Hey everyone, I’ve been running into a bunch of extraction issues and could really use some advice from the community. Here’s what I’ve been struggling with:
Solvent / Butane
• I’m not sure if I’m losing too much butane (using ~125 lbs for 3 runs, about 20 lbs per run).
• How long does butane last before it needs to be swapped out?
• Best ways to speed up recovery? (using a BVV 4-cylinder, 8x36 column – wondering lbs recovered per run).
Diamonds / Sauce
• My diamond runs keep producing way too much sauce – what’s the cause?
• Diamonds come out small, wet, or not as dry as I’d like.
• How do you recrash sauce and separate terps properly?
• Sometimes pouring a lot of terp looks like diamonds forming inside – is that normal?
• Tips for making dry diamonds without solvent rinse?
Crumble / Honeycomb / Wax
• My oven trays often come out like hardened diamonds instead of crumble/honeycomb.
• Concentrates are still wet on the bottom after the flip.
• When and how should I whip to get crumble/honeycomb and not end up with badder?
• Tried using a hot griddle but it always turns into badder/creamy instead of crumble.
• Confused about lids: should I leave lids on/off Pyrex when on dry ice or in the oven? Safe to use parchment + rubber bands?
• How do I whip/fold lightly without over-agitating?
• What actually happens if wax is purged too long?
Yield & Material
• What’s the average yield for dry trim vs trim + kief vs trim + nugs?
• Is it worth grinding down trim to pack more into a column?
• Is it worth running just marijuana leaves?
General Process
• What’s the point of pouring the pour-off onto dry ice overnight before oven?
• When exactly does “crash” occur? (lid on/off, on dry ice, in oven?)
• Why does some oil come out black?
• Best/cleanest way to package concentrates into jars (tools, workflow)?
if you are “missing” 125lb of solvent after 3 runs, simple math says you are NOT recovering 40lbs of whatever you threw at the problem. Sounds like you don’t know how much that is. suggesting you don’t have a refrigerant scale (actually it sounds like you’re open blasting…).
if you’re loosing 40lb a run, there is no “swapping out” only “replacing”. can you give any rational for “swapping out”?
evaporation and condensation are primarily about surface area & delta T. can you explain how the pump is helping?
really? you get out what you put in, minus what you left behind. if you wanna know what’s in there, you’ve got to test. if you wanna know what you left behind, you gotta test. if you wanna know how much of what was in there you got? yep: you’ve got to test. Then you can figure your extraction efficiency.
you want black? open all the cells.
you want dark AND fatty? 3-5% cannabinoids input. 20lb loaded. => 9070g x 0.05 = ~450g of “target” available. you might get 60% of that “available target”. along with a bunch of non-target.
is a single lb of nasty fatty, low potency “dabs” what you’re looking for? Fuck that!
you tell me sunshine…you’re the one wasting 40lb of solvent per run. why?
so you don’t know how this works? I suggest you put the pipe bomb down and play with sugar or alum for a bit until you grok how crystallization works.