molecules that can be absorbed and broken down by the body, and so do not build up like droplets of mineral oil, and so cannot cause lipid pneumonia.
THC, CBD, terpenes, these are all lipids. You can't get rid of lipids in an extract. Winterizing removes some medium length inactive waxy lipids, but not all the lipids. If it did, you wouldn't have anything left: extracts contain lipids. But that's OK: No one has ever gotten lipid pneumonia from plant based lipids. Not once in the entire history of people smoking and vaping plants with lots of lipids like marijuana, tobacco, and more, has it ever caused lipid pneumonia. Not even in people who inhale massive amounts of plant based lipids (like THC) all-day, every-day.
Some folks on vaping forums a few years back, when trying to figure out how to flavor eliquids safely, stumbled upon the term lipid pneumonia, and jumped to the conclusion that all lipids are unsafe to inhale without understanding what the condition is or what really causes it. They (and those who believed them) started spouting online that plant based lipids like terps (or in this case coffee oil) were unsafe to vape. Since this occurred during the big diacetyl scandal, it blew up as another supposed safety problem with vaping..... but to assume plant lipids cause lipid pneumonia ignores this huge subset of society (stoners, tobacco smokers) that have been smoking and vaping plant lipids for millennia without a single case of lipid pneumonia.
TLDR: It's fine, plant based lipids don't cause lipid pneumonia, only animal fats and mineral oils can, and the only reason it's mentioned in vaper and stoner(concentrate) circles at all is because of a internet scare based on misunderstanding the term.
The lipid content is in no way negligible see: https://jimseven.com/2007/03/15/espresso-meets-a-centrifuge/
Bottom line: If you have the ability to make extracts the you have the knowledge to make proper extracts yourself. If you have to ask then you don't. its pretty simple.
You don't have to be a chemist, god knows RTE, NET, et al, dont't have chemists on the payroll but they do know what they are doing.
I have not problems with people making their own extracts, in fact I do it and think its great, however its not something the average mixer should do.
The only real exception to this is tobacco which really takes minimal research to do it and do it safely.
The article I linked actually addresses espresso. It's made differently than regular filtered coffee so all the lipids are still there. So compared to the 44 micrograms per ml of lipids in coffee, you're getting about 1mg/ml or 1000 micrograms per ml of lipids in espresso.
I still believe this would be fine, but I'm just pointing out the minute amount of lipids in regular coffee as a preface to my actual argument in the post. Espresso just takes it overboard on all fronts.
Halle-freakin-lujah!
Kinda pointless though, ignorance is contagious, and its spreading like wildfire here.
I like to think on the positive side of it. Vaping is in a difficult place where everyone is on high alert to prevent any negative news stories from breaking. Yes this has dampened the progress of vaping as a whole, but it keeps us safe when in doubt.
People don't often have the time to read deeply into such niche things as lipid pneumonia. So they've gotta take popular opinion as the next best thing. I'm hoping to help break past that and let us progress safely into herbal extractions of all sorts.
good post and I'm not flaming here just saying this seems to look at lipids in a finished brew of coffee, we still don't know if extracting them yourself and making them into a concentrate to vape is "safe" You would be inhaling waaaaay more oils than your average stoner, and it still may not be good for your lungs. I'm sure there is a filtering process you can do to make it safer though.