Hey guys. Awhile back I did my first short path run, and kind of did a live play by play post which a lot of people enjoyed. Tomorow I’m doing a run after a few weeks since, and wanted to change one thing. I had a fairly strong sulfur/ass smell that came off with the heads, but since I kept the heads flask on the cow and just rotated for the mains, all the distillate carries the smell. Tomorow I wanted to try breaking vac quickly, removing the heads flask and closing off that port and pulling the vac and restarting for the mains. Is there any downside to doing this? Or any other advice to avoid that smell contaminating everything? I’m running a simple 2l short path with a 3 flask cow. Also, do they make some kind of joint with a valve of
Sorts that I can close off and easily remove a joint/flask during a run? Thanks, and wish me luck for tomorow lol
yes they do! (not the best example)
Until you get your’s, breaking vac is pretty much what you got for getting that fraction disconnected from the system.
see slightly upstream in the same thread. Piecing together a small SPD - what do you think? - #16 by Beaker
probably no harm in starting it from the top…although I admit I haven’t been through it all at once.
If You think You have hit the sulfur fraqtion You can leave iT simmer on that temp for a while then bring temp back down to 130C in the boiling flask
Switch flask and start again rising temp
Evidence shows that cannabinoids after the 140 C. Oxidize faster
Make sure to have the deepest possible vacuum
I followed along as suggested, lowered temp, broke vac, switched out the smelly first flask, and pulled a fresh vacuum and continued on. All went well. I suspect not having that flask in there for 2 hours simmering with the distillate should help a lot. Thanks as always
Having a high cfm pump will help on flask changes . Beside that nitrogen backfill. And at very last resort if letting oxygen do it very slow like barely notice it’s going back to atmosphere and don’t forgot to turn off heat or …
Next time try copper scrubies in the head
Maybe sulfur bonds to copper and cleans iT out for good👍
Smell will not be remidated by that im sorry to be a barer of bad news. Anyone can distill oil. Only a few can get the stink out. And noones sharing.
I got one monocow w a bigger recieving flask for the main fraction. Now i use the triple cow for heads and tails; i can deal with them contaminating each other until i upgrage or get more monocows
A hot Condenser helps to remuve smell
So does sonication of Distillate in a jar see @Future in the Tricks of the trade tread
I’ve been trying to catch up on breaking dabs hot condenser tek. In short can u summarize what that tek is? I’m assuming just running the condenser liquid extra hot lol. Right now I run it from 40-50c , sometimes i jack it up to 70 just for experimental reasons.
The minimum recomended temperature diffrance between heads and condensor is 20C so Depending on your vac depth
You can raise your condensor temp to that max
Problem with this tech. Is that visuals become harder so untill volitiles and terps have left the Building keep your condensor around the. 50/60C
Once You enter heads You rise the condensor temp to anything but 20C less then head temps
I use a aditional heat stick to make the chiller do this fast
Hot Condenser tech explaind more in depth the tread that is 
Right on. Thanks as always bruddah
Yea your right no one did answer that part of question. Usually depends with what terpenes are you dealing with and individual crude based question. Some terps are easy to remove just with hot condenser tech . Sometimes liquid liquid extraction with methanol before distilling will help a lot in removing “heavy” terpenes. But the hot condenser tech really allows for lowest amount of terps in first pass . Also another factor is did you devolatize and decarb . That alone can solve your problem . So In conclusion sometimes it takes little work sometimes few additional steps best practice is do all three each time and get used to it and maybe test your product to see what your dealing with
Also forgot one last thing . One thing that improves not getting smell/flavor in your product is don’t get excited and start collecting till you have main body collecting past the receiving flask. Then that is when you can dial in condenser temp and start collecting. Turn up stir bar and depending on vac level 1-5 degree up on mantle. Let it really start flowing . The first 10-25ml of distillate is always the smelliest part.
There is couple ways to jump into main body to not capture any volatiles . 1 is let vacuum get you into the main body fraction then adjust temp or 2 set it all the way to few degrees before your recorded main body temp and same with condenser and use condenser to control main body