Just curious on how processors would like their biomass prepared before receiving their product. Chopped? Milled? Pelletized? Is it dependent on the method of extraction? CO2 I would think you’d milled. Have a contract who would prefer pelletized for ethanol, was wondering if I should continue to pelletize the material past what we are contract for.
my (one & only) experience with pelletized biomass and ethanol suggested it was not a win. the only way I could get full extraction was to re-grind.
@greenbuggy has run into the same problem…although it looks like they may have solved it…
Search results for 'pelletizing' - Future4200 looks to have several relevant hits…
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I think there may be ways to hopefully compromise on density vs surface area on pelletized materials. I’ll be doing some r&d on this in the spring. Maybe we can make “corn flake” like material?
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How you guy know your stuff
Pelletized screws up bio. Keep it bucked and let the processor handle it.
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We never did figure out a way to extract that wasn’t super labor intensive, ended up shredding overcompacted pellets to dust and then repelletizing at a lower compaction rate. Oil was super dark and less than stellar TAC numbers, plus it put more moisture into our process than I like to see, since pelletizing doesn’t work with ~10% moisture content dust by itself.
I agree with @MrRandy, debuck it and dry it properly the processor should be able to handle size reduction. The profile size ethanol extractors will want is very different from what someone running a CO2 extraction rig will want. I put together the PDF below to send to farmers in response to a lot of badly prepped and improperly prepped material we saw after harvest last year. Feel free to share it or give me feedback on it.
biomass profile.pdf (645.4 KB)
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Shucked/bucked
Dats it
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Kind of depends on the processer, I would be happy with milled stuff (as long as it’s not too small a particle size) or just shucked/bucked but not pellets. Maybe some other high surface area shape could work but I worry about solvent penetration to the middle of the pellet
shucked and a quick pass thro a trim machine then shredder
@greenbuggy is correct on all points, they produce the best hemp extracts in the country up there so his advice is very valuable.
Pelletizing will ruin material, heat and pressure are the enemy of cannabinoids. Surface area is everything in extraction so pellets are the opposite of what you want. The plant just so happens to grow cannabinoids in neatly packed spheres on the outside of the plant. It did all the work for you already
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Pelletized is usually bunk already ran garbage. Same with milled.
That’s a nice write up to give to farmers awsome man:+1:
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@BigHungryFarms Why bother with a trim machine for extractable biomass you’re going to shred anyways?
i just ment in my perfect world lol thats quality bio mass alot of folks here in Michigan just did a few acers. i dont want all tht leaf in with the shredded flower material if i can help it. quality in quality out i would rather spend time running 1000 pounds of flowers it’s way cooler lol and nothing is wasted right? Still plenty can be done with the other leaf biomass.
Plus if u run flower u can stil make cbd slabs/wax you can mix the cbd flowers and thc trim and make high cbd thc slabs that are fire to.