Distilling without vacuum

Hash and Stuff Distillation
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When destilling THC out of crude oil using really basic destillation with a short condenser without vacuum, what would be the major downsights? I assume due to high heat the quality of the THC would somewhat degrade, but would it be a noticeable diffrence when compared to vacuum destillate?
Are there any other major drawbacks other than possible lower potency due degredation?

planning for my new d8 startup :smile:
just kidding for personal use ONLY

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You need a vacuum. Without it you will end up with a charred mess

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The boiling point of THC at atmospheric pressure is about 420-430 C. You should be able to distill THC at about 200-250 C colder using vacuum.

The other issue is that you have easily 1000-100,000x more oxygen than if you were to operate anywhere from 1 torr to 0.01 torr.

To answer your question, it simply will not work without vacuum. It will be a stinky, smokey mess. Probably could start a fire too.

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And I reiterate it will STINK bad and then as a bonus it wont work

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the best thing you’re going to get out of boiling oil not under vacuum is a dab

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Literally… your whole room will become a giant nasty dab

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Well if it was a super badass condenser and fed super heated argon into the bf to help push the thc up when refluxing and get rid of the oxygen, it might work?? :man_shrugging:
Lol but dont try this unless u got a riot shield on deck to watch

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The higher boiling point temperature in the presence oxygen would ostensibly oxidize your product.

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Bottom line: deep vacuum is your friend. Partial vac for terpene stripping. Deep vac for desired fractions.

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This sounds legit. Maybe you’ll end up making a new super cannabinoid. Don’t listen to the haters mayn follow your dreams.

Jk. Id listen to the haters on this one. You’ll just end up with poppy, jelly stuff, that has very little target compounds left.

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Don’t do it, you’ll most likely end up with an explosion or fire. Super oxidation to your material will happen as well as charing and just… Overall Unsafe and not worth it shit.

Deep vacuum is used to to not just pull the cannabinoid fractions and lower the overall boiling point but it’s also to have your entire setup void of oxygen as well as open vapors which can be dangerous.

Trapping the open vapors while not using a deep vacuum won’t really make it any safer and using a really cold condenser without deep vacuum won’t make it any safer or work.
You need a deep vacuum to pull the distillate over to the receiving flask.

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If it’s the size of the device that you have you can use something like a Kugelrohr to distill. It’s a smaller device, and is much easier to bring down to deep vac. You can’t exactly distill liters using a Kugelrohr because it is made to distill small amount at a time. I forget which post it is, but if you look up @Beaker 's posts you can see what he set up to use to distill.
Bottom line, you’ll end up with a charred mess of shit without vacuum…

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Then how do dabs work? Its not a deep vacuum but still works. What if u set it up the whole thing with stainless steel instead of glass

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Why not just get a vacuum pump? Not that expensive for small scale setups

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Cuz thats how everyone else does it :yum: it would be too easy to follow the 20+ threads on here showing you how its done

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are your lungs not pulling negative pressure?

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Not under 100 microns thats for sure

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that’s why you have to run your nail red hot…

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short condenser?!?

the length of the condenser is not the magic. it is the distance between the evaporation surface and the condenser that qualifies as “short path”.

if taking the temps up to 430C, “short condenser” would not be on my list of things to implement…

yep. although somewhat doesn’t come close to describing the havoc you’d wreck (@Thetetraguy’s suggestions aside).

even hitting 250C rather than the more standard 200-210C can seriously degrade your target compounds. I managed to take 70% cannabinoids to 30% (knowns) at that temp on my first go at it.

leaky glass and janky pump…but I had in house analytics, so at least I knew I’d fucked up…it was a pretty color though.

considered installing the flask as a lampshade in my office :wink: .

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don’t know.

Let me do some research [cough cough] and get back to you on that good sir.

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