Ethanol crystals

When my evaporation of ethanol is nearly complete, I get seperation into what is assumed a alcohol water terpene layer and oil layer. Upon fractioning and slow evaporation of the solution at room temp, crystalization occurs.

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Got any pictures of it collected?

I haven’t tried yet… thought I’d give it a bit longer

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Right on, definitely let 'em dry, I was unaware how long ago the picture was taken.

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Looks great in there! :sunglasses:

If your willing to share any more details on this I’d be very interested as I have just begun some of my own experimentation with ethanol extractions.

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Would you be wrong to try and cold boil any thing thats left in the vac?

Those are freaking gorgeous though,
I can’t see why ethanol if sourced correctly could be worse than butane but, who am I

Just peddling my way thru life!

Once again that structure is gorgeous,
I need to know more!

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Terpenes! Many of the monoterpenes tend to hang around with water or ethanol, so, since ethanol has a higher boiling point than butane, you lose many of those monoterps in the process of crystallization.

However, with butane, since most of the crystallization is done under pressure, you retain a large portion of those highly volatile terps.

Edit: I should reference that I only mean worse in terms of extraction and retention of all of the essential oils, not in terms of crystallization ability.

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I get ALL Crystallization from bho after purging for one hr at full vac and jar the thick honey,2-3 weeks later and you’ll have perfect looking sauce, never had it tested though , only works perfect if starting material pure(dewaxed honey)…

But I do use the pressure ,jarring butane method also… Strickly for personal consumption for both my methods,I just was taught jarring the honey at first. I like pressure method for sure though,I do both all the timeIMG_20180703_162613

Just jarring thick one hr full purge honey at room temp

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Would be worth getting the terpene profile tested on 2 batches of the same material post-processed with and without pressure.

If I were a betting man, I’d say the latter would be more terpene rich, and with a more balanced profile.

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So can you tell me why someone said they didn’t think would pass residual test…

I let completely stop reacting at room temp… Then come really slow to full vac so no muffin,… At most hr, least 30min… Waiting for main bubbling to quit… Then jar it up…it crashes Everytime! And you know I’ve did both and thought my no pressure tasted better… You think this would pass, 2-3 weeks time is the other purge? I put in vac after nothing happens… So I stopped doing that

Wish someone would try my method test terps and residuals… I’ll help pay for lol

Residuals is awkward, if you have big boulders and get those tested, they almost always fail because gas gets caught in the lattice. So lots of people are crushing and recrystallizing to purge it off.

As far as purging the sauce, there’s some nuance there that I don’t totally understand, there’s an art to retaining terpenes, yet, purging solvent (something about pressures and temps, gotta create the right atmosphere.) It’s possible that your pressure sauce isn’t purged properly, creating harshness/bad taste. I’m not experienced with BHO other than open blasted shatter, wax, and sap when I first started out.

Edit: If you hard lid your jar with any solvent whatsoever it’s going to create pressure, especially if you add heat. * Also of mention, with terpenes being a solvent, even if you get < all > of the butane out, the terpenes will still create pressure. *

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I’m sure they is micro amounts pressure from jarring honey

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These little specs sure seem like crystals but I wanted to get some other opinions. They do not want to break down when I swirl warm ethanol over them, heat gun had no effect, although I kept it fairly low. I tried to get a good quality image from the cell phone for you all. Happy to answer any questions, this happened as I was finishing my roto-vap purge.

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I’m guessing they’re water soluble and sweet.

Edit: but I’m also assuming that is fresh ethanol not your mother liquor in the roto-flask.

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Hey @cyclopath ,help me understand, what’s the difference in the mother liquor
And the one he’s showing… Just trying to get all the terms down right

hard to say. especially as I’m guessing.

“Mother Liquor” is the solution from which you crystallize. To me, the color, translucency and viscosity (hard to quantify in a non-moving picture, especially a slightly blurry one), combined with the wording @TreeMonsters used, suggest that the picture is fresh warm solvent rather than the syrup that dropped the crystals.

I think it’s the clearish ring around the puddle that I’m using. Volume might also be a clue.

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Ok I gotcha, mother liquid is the solution after crashing, thanks buddy

Mother Liquor does not imply spent.

My guess at the etymology would be that the mother gives birth to the crystals. she is a mother before, during, and after.

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This is normal, bho crude Crystallization? If it’s not purge to shatter it’ll happen Everytime

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Maybe I misunderstood…I thought bho crude just means bho after let react to room temp then honey state… Also if you purged that same material on down you would have shatter, depending on terpene content/water/other things will depend on it if sugars after a jarring from here is how I understood it

After a proper winterizing I’m pretty sure it’s stable then…

Yeah so bho crude means just letting the solvent evap off, the honey before processing, you can jar the honey and get crystallization fast., you can keep purging make shatter, keep purging make budder… You can winterize… Distille… Smoke…decarb…you can jar before the solvent gone…tinctures…etc…
I know every way day’ is to make B.H…OOO!!

Btw this thread is about ethanol Crystallization, I tend to pull ppl off topic, sorry all

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