Remember, if you’re comparing jacketed stainless steel vessels with a decent heat transfer fluid to glass jars in an oven, there are two places where you’re loosing efficiency…
Heat transfer coefficients matter.
Glass sucks compared to stainless.
Air blows compared to water…and if you’re NOT using a convection oven, it’s even worse.
Does that change the math for you?
I guess I didn’t think much about the convection vs actual liquid touching the glass. Definitely going to get better heat transfer on metal too. I just kept ignoring the factor for some weird reason.
I think I just simplified solution temperature to indicate sufficient heat transfer, not considering material of choice.
So my newest recommendation is a follows:
Don’t feel bad…Its fresh in my mind because I just failed trying to use aquarium gravel in a “bead bath” for the second time.
Having actually gone and looked up the relevant coefficients beforehand, I’m not sure if I feel better or worse for having tried it (again!)…
it has me motivated to turn aluminum cans into 
I wonder how much heat energy we’re putting into the system to decarboxylate a given amount of cannabinoids and if increasing flow rate on a higher kw heater, would increase the rate of decarboxylation.
I guess that only works when the heat transfer fluid is at a lower temperature exiting the system than entering the system. Less dT keeps the energy transfer at its peak across the solution after all.
So I guess the better question is how much energy we’re removing from the system by decarboxylating.
Titties
I swear to god they decarb anything
I know this is an old post but I was wondering if you had any suggestions on decarbing your seperated thca? I’ve spun out about 20g if thca but when I went to decarb they refused to melt and change at all after hours of being on the hot plate
Thanks!
it will need to be hotter. try 230f-240f. just to be clear, we are talking about a clean thca fraction? you dont want to go heating up terps that much.
Correct, I spun out all the terps so just the high cannabinoid portion. After some more research I think I figured out my issue. Will be trying again this weekend! Cheers
Is decarbing without a lid on your jar essential?
I would want to make sure nothing could get into jar but not tighten any lids for that. I’d prefer a mag stir hot plate so u could really force out the co2
Ok cool yeah I’m planning on decarbing in a flask with a tin foil lid and an over head stirrer at 240f
I use nice centrifuge to separate thca and HTE, but I have had much better luck making quality carts with decarbing the HTE as well under pressure in small scale bio reactor. This way the thca that is still in the HTE decarbs and the terps dont get cooked off, because its is under low heat and pressurized in biorweactor. I found that just decarbing my thca seperate and adding back in my HTE ratio it bubbles a lot and gives cart filling machine a hard time working correctly. Just figured id pick brain on here and see if anyone else has had this experience? Thanks
It’s definitely a thing. There’s still some THCA in the HTE and for some reason it wants to bubble in the presence of THC and terps. I have found that as long as you’re under 5% THCA, bubbling is minimal.
We still have to pull the entrained CO2 out in a vac oven post decarb, though - we call this “flattening”
I find that the HTE is still much higher than 5 percent thca . I will have to check testing but pretty sure it’s closer to 30 percent. It is that last thca that basically won’t crash out
Is that 30% before or after you combine with the decarbed portion?
I’m just asking for the purposes of clarification, I prefer to decarb the cannabinoids with the terps still in the extract in a closed vessel like you mentioned.
My HTE after pouring off from crystallized thca is still around 30 percent thca that didn’t crash out
and this is just pouring through some sort of filter/mesh?
or are you using a fuge?
Are you saying that 10 seconds or less at 3 or 400 degrees f is suitable to fully convert thca into thc?
If it turns into a vapor, yes
Has anyone tried using an ultrasonic cleaner to help speed up the natural co2 removal in raw THCA? I feel like it creates more agitation compared to a traditional mag stir. You’d just have to be careful with your water temperatures in your waterbath and maybe use a labstand/clamp for your vessel/mason jar.