Hi I have been doing some research and am curious to know if I can take any kind of shatter, crumble, or wax and put it through short path distillation after decarboxylating will my end product be THC distillate. Also how much total weight is lost during short path distillation?
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Yes. Approximately 20% loss.
Welcome @Distillate007, the answers to your questions are here. The search bar is your friend. The answer to one of your questions is impossible to answer, so I’ll take care of that one as your first free spoon. Yields will vary based on many factors. Figure anywhere from 30-70% depending mainly on your input material.
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So the answers I have read do not clearly state if I can use shatter, crumble or wax they just state “biomass” is that the shatter crumble or wax or do I have to make a solvent from scratch using buds ethanol and freezing temps? I’m going for shatter and other concentrates as they will most likely have a higher yield
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You can literally heat your shatter to decarboxylation temperatures for an hour and pour the contents into a boiling flask, and perform the distillation. Your decarbed shatter will already weigh 12% less than what you started with, and thru the distillation process, you’ll lose around 20% of that decarbed weight, if you change your receiving flasks at the right time. Like stanky said, you could lose more, but 20% loss is the goal I would say.
Edit: or rather a 70% to 80% yield from decarboxylated crude is what you want. @Distillate007
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Thank you for the straight to the point answer now if I’m doing this in my house and I have the exhaust to the vacuum out the window will the distillation process produce an odor or will it be contained to inside the glass?
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It will absolutely produce an odor. People unaccustomed to the smell will.be more likely to notice it, but it does not smell like weed.
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What does it smell like and how long does a distillation take in smaller batches say 200ml at a time?
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Hard to describe, I would say the scent is like a deep musky odor that penetrates the nose. Though if it’s exhausted outdoors the odor may be able to dissipate enough for others not to smell. A 200ml run in a 500ml flask should take about 1 - 3 hours I would say, being very generous. I haven’t run batches that small so I couldn’t say for sure but it wouldn’t take very long. Definitely will depend on the style of the short path. If you’re doing a small setup like that I assume you’re using the original style with 1/4" hoses and a triple cow.
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That would be correct and a 1L cold trap hooked up to a 4cfm Vac as well as a 10L cooling chiller
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Hmmm yeah I wanna say give yourself about 3 hours from setup to take down.
Like fryer oil with some spoiled sweet notes
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LOL yes, this is a great description.
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Vac oil ruined sweet and spicy Sriracha from Chick-fil-A for me, they smell pretty similar
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You’ll most likely need to winterize the extract before throwing it in a boiling flask.
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Yoooo, true but he didn’t ask about that plus with the setup he’s got going it sounds like more hassle than it’s worth. But yeah if you want it even cleaner and tighter numbers on your yields, definitely dissolve in ethanol, winterize, filter and recover beforehand. Decarb before or after, doesn’t really matter imo
8:1 - 10:1 ethanol:crude ratio
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If you want a distillate worth a fuck, winterize and filter before you distill.
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I dunno, I’ve made some pretty good distillate from pouring a bunch of decarb shatter into the flask, that’s the only reason why I didn’t mention winterizing. You’re definitely not wrong tho
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So it should be dissolved in ethanol and submerged in freezing temperatures for 48 hours then filtered under vac? I don’t have access or funds for a Rotovap
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Just 24 hours and you can recover the ethanol with your short path setup or if you have extra glassware available you can change the short path head to a simple distillation head attached to a longer Liebig condenser.
Definitely not as efficient as a roto, but it’ll get the job done, and you don’t need to use vacuum to do it either, will just take longer.
Like this
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