Hello everybody,
This is my first foray into the forum and I was just wondering if anybody had any ideas about how to remove the waxes and such from a subcrit CO2 pull without destroying the terps. Is a vacuum filtration feesible or will it clog reusable carts over time? All I know is that these terpenes smell delicious and it would be a shame to ruin them with inexperience!
Basically I want to know if there’s a way to “winterize” the terp pull without using ethanol or heat.
Thanks in advance!
Jiggy
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Have you tried freezing them to see if anything crashes?
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Most do a separate terp run before doing a run for cannabinoids. You can also use a centrifuge to remove some of the waxes but it doesn’t necessarily work as well as full winterization. Think of it as a single pass to get the heavy stuff. Centrifuges are not cheap though. Finding a used one is a better choice.
Ive had it in the freezer (-15ish C) for two days and it didn’t crash. I don’t want to winterize it because it would defeat the purpose of the subcritical pull imo. Tough solution, huh!?
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I’ve got access to any lab equipment you can think of so don’t worry about cost or anything. I just want to make the best and highest quality product possible.
I have already done the terpene pull from the CO2 extractor but winterizing will destroy terpenes since you need ethanol/rotovap. Need a way to keep all the terps!
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There’s a really good chance that there’s not enough waxes/lipids to cause any kind of clogging issues.
Likely, your best option would be distillation if you were adamant about getting them out.
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Thank you for the help. It was really helpful!
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Do you think there’s an amount of remaining water in the sample that’ll cause any problems mixing with the oil? I think I’m going to give centrifuge a try just wondering ‘how’ separated I need to go.
Thanks
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Yes, yielded 30% hydrosol in my terpene fraction and roughly the same in my cannabinoid fraction. Problem? If you don’t spin it long enough to remove all the H20 then the vape will cause harm, or dabs will crackle or sizzle. I customized my set of parameters and after long R&D I was able to remove all water. Giving me a beautiful whole plant extract. My cannabis has levels of .58Aw and higher. I would suggest measuring water activity testing starting material, to have a baseline so you can fine tune based on your reaction spacing to improve certain responses.
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Get them cold, pour into glass 20ml luer lock syringe and attach a syringe filter to end something similar to link below. Can do this in multiple passes to basically winterize your Terps VERY EFFECTIVELY.
I’ve also done this cutting small circles from 20micron fast filter paper and loaded at the bottom of the syringe too.
Switch out filters as flow slows and this will catch the fats and any solids immersed in your Terpenes.
Once cleaned and clear you can easily syringe out the water as it will pool up and separate using blunt tip needle on a syringe…
Biomed Scientific Syringe Filter PTFE Membrane 25mm Diameter 0.45um Pore Size Non Sterile Pack of 100 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X92DST3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uDB-CbQDWT9Q5
Here’s an example of how this can work: before (pond water beaker) and after (Syringe) on CO2 Extracted CBD Terpenes…
#HerpsToTERPS
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Great minds think alike! I’ve done this on small scale with 2mL syringes. I’ve been trying to find large enough filters to scale the idea up. My wrists were destroyed after doing this for 45 minutes lol
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I run my terpene and extraction runs separately and also in different expansion chambers. If you are only using a single expansion chamber I would clean the expansion chamber out
