4" Wiped Film Still by Pope - Need Advice

Hash and Stuff Extraction
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Not a fan of the Ares but it is useful for one thing. Complete solvent removal. Leave your crude in there longer under full vac for an extra 15 minutes or so. No more solvents

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After all solution has entered the ares i usually let the vacuum and steam run 20 minutes longer or until ethanol drips have slowed to 1-2 drips per 30 seconds. I usually still end up with some ethanol still in the crude, so i purge out the rest in the vacuum oven. Could i be hurting my crude in doing so? I know the Still will remove some but was thinking it would be easier on the still if removed as much ethanol as possible before running it through.

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you donā€™t want a single drop of ethanol in your crude before putting it into your pope.

are you running with a diffusion pump? it would help us help you if you listed every single heat/vac/feed rate parameter as our friend mentioned a few posts up

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you got a roto?

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You absolutely can run a volatiles strip before your first cannabinoid pass- a wiped film is actually the best tool for this IMO-

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Or you could run clean and avoid this shit. :octopus::stuck_out_tongue:

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What does run clean mean to you?

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I had red discolorations when running my 2". Usually more so with CBD than THC material. If youā€™re running your column hot (175+ Celcius), and thereā€™s residual volatiles, I heard once those terpenes hit the column, they volatilize, or burn, either way, they cause a red discolorations.

My fix was running the column maybe around 60-70C, full vac. The result still looked like tar, but there a couple ml in my coldtrap. Next pass I go 170-180C, and the resulting color is your typical amber-gold disty

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This thread feels really good. I like it.

If you use the search and look for ā€œred distillateā€ there are some really good threads including the washing step @Rowan mentioned.

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winterize and clear up the crude as much as humanly possible so that when itā€™s ran itā€™s not a dirty mess that gunks up the wiper.

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Seriously. What about all the folks running terp and solvent stripping in their rotos and wiped films?

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unfortunately not

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1st pass:

Internal: 20C
Main Jacket: 130C
Vac: 500mTorr-700mTorr
Wiper Speed: 120
Feed Speed: Gravity Fed at 800ml-900ml per hour

2nd Pass:

Internal: 70C
Main Jacket: 155C
Vac: 150mTorr - 350mTorr
Wiper Speed: 220
Feed Speed: Gravity Fed at 800ml-900ml per hour

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These are just the parameters on what i was taught through pope

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You should be running the wiper faster IMO, slower feed rate is generally the other perameter to adjust

Shorter residence time and thinner film is the gist of it

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How fast do you recommend?

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Whatā€™s the viscosity of your crude at your feed temp?

Send me a sample and Iā€™ll run it on my handy dandy synchro-Lectric Viscometer, we can dial your process in with SCIENCE and DATA

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We try to get it pretty thin, and unless you live in oklahoma i cannot send a sample

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just speaking from personal experience, i know thereā€™s people doing it but IMO even if youā€™re doing terp stripping in a WFE, ethanol present will lead to vacuum issues (via oil contamination), especially if youā€™re using diffusion (again oil contamination) and especially if youā€™re going to use that same unit for the cannabinoid passes after the terp strip pass. if youā€™re running the cannabinoid passes on a separate unit this is less of a concern.
rotos are fine for this as theyre set up specifically for solvent removal (i realize people use these for terp strips as well, i donā€™t consider them efficient enough to use for really anything in my own lab).
certainly my statement is more binary than the complex reality around this, you got me on that. i just think for this particular situation thatā€™d be a good first step/something to be on top of

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I typically run hotter on my volatile/terp strip, 150c. With a good cold trap, a little EtOH is not a problem,
I would never run a diffusion pump on a volatile strip. Never.
Our unit uses rollers, not wipers. My understanding is that wipers have ā€œridgesā€ the force the material downward so unlike rollers, a faster wiper speed means *less * residency time. No? @Rowan
My 2 centsā€¦