So, I’m a total newb on the distillate game. Just started running a 12L LS full bore with a welch crv pro 8. I am definitely stoked on the performance of the system, but the distillate itself is very red, somewhat murky, and smells horrid. As far as filtering and decarbing the crude (bho), we’re doing a room temp filtration then winterizing in a chest freezer that gets the solution down to -25c for a couple days, filtering through a Hochstrom with an 8 mic paper one time, then carbon scrubbing, then decarbing on a stir bar plate for 2-3 hours at 100-140c.
On the Spd, the pump is able to pull down to almost 10 microns before I open up the system. once I start pulling vac on the system the sensor on the back end of the dewar cold trap down at the pump never reads that low again. the vac levels are ranging between 100-400 mic at any point in the run. during the volatiles and heads fraction the pressure is a few hundred, once we start pulling main body the pressure gets down to 100 mic or below, which makes me feel that there aren’t any leaks, but there seems to be volatiles getting passed the cold trap because my vac level at the pump is very similar to the entire system’s vac levels throughout the entire run.
My concerns and questions are mostly about the smell and color of the end product. We haven’t even tried second pass yet, but was hoping for some input on getting a nice colored, non smelly first pass. any info is much appreciated!
The murkiness probably comes from lipids distilling over, try using methanol as the solvent when winterizing and instead of placing the solution in your freezer place the solution inside a cooler with some ghetto cryofluid (ethanol and dry ice) to chill it.
You can remove a significant portion of the oils (lipids) as well as all the waxes by leaving the solution for 1 hour and then filtering.
The cloudiness is most likely from not winterizing fully. Try doing multi stage filtrations down to 1 micron. possibly filtering over alumina to catch the other fats and waxes. Also those hochstrom filters are painfully slow, you could be warming up significantly allowing the waxes to get back into the tincture.
You also dont need to decarb that long. Bring it up to 120-130 until it stops bubbling. Shouldnt take more than an hour or so tops.
Your vac level behind the cold trap at the pump should be reading much lower than 400, and should remain relatively constant.
The redness is most likely caused from running too hot, which could also be why your vac level is fluctuating after the cold trap. If youre ramping too hot too quickly you could be overloading the cold trap and having stuff pass through. Just a guess.
But I would say ramp your temps slowly, and focus on getting a clean cut from your volatiles and heads. thats where your smell is coming from. youre not getting good separation and codistilling all the shit you dont want, with the shit you do want.
my first pass stuff isn’t too murky, just not completely clear all the way through the jar. if it wasn’t winterized well enough but has already been carbon scrubbed, would it be ok to winterize and filter again? or would doing a first pass and then second pass on Spd suffice? I’ll get some pictures up of the product tonight, maybe that’ll help from a standpoint.
I’m running no more than 205c in the bf, vapor temps at top of head hit about 195 max then drop off. And as far going from volatiles to heads on to main, I never ramp up until I see a temp drop at top of head.
Leaving the solution for 1 hour where? in the chiller fluid? also, ya I’ve been hearing about people using methanol more and more actually. why do you prefer methanol for winterizing?
Methanol is more polar than either ethanol or isopropanol and thus when given the opportunity will dissolve much less of the non polar lipids than ethanol or isopropanol.
And yes leave your container of methanol solution sitting inside the dry ice solution for 1 hour to chill the solution to speed up your winterization and to further reduce the solubility of the lipids in your solution.
If you dissolve your extract in methanol, most of the waxes in your product will drop out of solution at room temperature, so you only need to drop it down to those temperatures for a very short time to remove all the bullshit.
I believe that fishy smell comes from the decomposition of the lipids. It would be fine to rewinterize, it can be done at any step in the process. It just makes the most sense to do it in the beginning, it certainly wont hurt anything.
what scooby said… Ive definitely run through some first pass that heated up too much before filtering, and ended up a little cloudy., looks like it has super fine particulate scattered throughout the disty… re-winterized, roto’d, boiled off the solvent… ran second pass and viola. clear as glass. and again, those hochtrom filters are garbage for winterizing… i mean they work but PAINFULLY slow. you have to keep . your tincture in the freezer and pour little bits in at a time and change the filter paper often. Youre only getting it down to -25 and depending on your environment, it doest take long to heat up significantly
you need to use a filter aid and scrape it constantly for good speed on hochstrom. I have filter 100 gallons a day on 3 of them but it is far from ideal for bulk processing
They arent terrible, but i definitely think they are overpriced for what they are, and I think there are better options for the same amount of throughput. I have sinced moved on from them, but when i used to use them they got the job done… just slowly! LOL
A crv pro 8 for a 12L system seems to be lacking imo. That might even be a little small for a 5L depending on how you are trying to run your system.
A client of mine was recommended that same pump by LS for a 20L and that definitely would not cut it.
What everyone else said are good places to start. Winterize in 2-3 stages down to 1-2 micron filters, run faster, etc. However, I suspect your pump is going to limit your distillation speed and vacuum depth.
what other Buchner type filters would you suggest for doing decent volumes? some of my other buddies use sambo, and those seem to make life a hell of a lot easier.
ya, I kinda thought that once I got it rigged up… definitely a letdown on LS’s part, but other than that, the entire kit was really legit, they didnt short me on any thing at all. lucky for me I have an old Edwards 28 that I’m gonna dust off and see how deep she’ll pull.
Well since your current winterization SOP takes over a day that tells me you dont mind waiting for good results. So I suggest you allow the waxes to settle to the bottom of the solution and just siphon off the liquid on top. You’re going to need a very gentle source of vacuum to make it work nicely though, a peristaltic pump would be ideal but may not work so well at low temperatures.
The benefit of doing this is that you get to greatly reduce the volume of the liquid you’re sending thru your hochstrom. Whatever liquid you siphon off will be fully dewaxed. Assuming your using methanol and going lower than -40C to winterize.
Dont waste your money on a pig filter, or really anything else summit has to offer. The better option is a lenticular filter.
The pig filter is just a slightly modified filter press, you can get one for less than a quarter of the price of the summit unit if you choose to buy from someone who doesnt apply a green tax to everything they offer.
ya, summit has definitely been a total waste of time and money at this point, pretty over them as far filtration goes. as far as lenticular filters go, any specific type I should be looking for, and what type of media to fill it with?
and yes I don’t mind waiting for the proper results… but at the same time I am just getting into processing all the way to distillate, and we’ve got a lot of work to catch up on so I am looking for a much better alternative to approach asap.