Ive been extracting and processing for a long time but recently Ive been trying to find a way to cold crash ethanol extracted THC into THCA crystals. Ive had some semi-success however running into some problems. Im using 200 proof ethanol with heptane. It completely crystalizes entirely, However as it cools down parts of it turn (which I think could be the HTE) into a distillate like consistency which semi separates from the ethanol and crystals. I’m going to prime my extract a little further tomorrow or this weekend hopefully try to get these few issues resolved. I’ve attached some pictures. Has anyone been able to successfully do this? I have seen people grow THCA crystals in ethanol via Jar method
Seems to be very cold. It looks like you’re freezing your cannabinoids and other components before they crystallize. do you have a picture of the THCA you are able to isolate from this method?
What do you mean by “prime my extract”?
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Is that butane you’ve added?
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Pre winterize at higher temps, remove fats, lipids etc. All I did was run it through filter media here.
What is the boiling liquid shown in the video?
Ln2?
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It doesn’t look like anything is crystallized. It looks like frozen oil that was fractured.
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No I used liquid nitrogen under vacuum, liquid nitrogen under vacuum turns solid because it goes to near absolute zero, anything after -15mmhg and it starts to boil. I thought I could get it to cold crash in which it has on a few occasions. I can see the distillate like texture as it tries to cool, I just need it to separate properly. I understand polarity of ethanol but I need to find a solution to this problem
I couldn’t get a picture quick enough it all entirely crystalizes the ethanol as well
I tried to get a snap quick enough it melts after a few minutes and turned into almost distillate, very thick so thick it doesn’t even run through a funnel. I guess my only other option would be to entire evaporate the ethanol with Nitrogen after I prime it.
You are confusing freezing with crystallization. LN2 does not turn solid under vacuum. It evaporates. The cooling effect is freezing the oil. You are miles away from extracting THCa crystals this way. You’d have better luck louching the ethanol out with water and switching to a nonpolar solvent using LLE.
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You might have been freezing your residual ethanol, which appeared crystalline. Sorry but I am echoing ChicagoBurbs here, this is not a THCA crystallization. You are freezing your extract.
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I can cold crash with Butane and propane mix easily however I have 5-10 gallons of ethanol extracted crude Im trying to crash. Im trying to find a way to get this done with ethanol.
What is LLE ?
Start here
thank you okay centrifuge, I thought about it I cant find one for large mass. I might have to create one then
See how easy that was once you clearly stated what it was you were trying to accomplish?
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LLE is liquid-liquid extraction. You’ll mix a hydrocarbon with your ethanol crude, add water, and separate the 2 liquid fractions with a separatory funnel. Discard the water/ethanol layer on the bottom and keep the hydrocarbon solution from the top. You can crash THCa from that solution or use adsorbents to clean it up before attempting to crash. I would use pentane or heptane as a nonopolar.
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Building a large centrifuge was my last resort
The ethanol makes a bind some sort of Esther fication and makes crystelizing extremely hard
Wich solvent would be ok ?
Ethyl acetate might work but never tried
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