What was your primary extraction solvent?
PHO often means “propane honey oil”, but that is the product of the extraction, not the extraction solvent.
How did you decarb?
Why did you decarb before winterization? (Why heat your extract twice?!?)
Do you know how big of a column would be necessary? There a few local terpene distillers in my area and I know they have 2 and 3 story fractional columns. I always assumed their size is more for scale/speed than selectivity though.
Seeing as how the regulations in Florida are now super tight I do not think louching is going to be a very good idea. I have done anaytics on the terp fraction. So when we make our sauce the extract is crystallized as far as possible and then the crystals are separated through a sieve and set aside. The terp fraction was tested at 40.7% THCa and 37.6% THC. So that’s 73.3% total THC after decarb. Our extraction techniques are pretty clean so if we assume 12% terps, 4% EtHO, 4% other flavonoids and 6.7% minor cannabinoids does that sound right? Unfortunately my GC isnt calibrated for quantification of terps I only really do identification through the NIST database. The fact that they have similar boiling points is the reason I have been trying to do the reflux route. I just need to find a temp of my coil that allows terps to stick around, mostly, and EtOH to fly out of the top of the condenser.
At this point I feel like there are a few plans of attack.
- Louching, which I’m not psyched abut becuse there is probably a even lower limit for the hydrocarbons I would have to use there.
2.Thin film spread out in a vac oven which then gets purged like shatter. My personal favorite.
- Rig up a heated vibrating tray with N2 gas blowing over the tray. I could do this in my fume hood and turn on the vent to promote more air flow in the environment. The most labor intensive but also might be the most fun setting up.
That seems like a LOT of THC for a terp fraction. How hot are you getting your material along the way?
Dropping it 5C might help you drop more THCA rather than decarb it.
I dont have analytics on/have not seen analytics on sauce fractions I’ve participated in, but was under the impression that 35-45% cannabinoids was the target. I may be wrong on that.
Pentane is easier to remove than ethanol, which is why It is being suggested. You might still be correct, don’t know what your rules look like or what they are changing to.
OR for some reason (pressure from the CO2/must winterize crew I presume) decided ethanol was ok at any concentration!
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Yeah it is a LOT, when I first saw that’s what the concentration was at I was blown away especially because the crystallization on this strain was a crazy amount but not fully crystallized like I have seen. I think we could have probably tried to recrystallize again but the 1:1 ratio of THC and THCa was probably inhibiting the crystallization. Or the amount of EtOH was probably to high causing the saturation point to not be ideal for crystal formation to go to completion. We do an initial heating at around 75C to agitate the extract and promote growth. Throw the covered pyrex into a “Heat Cave” at around 80C and let it sit to crystallize. If the saturation point doesn’t seem like its good it will take a trip into the vac oven to try and get residual solvents down and then back in the heat cave. 35-45% cannabinoids seems like a great target range for the terp fraction. I was thinking of doing a 10:1 extract to pentane to try and displace/remove ethanol, sound right? I haven’t finished up my supplemental readings given by everyone in this thread so I will have to complete that before I go about trying crazy things with this extract.
75-85F might be more appropriate based on what folks are doing with hydrocarbons. Would certainly reduce the level of decarb you’re seeing.
Edit: and up thread
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Depends on how quickly/cleanly you want to distill. More height/plates means better separation, more cross section means you distill faster. The biggest thing in my mind is running cold enough to not oxidize the compounds which means deep vac and a very cold condenser. Sparging with inert gas helps prevent oxidation but makes it much harder to cut clean fractions and would make the solvent codistills more readily.
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Yeah I didn’t do the crystallization on this specific batch that I am working with so what was really done is up for debate. The person who was spear heading sauce at the facility is no longer employed here so I can’t really ask them either. I’m hoping to be a little more involved so that i can help reduce the level of decarbing and increase the level of crystal production! I work with @THChemist so I’m aware of how he has done sauce in the past. That crystallization at room temp was with a strain that crystallizes no matter what. Wish I only had material like that to work with because life would be a lot easier! Thank you for all your insight and help. I’m going to post a picture in a minute showing off our Inert gas sweeping/vibrating ethanol removal set up. @NoHeatNoVacuum get ready for this beauty.
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Got my nitrogen pumping, hot plate heating, and vibrator vibrating! Also got the hood pulling in some air. Hopefully something changes.
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vibrator and blow job?
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That set up has it all. Pleasant smells of Lemon Margy penetrate the nostrils as well.
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Louching has been my favourite approach so far. I wanna do some co2 louching one of these days 
need to get 30-40k in equipment though 
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What type of equipment are you looking at? I don’t know if my company will go for 30-40K but I’d like to look at my options for fun.
Neat setup! Any growth from this batch?
This particular extract is the terp fraction from another extract that already had the crystals crashed out. It was decarbed and when tested on GC it was found to still have high levels of ethanol. This set up was an effort to remove that residual ethanol.
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Left my etoh tincture sitting after filter because roto broke down for a month. Started spd and realized it might have crystallized any thoughts. I saw a post on this but figured I’d atleast throw it up here for science 
weirdly enough, this has been one of the most helpful post for me so far. lol.
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Some etho crystals i made in 2016. crashed out of crude, rinsed with cold solvent and recrystallized once
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