We are in the process of converting a 5,000 sqft building from growing to ethanol extraction and will operating 6 days a week. Our goal is to be able to make 250 Liters of distillate per week for vape pens and edibles. We have our trim requirements at 3,000 pounds per week to be able to produce that amount. I have reached out to Colorado Extraction for a quote on the equipment and was given a basic one but I am still waiting for them to follow up with the number of each component needed for the set up to be capable of 250 liters a week. I am waiting for quotes from Exctract Tek and Delta Separations as well. I have to get these numbers to the group handling our funding by tomorrow and was hoping I’d be able to get some answers here and not risk missing the deadline tomorrow by waiting Colorado Extraction to follow up. Any help with is greatly appreciated.
the only way you’re going to get that math done in time is to do it yourself. if you do it in public, you can probably get the critiques & assists you need.
we’re mostly helpful 
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how hard are you running? ie is a day 8, 10, 12, or 24hrs?
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at 10lb a pop, how many CUPs must you runneth over?
(or are you looking at a CUP30?) -
how much liquor is that?
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so how many spray vaps?
what does that leave you for crude on a weekly basis?
etc…
@QGA will recommend a WFE for distillate rather than an SPD. ymmv.
I have got the sprayvap machine from CES and I do have to say it is as easy as it gets as far as ethanol recovery. actionable events every 30 mins or so. I had some issues with customer service about 8 months ago but i heard they got some one new working that side of things now.
250 liters off of 3000 lbs. That is amazing I am curious as to how you get those numbers.
That’s crazy numbers. On a good run it takes us 25 lbs to get 1L
We use a delta separations cup-15
And a beezybee FFE. And 2 BR spinning bands.
You can do around 3L and hour.
if the trim is coming in at 25% cannabinoids, and they manage 75% overall efficiency, that seems close.
don’t see trim over 15% all that often. Not sure about efficiency ==> distillate. the question has been asked around here, but I’m not sure it’s been answered…
@karmabob: any idea on the potency of your input, and your final 1L?
Pretending your final liter weighs 1kg, and is 90% THC (so 900g of actual THC), and assuming your process is 75% efficient, we can calculate a theoretical 1.2kg THC in your 11.3kg of starting trim. Giving a theoretical starting potency of 10.5% THC, which is not unreasonable for trim.
Understand that the 75% overall efficiency is a guess on my part based on numbers I’ve seen thrown around. I don’t have my own crude => distillate numbers. It doesn’t seem to be a bad guesstimate, but as always ymmv.
That’s what I was thinking he can’t even hit a liter of crude yet alone distillate. But I wanted to hear an explanation
Yeah I would shoot for 6-8% yield on distillate for hemp just to be conservative for planning purposes. Like you say, on a good day you can hit 8-9% but his math is about 2.5 times that.
I just noticed the 5L SPD. That won’t even remotely keep up with the throughput required here. WFE or BR SBD is the way to go for something this big. Even 2 BRs won’t get you you 250 kilos a week unless perhaps you’re running 24x7 but that leaves no down time for maintenance. Karmabob’s numbers are more in line with our math.
Numbers seem off quite a bit.
Bottlenecked at the 5L short path I’m not sure what that can do but Im sure its not close to 250L a week.
Is this CBD or THC? Because you have a CBD crystallization vessel on there. You know CBD distillate will crystalize in your vape pens and potentially ruin them right?
You should strongly consider hiring a consultant who is a bit more experienced.
The SprayVap is going to be a major bottleneck as well. You’re going to be using roughly 135L/hr in a Delta CUP, then trying to recover at 22L/hr. FYI when I asked CES for a quote on a SprayVap system that could handle that recovery rate it came in just shy of $500k. You’ll probably want to reach out to another FFE manufacturer.
One 5L SPD is not going to even come close to 250L a week LOL!!! We run four 5L, 2 first pass and 2 second pass. This gives us about 4 to 5L a day output at best in a 12 hour shift which includes cleaning. Good luck though.
Whats your average purity coming out of the BR?
You guys are way off on the numbers. Do you have at least a $1.5 million budget for the custom equipment that you will need? If so, I can help.
5000sq ft building I don’t think is even close enough space for that kinda of output as well
I think you can pull it off in that space, but the other question is do they have 800 amps of power, and 3-phase 460V service?
250L equals roughly 500,000 .5g carts? 5,000 sq ft might just fit the small army it takes to fill and package them.
@nm12990; are we there yet?
You needed this today, but haven’t commented on anything, suggesting you didn’t check back after asking for help?!?
As you can see, the consensus is that your numbers are off in a couple or four places…
If you can’t take the above & come up with some math we can critique for you, you might should concider buying a clue from one of the kind folks around here. 
If you try real hard, I’m sure you could cut @SoStupendous’ $1.5x106 in half…with the right consultant.
With the wrong one, you could spend that or more & still flail around for months.
Edit: here is an example of working the math in public that shows how helpful this lot can be. I don’t imagine your investors will begrudge you another day or two if you actually come back with the right answer
Bro i can build it out cheappp np with your size space i gots custom. Just need a bunch of mirrors and a smoke machine
Custom mirrors that is. 420k only!
The investment game is real.
Well this was a fun read.