I tried the steam distill method for terpenes extract but it smell awful and very little result . I’ve been searching sop but it seems very little result . If any one been doing it with sucess , please share . Thanks a lot !
There’s at least a handful of ways to extract terpenes. CO2 extraction, cold trap vac oven, steam (which obviously doesn’t work well, neither does the cold trap,) and butane extraction.
There’s also some new method that a bunch of capitalists are keeping secret as a means to profit. In my opinion terpenes are so much of the medicinal value of cannabis, so, hoarding this science for the means of personal gain should hopefully put these people in some sort of karmic hell for holding back progress.
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Sweep gas nitrogen distillation works very well! Especially if you use microwaves to activate the terpenes
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Is it known if anyone is using this for cannabis? I started a topic awhile back about MAD and ultrasonic water extraction, the only response I got was in regards to analytical extraction.
I keep seeing crystal clear terpenes on instagram and it makes me want to throttle them because they can be very pretentious when thoroughly questioned about their methods.
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No doubt it would yield better than standard steam distillation, I’ve gotten some pretty “meh”
Results from steam alone.the microwaves will increase the efficency of the whole extraction.
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I’m less concerned with efficiency, I want separation and preservation without oxidation. The clarity of some of the stuff I see infers that there is zero to very little degradation.
Frustrating to try and develop medicine in a culture that predominantly cares about money instead of the health of its citizens.
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Unfortunately a lot of people will put the $ first .
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We’ve gotten pretty good clean results with steam, but the terp ratios have been slightly different from the source flower. We’ve even scaled it up to the point of using a 50L reactor with a sauna steam gen shooting in from the bottom and a moonshine still condenser mounted on the top. We’ve got a microwave system on order and talking to the rep they’ve been seeing the same ratios in and out, so I’m pretty excited to start working with that. Our biggest issue with the steaming is that the flower takes a long time to dry prior to cold EtOH extraction, and the amount of gums coming out in extraction is astronomical.
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Have you ever used a MIcrowave-Hydrodiffusion and Gravity system? I used to want one and have since forgotten about it. Would this achieve the “activation of terpenes”?
The cold trap vac oven doesn’t work well even with material fresh from a plant and a long ramp to relatively high temps? I was planning on trying at some point
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Everything I’ve heard/read says that cold trap terps smell/taste anywhere from terrible to weird. You could be on to something though, none of my experience is with fresh material.
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Anyone make a low pressure co2 extractor just for terps?
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Fresh material is key.
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Have you tried any fresh material cold trap terps? Are they of good quality?
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Vac oven cold trap is just a shitty distillation apparatus, and ive never gotten terps worth smoking. There’s a reason people take all the effort for rosin or co2.
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Thank you !
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I like the idea of seperating terps from crude rather than trying to extract purely for terps. I feel like extracting the material for all targets and then seperating and refining the extract is a better approach and easier overall compared to two extractions.
@Beaker recently posted a method for preparing crude for distillation via liquid-liquid phase extraction (LLE). One of the key points he noted is that after the LLE there was no sign of terpenes left in the extract which is ideal for SPD. This means that the terpenes have been dissolved into one of the liquid phases and thus in theory they should be able to be recovered/separated from the solvent by vac distillation. That’s how I would approach the situation of trying to obtain clean undamaged terpenes.
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Try watching our video on Youtube about terpene extraction. The key is to use cold heat aka vacuum to boil the water and create steam under 60°C. If you go over that temp the terpenes tend to degrade and will start to smell grassy and foul. Trust me if you do it again as such it will smell and taste great! make sure to clean your glassware well also. The older terps stink and will contaminate.
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I would not recommend trying to collect terpene from the cold trap, it smells terrible. I think it’s from either going through the silicone hose or it’s from the rapid temp change. I have ran terpenes with fresh frozen material, top shelf buds, mids, untrimmed buds, trim, sifted material and from mini nugs. Fresh frozen produces a grassy sort of smell at first, I’ve let it sit in the fridge for a couple of months and it smells much better now. The sifted material and trim runs didn’t smell that great. I run a simple boiling flask with a 2L round bioflask on top, I put water in the bottom and use a stainless screen to keep the material from falling down into the boiling water. I hook everything up to a vacuum and don’t need to run it often, I use a Vacuum chamber kind of like a reverse compressor tank. 200-300g of material fits in 2L and usually takes me about 45 min. I usually get about 0.5-2% yield depending on material.
Fruit strains usually do well for me, same with anything with terpinolene. The OGs and skunks don’t translate the same stank for me, it usually duls them out a bit. Gorilla Glue did well (kept the stank). Scarlet Fire was the best yielder (terpinolene dominant strain).
My next focus is incorporating an agitator in the material flask and make use of the microwave mentioned above.
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