This is only for RSO to be sent to labs for testing.
I guess I always focused on a clean RSO w/o fats and waxes. An extraction that doesnāt need winterization.
Acetone works great. I would consider using it again if I could.
Calling it āRSOā intrigues meā¦
because it means different things to different people
I donāt know that Rick ever suggested Acetone.
Given he suggested Naptha, who knows.
Iāve also got a local producer that is calling an almost pristine 70-75% cannabinoids cyro-ethanol extract āRSOā because thatās what folks have heard about on the internet. So they buy it.
I get that youāre sending it off for testing. In reality the lab needs miniscule amounts for actual testing. They always ask for more than they actually need to perform the analysis at least a couple of times.
How much are you making, vs how much do they ask for?
How big are the biomass batches youāre sampling?
Are they in-house or external?
how you sample lots that might not be homogeneous is going to affect your false -ve/+ve rates.
were it me. I would extract in 50ml falcons. 5 gm biomass. with ethanol.
taken as 5 one gram samples per 15lb batch (METRC batch size in OR, last time I looked)
Iād use a speed vac (vacuum/heated centrifuge!) with one of these rotors
Lab Evaporators for sale | eBay to remove solvent. capture in matching savant cold trap.
but thatās just me 
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Notice the end of the clamp has been sharpened for use as a cork-borer. Probably for my first cold trap. Or at least the first one I had to cobble from scratch.
Edit: newly installed in my electric car. A 2011 Th!nk. As an inside joke around the dangers of internal combustion 
(and sharp objects)
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BMF does that here in WA
Bump.
New gig. Need to figure this out for Rec/METRC in a hydrocarbon lab.
With hemp nobody cares about 10-20g grabbed from here/there/everywhere being extracted and sent off for testing, but under METRC everything needs documented.
I can certainly destroy samples for testing, either internal or external, and document that destruction. Trick is gonna be setting up the micro-extractions in a safe and repeatable fashion.
Weāre gonna be using hydrocarbons, probably straight n-butane to start, but machine is specāed for 70/30.
The (rather thin) survey from once upon a time (above) suggests that using our extraction solvent as our test solvent is the preferred routeā¦but that glass tube on my dashboard isnāt gonna cut it.
Nor do I really want to reuse the solvent.
Has anyone formalized a micro-butane extraction on their incoming biomass in a regulated environment?
How exactly are you playing/documenting that?
How about screening with a different solvent? (Has it ever led you astray?)
Iād test with the solvent you run with first and foremost. Maybe run a couple other micro extractions with other solvents to see if you can concentrate any nasties that may be present that your normal solvent doesnāt extract so well. More data = more better
Maybe consider something close in properties as your bulk extraction solvent. If you sre using butane/propane maybe try pentane for your incoming biomass extraction.
Maybe create a new item in Metrc called āQC Sample (biomass)ā And just manifest to a testing lab per usual
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Iāve proposed a tiny (10gram) CLS with a controlled leak on the ārecoveryā tank. whereby the ārecoveredā solvent is actually bled off to atmosphere over an extended period of time. what I havenāt done is contact my 3rd party engineer (just did that) to figure out how we can get that sort of noise past the fire marshal.
what Iād really like is a add-on to the Luna (or any certified rig) that formalized this process for all.
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Adjust and waste after extraction in METRC.
Edit: maybe only testing labs can do this, thereās a dialog box that says āTesting lab use onlyā.
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yeah, that sounds like a safer option, and certainly an easier one to get past the AHJ should the question ever arise. probably canāt get much closer to butane than pentane as far as āwhoās coming for the rideāā¦but I do worry about the (potential) differences in extraction efficiency if I stray from my production solvent.
pretty sure I can also document destroyed for āin-house QCāā¦never tried flying the Organoleptics: In House QC? METRC designation, but I do feel itās an important piece of getting this job done right.
Iām wondering about using a 20lb ārecoveryā tank for the itty bitty CLS, and then taking the potentially contaminated solvent off-site to power one of these (whoops, I mean; āsafely incinerateā).
EDIT: although using river rocks here doesnāt sit well with meā¦ it was just a random example of the concept. Iāve made decent cutting edges by heating river rocksā¦
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why not just recovery pump your miniscule solvent pool?
blast using a <1in x 1in spool into a 3inch sight collection.
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Because I donāt want to use (potentially) contaminated solvent again.
Lots of small runs pumped/recovered into a 20lb tank that is safely flared off at another location would certainly fit the bill. So long as nobody looked too hard at the ādisposalā plan.
Plenty of trs-21s collecting dust that could manage the ārecovery for disposalā
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Itās been a while since I was on the METRC user groupā¦but Iām reasonably sure I can take my samples, create an appropriate package, and either manifest it to the third party lab or document that it was analyzed in house.
If they havenāt wrapped their heads around that concept yet, they will need to be educated. I was just hoping to find someone who had already formalized this ritual and had the pipeline documented in metrc friendly terms.
Regulators certainly have no business telling me that I canāt do pilot extractions and test them in house before purchasing or processing a batch/lot.
Nor can they legitimately argue that huffing the product to determine marketability is off the table.
Only that I must track the cannabis that goes in the tubeā¦
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@RogueSky has apparently mulled this over in the pastā¦
Ha!! @cyclopath , I knew youād suck me into this after we chatted!! Iām not a chemistā¦ just a dumb engineer, so I canāt speak to the chemicals used, but I did develop a design for a micro extractor a few years ago for the very purpose of sample testing a few grams. We shelved it because we got busy, but was a fun project.
The original one was for butane, but itās functionally simpler to run ethanol or acetone. The idea was pretty simple. Have a separate cylinder filled with butane (cryo or not), or a liquid of your choice, then do a nitrogen push through the biomass tube and into the collection cup. Provide some light heat to the collection cup and vapor off the solvent to atmosphere. Not much to vent off and itās not worth the cost for recovery, especially if the solvent could get fouled. Thereās obviously more bits to make this work, but the concept is a simple one. As long as itās used in a controlled environment like a C1D1 or under a flammable fume hood, itāll fly with the AHJ and itās covered with the peer review report.
If there is interest, we could pull a system together, but will have to wait until we get through Vegas next week. Iāve always thought there is real value to having a system like this out in the wild and Iām happy to see people poking around the idea.
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lol I think know which lab. They haveā¦ billboards, and cheap stinky distillate.
Once upon a time, i used to do micro extractions by stuffing a small copper tube with ~1g of biomass, and injecting canned butane through into a tared 40ml vial. Then i would let the butane evaporate and weigh what remained, and test it. I did all this inside a fume hood.
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This topic intrigues me. I do āmicro extractionā of incoming source material by doing like described by other users as āa pinch here a pinch there a pinch everywhere!ā. Solvent of choice is Acetone. To me it was:
*Source Material
*Beaker
*Pyrex Dish
*Coffee Filter
*Rubber band
*Hot plate
*Fume Hood
*PPE
After acetone evaporated, oil would get placed inside sample jars and labeled for testing. Whatās interesting to me is how sometimes our R&D tests would come clean, but when extracted via closed loop hydrocarbons i have seen a test or two pop up hot for pesticides upon getting final COA. So, reading from some of your guyās experience it might have been I didnāt use the original solvent of extraction, which in my case is butane.
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Better to do a quick turkey baster sized open blast imo
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