Are y’all grinding your biomass for EToH extraction?
I’ve seen discussions of “which grinder at different scales”, “efficient way to grind” etc… But nothing about the actual necessity of this step itself?
i.e. Nobody seems to call out the NEED or STEP for grinding their biomass in the popularly circulated SOPs so curious if the rest of the community is actually doing this? Or maybe it’s law of diminishing returns re: time + SOP of grinding at scale VS. negligible increase in yield?
Historically, we’ve ground our bio because when dealing with whole flower or even trim + popcorn, the flowers themselves become dense and compressed, especially when dried and stored in bales at large volumes.
Our reasoning for the grind is that EToH does not easily penetrate these dense flower structures, especially given reasonably short solvent residence times. Even when only 1/4" popcorn size - grinding “opens” these dense flowers up exposing the desirable compounds inside making more surface area for the ethanol to easily strip from.
Curious the opinion of the community on EToH penetrating power vs. the need to grind.