I'm far from an expert in regards to distillation but I'm learning everyday. This may be a silly question but, I make 65% crude winterized through three sets of filters (20 micron,12 micron and 2 micron) using vacuum buchner filtration. Winterization is only in a -20 freezer for 24 hours but seems to get a ton of waxes and fats out. It is CO2 extraction and subsequent distillation via Wiped Film. I am trying to figure out what the remaining 10% in the distillate is composed of and how difficult it is to quantify or identify what remains. Typically we are getting 85-90% from our 60-65% crude. winterized. Just looking for some opinions. Thanks.
Just curious, when you start with your 65% winterized crude, how much distilate do you end up with? If you start with 1000grams do you end up with at least 650 grams in return?
Everything is in a gradient. Usually people split their crude up into 3 parts when distilling. Heads, main and tails. Heads would be the solvent, terps, and azulene. Main is the distillate u desire. The tails is the dark red almost black part that contains a whole mystery of stuff that remains in the boiling flask. Ask you go from heads to main body, you will have a gradient, at first it will be alot of unwanted and very little thc, then as it gets into main body it will have more thc and less unwanteds. So at some point u have to cut the fractions, to get your distillate separated from the rest. Due to not having a perfect split, you will have some of your desired cannabinoids left in the heads and tails. Otherwise youd have pretty much exactly the d9 thc content put in as you would get out.
So in short, expect 90% of your thc to be collected with 10% lost to the gradients everytime you run. If you took your sweet time and ran it incredibly slow and careful, u can probably get that to 95%
So you would say that if you’re starting with 65% crude, meaning 650 gs of that crude is thc, you would expect to get 90% of that 650 back In the body ? So you’d get around 585gs of the desirable stuff? But that body isn’t going to be 100% thc it’s going to be around 85%, so wouldn’t you get more then 585 back?
I cant give you an exact answer because I dont do enough testing to tell you. Here are my averages,
60% total weight yield from crude to first pass.
90% total weight yield from first pass to second pass.
First pass being 80-85% and second pass is 90%.
Keep in mind that even 10g that is left layered on the inside of the flask after being heated is atleast another 1%.
You can get 99+% with wiped film but youll always have some undesirables carryover. So if you have 65% crude with a bit of extra work youll yield 75+% by weight. As far as compositions on undesirables go its plant crap.
Okay because I was just trying to figure out the total cannabinoids recvoered from crude that is 65%. So basically if you average 60% total weight you get back 600gs at the end. But if those 600gs are 80% thc then 480 of those 600gs that you recovered is actually thc. So in all, you start with 650 grams of thc that is available in the crude, but only 480 of those 650gs is recovered ?
90% seems pretty good, there is a certain emerging understanding in the market that “full-spectrum” / synergy / entourage effect are good things. The plants co-evolved with us, we are spiritually connected with them, its OK to leave some of the composition there, it is likely better medicine…