I was wondering if there are any vendors here or someone with the knowledge to offer advice…
What I thought was a closed loop extractor that I ordered from Amazon turned out to be nothing more than a jacketed column with a few parts thrown in, which in my opinion is nothing more than a controlled open blast system…
Anyway I find myself in need of a solvent tank as well as a collection tank and I have no idea what size I need for my 1.5” X 18” 90 gram column.
My plan is to use 199 proof alcohol and not Butane or propane, after reading some of the horror stories about it I decided to go with alcohol..
If you have any venders here that you can point out that can help with this issue I would appreciate it if you could point me in their direction…
If you’re gonna use alcohol. You don’t need a closed loop extractor.
If you want to use your jacketed column in a closed loop system. Likely it’s gonna be cheaper to buy a complete cls as you only have 1 part of like 40 parts needed for a cls plus your gonna want it pressure tested cause you have limited knowledge.
How much are you trying to extract per week or month? There’s a few options that work for at home ethanol extraction. I’d suggest searching for bucket tek here, abs scale up or down according to your needs.
For small scale at home extraction, a large stainless steel, double wall, vacuum jacketed French press works wonders as an extraction vessel, and ethanol can be recovered cheaply, yet slowly with a cheap lab glass kit configured as a still. I’m always happy to help guide beginners in more depth if you’d like.
For a turnkey option, check out the Source Turbo or the EtOH PRO. They make the process much more simple and straightforward. Here’s a link:
I’m planning on running once maybe twice a year… right now I’m looking at two 6”X6” spools with welding bottoms, but I’m not sure if that’s the size I need for a 1.5”X 18” column.
What I’m looking to build is a column mounted on my collection tank and have the solvent tank connected to the top of the column with the hose..
So I guess it really wouldn’t be a full on closed loop extractor because I don’t plan to reclaim the alcohol, rather I’m going to evaporate it..
Thank you for the reading material I appreciate it, I’ll give it a good read and see where it leads .
I’m basically just looking for a different way to clean up my trim and I’m getting tired of making hash so I decided to try something different for a change.
At first I was going to use Butane but I don’t much feel like blowing things up so alcohol seems to be the safer way to go.
I had gotten a open blast tube and tried that and it seems to work ok but really not clean enough, kinda greenish brown if you know what I mean, probably didn’t get it cold enough.
Anyway I’m going to give the article a good read and learn a thing.
Thank you for reaching out and offering the reading material..
I would just get a panda spinner / clothes dryer, a few material socks and a wash bin. Order some DI to chill your wash bucket. A cheap vacuum pump, a pump assisted buchner funnel/filter and a roto.
The cheapest way to make hash is going to be a rosin press though. You might be unhappy with the result from the setup mentioned above, but it will give you a pretty good result if you do it right.
The only way I’ve ever made hash is bubble hash, it turns out nice, I’m just getting tired of it.
I have 3 vac pumps, 2 of them came with the vacuum chambers I got and the other is probably bigger than I’ll ever need, it’s supposed to be a HAVAC pump 3/4 HP that I just got a few weeks ago.
I appreciate you reaching out with advice and I’ll definitely look into your suggestions.
You can get away with using a closed loop for ethanol but it’s not really worth it in the traditional build of a closed loop with the spool and base and tank setup.
You’d essentially end up making a vertical ethos washing machine. You can do it by having a bidirectional setup where you can have the ethanol wash back through the material a few times and then you can push it through filter media in a stack using nitrogen. Then you’d have to distill it to an oil and you’re gonna need a shot gun condenser setup that goes into the recovery tank and then you’d probably want to reproof the ethanol right so you need a molecular sieve before your shotgun condenser that way you’re removing water content and only getting ethanol recovered. You’re probably gonna want to speed it up so you’re gonna need dry ice surrounding the recovery tank. You’re gonna want a jacketed platter base that you extract into so that you can run hot water through the base to initiate distilling and not use a flame anywhere.
You’re better cls for hydrocarbons. If you’re going ethanol for small amounts use a source turbo or an et+oh from source.
Look up bucket tek, get a buchner and learn about distilling in a small glass labware still using a heating mantle and pump, if you want closed loop ethanol.
Yeah, I have a Source and it’s honestly not worth it for anything but incredibly small batch. Like it works fairly well but it’s really slow and I outgrew its capacity within a year. If you have the money, just get a benchtop roto.
This is what I thought I was getting but it didn’t come with the tanks, instead it mounts on a tripod base..
I didn’t order this exact one from this company but I probably should have.
I ordered from somewhere else and got what I got..
I have a 90 gram and a 45 gram jacketed column so I find myself needing the tanks. But after pricing them it’s going to be cheaper to just get something like this that my stuff will fit..
This is only for cleaning up trim for something different for a change..
I truly appreciate all of you for reaching out and giving me different options to think about before I decide on what way to go .