BULK WINTERIZATION thoughts

Use MeOH
At room temperature save money

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Ln2. Direct injection. Itā€™s how the ā€œfoodā€ factories do it.

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So have u thought about using membranes like the x-spiral

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You could go custom fabricated and look into a company thatā€™ll build you a giant buchner

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Just give me a 55 gallon drum, and a roll of flashingā€¦

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I will let you know when we test it if it works or not.

There is a lot of people that have already done this and figured it out. @greenbuggy was more or less trying to save you time and effort on sub par methods.

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well what method can you winterize in very large amounts.

I use methanol and water.

You seem like someone that enjoys science and learning so I recommend winterizing in the way you suggested and then take your filtered solution and recover the ethanol back. Then take two equal samples and winterize both with methanol, leave one in the freezer overnight and the other filter at room temp after mixing.

Your results will give you answers to the riddle and lead you to a more efficient better yielding product.

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we build Cryo chillers that can run 3 GPM at -50C It seems to be the easiest and fastest way to handle it.

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right now I use a 1-10 ratio with crude oil and ethanol in a 2 litter jar, for winterization but finding that its taking 5-7 days to reach no epic. our cryo is currently a -40c but getting a -160 soon and we thought the 5 gal food grade bucket was a good way to do winteration in bulk without 100 jars, needing to make about 50 litters of ready to go solvent with no epic. in about a week. I agree the idea is not the best but trying to be creative on different methods.

Assuming you mean cryo freezer not that youā€™re extracting at -40c?
Part of winterization is getting cold enough for the fats to precipitate, but the reason agitation helps is that it bumps more things into each other and that can help speed precipitation and make chains of fats/lipids longer and easier to filter out.

IMO the problem with short residency at cold temps is the risk that you arenā€™t getting cold enough to get everything to precipitate out, and with that comes the risk of incomplete winterization.

Iā€™ve got nothing against buckets in freezers to get more throughput but if it were me Iā€™d invest in some stainless buckets rather than risking a mess with the plastic ones

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ā€˜Specially at -160!

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I can confirm that. Iā€™ve had a bucket of HOT crude from a rotovap explode as it decarbed in the bucket. got it off the scale and cement with dry-ice and a chisel

Edit: actually at -80 it was a hair more fragile than a brick. :rofl:

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stirring in the largest conical fermenter that will fit in your freezer? or recirculation with a pump that will take that abuse (weā€™ve explored those right?).

then let settle once freezer get back to temp (Iā€™d suggest 24 hrs, but to taste works for me).

use racking arm to decant the majority of tincture to speed filtration.

filter using a centrifuge for bonus points.

edit: @TheOilMan: Iā€™ve seen two conical fermenters, six kegs, and a 55 gal drum in -80 freezers to address this (my last -80 fit three 15 gal kegs and a couple of 7.5gal kegs). they simply donā€™t get your solvent down to temp in the time range youā€™re proposing. even with their compressors nailed in the on position (like the -40C rig I set at -45 and left that way for years).

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As @cyclopath and others have been saying, cooling that much liquid mass using very cold air is a losing proposition because the air just doesnā€™t have enough mass. You could pump in a circle through a radiator with a fan blowing over it in your walk in but that would still be ineffective and is clearly as much work as directly exchanging with a chilled/refrigeration system using something like a plate heat exchanger. And, ultimately none of this fixes your need for the solution to sit for hours so the fat can precipitate. @thesk8nmidget has the real ticket for removing fat at scale.

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stanless steel buckets not bad idea any other crazy ideas for bulk winterization, we extract at 91 f
but my only production problem is the winterization and we run it through winterzation process until there are no epic. then we do our scrub for any small particals in the solution. idk maybey it is what it is.

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What is this ā€œepicā€ you speak of repeatedly?

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Maybe look hereā€¦

I was told that no epic is just a short term for fats, lipids, chlorophyll, undesirables. (No Epic) theres a better word for it but I dont remeber what the word is off top of my head. sorry if I be saying stuff that dont make sense.