Ethanol shatter sugaring problem

I’d trash my alcohol and buy some new just in case

But purity equals crystallization.

Soaking longer u get more undesirables which henders sugaring. You must have some heavy terp strains

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Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I’m anxious to get the hydrometer and see where it’s at. More ethanol will be ordered this week. I’ve had sugaring with the past 4 strains, all but 1 was trim. I would have expected terps not to be an issue because so many are lost thru ethanol evaporation. I tested one of the sugared experiments so far and it came back at 1.3% terps which to me seems pretty low, is it not?

Sorry to hear you’re having so much trouble with this but EHO shatter is going to be a lot of trail and error. I looked at your pictures and it seems like your slabs aren’t as uniform as they could be. We had this issue and it caused sugaring in the areas where the slab was thickest. You might need to level your vac oven? If it all runs to one side then the thin part will nucleate and spread like a cancer to your thicker part. As far as drying in the roto goes I think this might be where you’re hitting you’re issue. In my experience when you pour out of the RB you should never have to use a heat gun. This leads me to believe you are over drying and causing nucleation as soon as you’re pouring up.We usually have about 10% EHO in the extract as we pour up. You need a calibrated GCMS to determine this percentage. When the EHO stops dripping off the coil set a timer for 10min, pull when the timer beeps. Keep Roto temp between 35C and 40C. I wouldn’t suggest longer soak for more impurities it will make your shatter look like shit. In the vac oven set to 94F (I hate that vac ovens and roto are in F and C respectively, stupid). Do you have a vac oven with heated trays or is it ambient heat? We have heated trays maybe thats the difference? Honestly it looks like you’re making some fire sauce. If this whole shatter thing doesn’t work out I would just make sauce. Or try your hand at crumble. Don’t bang your head against the wall bud. Your brain doesn’t have beef with the wall. Let me know if you have more questions! Hopefully the things I have addressed make a difference.

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Oilslick or somthing with solvent resistance is worth it ime

Have you made any progress on this?

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this is actually quiet lovely.

consider urself lucky most master ethanol users cant make sugar sauce

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Bahahahaha is that a joke? If a master ethanol user cannot get a slab to sugar they should go work at Wally World as a greeter. This has to be one of the most frustrating things to happen with slabs in an ethanol extraction lab. Second to a slab failing because it wont purge properly. Making sugar is honestly as easy as pouring the extract in a jar and letting it sit, with the right pheno. You could also get a slab to sugar if you crumbled up the parchment before pouring. I agree with you that sugar is lovely when thats what you’re targeting but when you’re not it blows.

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maybe they can now last year was unheard of

That seems strange because I started in the industry 2 years ago and when I was getting a tour of the facility the company I work for had Zour Apples “Sauce”. Beautiful tiny crystal formations with some LOUD terps. Ethanol crystals have been around for a while, maybe they weren’t perfected but people have been making them. I feel like they were probably an accident in most cases.

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just sea3ch for it here and noticed the lack of info
and pics of it working

so u say pour it in thick layer and place in oven and it will sugar…if that’s the case u could seal this to slow down evaporation

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I know people consider this site to be all knowing and encompassing but I’m positive there are plenty of people who dont use this and have been making EtOH extracts into sauce. Slabs sugar up for all kinds of reasons. Most people who are making sauce will pour it up in a pyrex. I have seen cycling heat with agitation to get sugar to form and I have also discovered some pretty nice lil diamonds that slow grew in a sealed extract that was placed in the freezer. With ethanol its a lot more strain dependant I think. Also the amount of ethanol left in solution probably has a little something to do with it.

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I’m no ethanol extractor only drinker of ethanol lol so idk.

master thca maker w butane and propane though

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Bahaha my dad has a bad ass distillation unit, for ethanol. Thing pumps 185 proof like nothing.

I have seen your work with the tane. Very impressive. I have never needed to use CRC or any powders of sorts so that aspect of the industry is a little lost to me. Although in undergrad I have run many columns to separate compounds so I’m sure its not that hard.

Was just going to suggest this, even with the etho gone if the terps are heavy in saturation it will sugar from nucleation via co-solvent

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Yes actually, I have. Thanks for reminding me to update the thread!

Since I made this thread, I’ve had success getting stable slabs. The only thing I changed was incorporating T5 and AC into my filtration process. Since I started doing that, no issues. I think my main filtration using stage cartridge filters down to 1 micron may not have been catching everything and the particles that made it past created nucleation sites. Now I filter via cartridge filters, rotovap most of the ethanol off, remove solution, filter over T5, AC, celite in a fritted buchner funnel, and then finish evaporating in a 2L roto.

Pic below is the last slab I made from a 3 min -80C ethanol soak of trim and the above described process.

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Reading all this made my day :slight_smile: Glad you got it …

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Have you tried just t5? What’s the purpose of the AC? Looks great. I’m bout to try this as slabs are going for more than disty

Hows the terps compare to a bho/pho extract?

I have not tried just T5, it’s always been a stack of either clelite on bottom, t5, or AC or t5 on bottom and AC. The AC was for color remediation. The color is generally good with a quick soak, but the yields are not great with such a short residence time, so I tried increasing soak time to get better yields and then filtering over AC to help with color.

Let me know how it goes for you if you don’t mind. I’d give it a shot with just t5, but everything is going to distillate these days so I don’t think I’ll be making any shatter for a bit.

I was getting 1-2% terps. I’m not sure what the average is for BHO shatter, but from what I’ve seen it’s not too much higher. But I have basically no experience with BHO, so don’t quote me on that.

People seemed to like the flavor, but I think bho shatter will always have the advantage.