Yup. I described you point below. I was only referring to wash hash, but dry sift kief would be the same situation. The dry sift process is solventless, but the product is not depending upon how terpenes are defined int his specific case:
The process is solventless if the warm terpenes do not dissolve the trichome cells. However, depending upon how you define terpenes, either by their nature (as solvents) or activity in the process (not as solvents), the end product would be solventless or include solvents.
Well warm and 220F plus are two different conceptsā¦
I understand that around sub-200 F is a good point to press.
Thank you for the print out of data/blog referenced.
Iād check up a bit on the definition of āsilicifiedāā¦
There are like 5 types of trichomes and some āsilicifiedā
ā¦but if my memory serves meā¦I do not remember the
Secretory type trichome displaying the apical apparatus
As being āsilicifiedā to any any great extentā¦
You are good to goā¦I am glad you pointed out my short comings concerning sarcasm, having fun and trying to make some think a bitā¦
I can report that terpenes, especially concentrated terpenes dissolve trichomes with or without heat. Fuck weāve been using them to CLEAN SHIT for like five years and you can add these in and watch them dissolve under a microscope if you wanted. x.X
This whole solvent vs solventless conversation is about MARKETING. Not science. Not mechanics. Fucking marketing. You know for those sales people that are complete tools and you wish would die most of the time because they come up with new words for the same fucking thing all the damn time.
Do hydrocarbon solvents for sure dissolve the trichomes entirely or are they dissolving just some of the oily components inside of the trichome?
Iāve sonicated hash with ethanol and the ethanol did almost nothing to the structure of the trichome head under a microscope. Havenāt tried it with limonene. Limonene obviously has some different properties
Limonene is insane. But so is coke syrup and some other things out there that we put in food or want to smoke these days I guess.
Every time I walk towards the toxicity stuff it freaks me out. Like somehow Iām going to find out that all this work with cannabis for the last decade is going to mean that I have stupid weird cancer and die. Or that all my team members die. And I hate the anxiety from that.
Iāll see if I can borrow the grow scope this week and throw down some different terp groups so people can see the difference in cell wall breaking, dissolution, and general miscibility of many cannabinoids with each other.
You can see this warm or cold. Iāve never gotten a scope inside a pressā¦ but I could do before and after shots of what went in, what came out, and what was left behind for people to see.
Thereās some pretty interesting research on the composition and structure of trichomes - which changes during the life cycle. Changes so much - that what see in effects of aging/curing can be considered different kinds of cell desiccation/breakdown.
The things the cell walls are made out of are all rather soluble in many things. Including terpenes. Those terpenes could even be housed inside the cellular storage inside the cell walls.
I mean its all kind of fascinating. What gets me still is how WE ENDED UP with an endocannabinoid system. I meanā¦ there are fucktons of stuff all over that our bodies donāt have a specific system for interacting with - but not this plant. Oh no - this plant tries to defend itself against the whole fucking world - but wants us to eat and smoke it all day.
Spent biomass from hydrocarbon produces a ton of āemptyā kief. Dry and fluffy, little to no resin but still thereās something that resembles kief.
The stupid weird cancer thing freaks me out too. Iām realllyyyy trying to reduce/eliminate any type of inhalable consumption because obviously itās harmful, but itās so hard working in the industry lol
Yeah, in my IG message to her about the oven temp, I mistakenly used flower rosin pressing temp, not a hash/kief pressing temp. Another reason I wish IG had an edit button (and allow the use of paragraphs, lol).
If youāre interested, I can share studies on cannabis trichomes and the one that discussed their silicification. And I may be misremembering as well, so it would be worth my time to refresh myself. Also, at least one (but maybe two) papers or a paper and a review were recently published on trichomes. And, we need not only look for cannabis-specific papers because many plants have the same type of trichomes weāre discussing, often with greater amounts of terpens.
Thank you for being gracious and understanding my position on tone and sarcasm.
For sure, I agree. But that issue is one of concentration and type. Put some water hash or kief in a bowl filled with warm limonene and they wonāt last long. But thatās not analogous to what occurs when pressing.
Iām not saying @murphymurri is incorrect about warm terpenes being the only reason we can collect rosin when pressing, but I am skeptical.
Hereās an illustrative example, which I havenāt done, but I will in the next few weeks:
Place a pan with a thin layer of dry sift kief into a convection oven preheated to 180āF (average press temp) for 75 seconds (or a bit longer). Then, pull the pan out and see if the trichomes were dissolved, and you have a pan of mushy rosin.
Place a pan with a thin layer of freeze-dried water hash into aa convection oven preheated to 180āF (average press temp) for 75 seconds (or a bit longer). Then, pull the pan out and see if the trichomes were dissolved, and you have a pan of mushy rosin.
My guess is youāre not going to see much dissolution of the trichomes, but they will just be shriveled and smaller than they were. If Iām wrong and the pan will be fill with rosin, why the heck is anyone pressing at all? Why isnāt everyone just putting the trichomes/heads into a 25 um bag and placing them in the oven?
Also, when something is dissolved into a solvent, that thing is in solution. So, suppose terpenes inside the trichome heads were dissolving the trichomes from the inside out. In that case, one should expect the trichome cells to disappear as theyāre solubilized.
But no one here (that I see) is arguing (as in fighting), especially not over ego. Having different opinions and trying to elucidate a question as a group isnāt arguing. From my vantage point, we are discussing science and trying to figure out what is occurring when pressing and how the trichomes are ruptured/melted/dissolved. I even proposed two experiments to test @murphymurriās position. Isnāt that what this site is all about?
Interesting. Iāll take some before and after pictures and a video under the microscope.
I bet itās at least a dual effect when pressing, with terpenes softening the trichomes through partial dissolution while the heat + pressure ruptures/melts them. So the terpenes may have some solubilizing effect on the inside of the trichomes, possibly weakening them. And then the result of temp and pressure melts them (or breaks the trichomes like popping a zit). And considering they donāt rupture simultaneously, the higher concentration of free terpenes over time could dissolve/soften the outside surface of the remaining intact trichomes.
The states care enough about solvent-less to make a distinction in licensing types between solvent and solvent-less in most cases so it would be logical that the nomenclature followed the product from licensed extraction facilities to licensed retail
I love the experiments suggested, and I really appreciate the discussion about trichome composition.
I also want to point out that this isnāt a unique observation, and the concept of rosin being an extraction vs sieve being a mechanical separation is actually something I learned from Frenchy years ago.
None of this has anything to do with preference, though. One reason I pick at this nomenclature so much is because it needlessly divides us. Nikka T was the first person to trademark the term solventless and is probably the only one who still explains it honestly as a marketing term.
The problem with this kind of marketing is that it is often used to replace research rather than to inspire it.
When people start saying things like āI prefer rosin for the quantified and consistently higher % of isoamyl acetate in the waxy cuticle vs butane extracted productsā instead of saying ābecause itās purerā then Iāll gladly move on to questioning the next round of divisive or deceptive terminology.
Also - it is truly wild to show up to a forum post full of my private dms & comments online. At the same time, itās very convenient because now I can refer people to this thread instead instead of repeating myself - which apparently I do way too much of.
Some of yāall really love to hate me - but I promise this shit isnāt personal. Itās just hash.
hash rules & solvents are cool!