You can but doing it under vacuum will prevent oxidation and give you a better color, plus being able to terp strip at the same time is clutch
You can do it in a roto too but you need oil in the bath and if you do that i recommend doing a syphon tube like you suggest because taking off a roto ball when its oily is a bitch and i wouldnt trust a normal employee with that job
Totally, and everyone’s already got a vac oven (or should lol). No sense in spending several used cars worth of financing on a rotovap that doesn’t rotate, and uses direct heat, just because you can decarb in it as well, that’s all I’m saying.
darker color in the beginning could possibly be material in the column that wasn’t flushed out at end of day/shutdown. Especially if you’re doing “1st pass” 1 day and “2nd pass” the next. I think dirty walls might pop/splash during startup, it can be avoided if you do a thorough shutdown. Which imo is a crucial aspect in general anyways.
Steel
I really want to thank everyone for their input. I’ve noticed this entire website is full of phenomenal and amazing people. I really appreciate every word. Thank you.
How would you terp strip in a reactor? Just allow it to keep going after a decarb?
Pull vacuum and heat the reactor up to 150 c with the vacuum running and condensing coils as cold as theyll go, generally i pull the reactor down cold with the crude in there so i can see what vacuum level is reached then turn the heat on and let it sit at 150c till it reached the initial vacuum level prior to turning the heat on
You wont be able to pull the heavy heads but youll pull residual solvent and light terpenes which effect your vacuum level during your terp strip pass on the wiper. The terp strip is to strip volatiles to get good enough vacuum to distill, if you can do this in a roto or a reactor you dont need to do it in the wiper
So is there a chance of degrading the product using that method? Since all of it is getting heated to 150c. Compared to only small portions at a time getting stripped in the WFE?
Not if the system is under vacuum, and allowed to cool to the holding/transfer temp under vacuum. The risk of thermal degradation or oxidation is minimal.
Total devolitization via reactor is the only way to go about stripping at scale. Not worth wasting wiper time/bandwidth on a stipping pass if you can avoid it.
The condenser is the best part of the Ecodysts.
Echoing @RockSteady, I break vacuum when the internal hits <100C (ideally around 95C) - hot enough to pour out consistently, but not too hot to oxidize. I decarb 150 - 155, depending on volume and material, but I still end up doing a volatile pass (first pass) on WF to help with vac levels and yield. I think you may be pulling too deep of a vac on first pass, which may be the cause of some yield issues. As long as you’re regularly checking for odor and stickiness of your residue, volatiles, and distillate, your parameters should suffice.
I’m gonna be terp striping first time on stainless steel wiper can help me with my parameters and what side do thee Terps go to the waste side I’m assuming
for a strip the low bp volatiles will be evaporated and condensed on the internal condenser/cold traps and will be discharged on the distillate side; your cannabinoid rich fraction will not be evaporated so it will end up in the residue discharge.
Thx so
Much sir appreciate you
Do you have a short path in your lab? You can do your terp/heads strip there after decarbing in the reactor. Then you only have to focus on pulling mains on the WFE.
I do have a short path I do that as well typically do 10 kg batch’s how many mls typically do people get off a batch that size obviously matter how your decarb goes but just outta curiosity
I don’t go off yield cause every crude is unique, some more terpy/potent than others etc. I take it off the path at a certain vacuum depth and distillation head temperature. Then throw it in the WFE and the good oil starts pumping out right away. Plus you only gotta clean it once lol
I run terp strip and main body strip in one WFE system. Towards the end of the terp strip, I will add back in ~200mL of the residue oil (now stripped of terps and volatiles) back in the feed to clear out the lines before main body. Granted, the first few grams of main body will be heads-like, so a smell check helps to ensure good distillation. Happy wiping!
How much Terps do you usually get ?
Depends on the input, but usually around 6~7% of my input weight is volatiles/terps from crude. For isolate, closer to 2-3%.