I dont disagree with the responses provided but feel they are not considering your end goal of primarily making distillate.
Yes - Hydrocarbons are more versatile but with your intent of primarily making distillate, is versatility really a deciding factor?
I think more appropriate questions to determine how you should proceed are:
How much distillate do you need to make/sell per month to maintain profitability?
How much biomass will it take to create what you need?
Yes - Hydrocarbons preserve terpenes much more effectively than Ethanol. But again, with your intent of making distillate, you’re purposely removing those terpenes anyway.
A quick tell-tale sign - consider how many of Capna’s units have been put up for sale on this site alone
I currently use Delta Separations Cup-15 but have set up a few other Ethanol labs with other units. How you select which unit to go with should be more apparent with answers to the two above questions.
Agreed with @TerpFiend. If Distillate or vape carts are your end-game then you should definitely go with etoh extraction. Instead of a Capna system you should consider buying Thermo Sci chest freezer with a minimum temp of -80c and a system like the Ace Spinner… this is where I want to go anyway.
With a PX1, or any hydrocarbon extraction, you could make HTE vape carts without the need for distillate, and they taste fantastic. All of the dispensaries in our area buy out our inventory of HTE Carts the moment they drop. If you wanted to get super fancy you could also use the THCa crystals from your separations as your starting material for distillation.
In my opinion Ethanol is the correct solvent for making distillate, or oil for infused products, and hydrocarbons are for almost everything else.
Wow guys again I appreciate the time and information your willingness too help out with. Been in the dark on alot of equipment. Hopefully setting up an appointment with the delta cup series @ the end of March. Will keep posted on what unit we decide with.
Not sure if you’re actually in the vape cart market or not, but, there’s literally not one terpene company on the market that can compete with cannabis derived terpenes.
I personally have done R&D with 5 different terpene companies and the closest comparison is Floraplex. Out of the 15 or so people that I used in the R&D projects, only 4 said they would buy the Floraplex terpene carts. None of the other companies got a single positive review. Regardless, now you have to factor in the cost of purchasing terpenes into your business model.
You and your crew should have a taste test between a “sauce cart” versus a Floraplex terpene cart of the same strain.
No offense to Floraplex, they have the best non cannabis terpenes that I’ve seen/experienced. The plant still does it better.
Edit: My experience of a “sauce cart” was the terpene pour from BHO crystallization mixed with distillate.
First off - you are 100% correct in that ‘sauce carts’ or cannabis derived terpene carts are far more superior in flavor and effects than anything else I’ve tasted out there
However, I personally feel this concept you’re explaining is why a lot of companies are misinterpreting the use of these isolated terps. We already know attempting to mimic the cannabis derived terpenes doesnt translate well - so I dont understand why these terpene companys insist on pushing these strain blends that doesnt taste anything like the actual strain.
Terpenes have tremendous benefits entirely on their own so why not utilize them for that? One of my most popular flavors is one that was synthetically blended by myself with isolated terps and we market it the way it tastes…a lemonhead - not ‘super lemon haze’ and giving a misconception that it tastes anything like cannabis. I’ve even personally seen a medical patient buy 10 Myrcene and 10 Caryophyllene flavored cartridges(single terpene flavored) all because he said he likes how it tastes on its own and enjoys the effect even more
All I’m saying is, theres a market out there for these terpenes these companies offer…if done correctly. Strain blends are a deadhorse IMO
There is a market for Budweiser and 2 buck chuck too but let’s not kid ourselves that shit is barley beer/wine. Lol
I’m sure your pens are tasty but your argument is futile, the purists will always resist. I don’t want a blueberry lemonhead bubblegum razzmatazz pen I want cannabis lol
p.s. I’m a weed snob so distillate is appalling to me, adding non Cannabis terps just magnifies the factor!!
Well, playing Devil’s Advocate, why pay extra to produce a sub-par product?
The vast majority of people enjoy cannabis derived versus synthetic, my most common response was that “You can tell it’s fake because it tastes soapy.”
Cutting your carts at 10% or less leaves you with a surplus of terps assuming you don’t run complete garbage. Floraplex, which from my research is the cheapest company, costs $3k per gallon. I have lots of extra terps sitting in our refrigerator because we pull more than we use. I’m not much of a business manager, but, considering our current volume if we were to completely switch to buying them we would end up with MUCH lower profit margins.
When I was running Co2 - I never even considered anything but the terps I would pull…
Unfortunately, since I’ve switched over to EtOH, I had to look into the alternative.
If you’re not already, have your considered selling your cannabis derived terps for a premium? Before I ordered a variety of terps from True Terpenes, I attempted to source cannabis terps here in Vegas with no luck…
Edit: Also, from what I’ve encountered, fellow ‘stoners’ almost only buy cannabis derived products. But on the contrary, everyone else that falls outside of the true ‘stoner’ category prefer the fruity, sweet flavors. Its also worth mentioning that I’m located in Las Vegas so our market is unlike most. People really enjoy the ability to puff on their vape pens inside the casino’s without drawing unwanted attention - its still a little difficult to pull that off when your vape smells like cannabis.
We don’t want anyone being able to mimic what we’re currently making.
Edit: I was hitting my vape in a few casinos on the strip, never had any issues. I also saw someone smoking a cannagar in Caesars Palace though, so, I didn’t think it was very strict.
There was one person in town selling native terps, but after sampling it it tasted/smelled like cold trap terps. CO2 definitely produced produced great terps for us as well, but we also switched to EtOH. The terp layer is great from BHO, but not quite as full of a flavor like we got from CO2.
I own a ethos 6 and use to work for precision and would stick with an ethos for distillate. I love it! but if your trying to run more than 200 pounds a day forget it.
Have you worked with a delta cup? From what I hear the cup 15 pushes 3x the amount of weight. I just don’t see why I would take an ethos over a cup. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Last quote I got from them was between 75-90k dependingbon options.
The centrifuge is the way to go. Better capacity, better solvent separation/return, better efficiency, and better solvent to weight ratios. I’d go with an AceSpinner, its designed by @cyclopath and @Photon_noir
the Ace-15 spins harder than the CUP-15.
first biomass run showed only 0.2kg etoh in 4.5kg biomass!
I was restrained by my crew yesterday, so I’m still guessing, but I get the impression that the biomass is going to burn yellow not blue/invisible like the spent biomass from the CUP15 does.
I’ll gather that data while they’re looking the other way at some point
So if I went with the ace-15 what extraction equipment would i shoot for?
Remember we are going for bulk thca distillate, I understand that might be a better setup but with price considered on a new lab, what would make more sense?
Is the small percent of ethanol recovery that much more of a profit margin to invest in both an extraction unit and a centrifuge?