I’m new here, been browsing for a while, but still not sure on a lot of things. So my situation is as follows. I will have access to large amounts of Finola hemp buds, leaves, stems etc. Is there anything I can do with it ? It’s 2-3% cbd or atleast that what some of the papers say. Is it worth the time ?
Ethanol extraction seems like the way to go, since it’s so low tech.
So before I dive any deeper, is it even worth pursuing this ? Is it possible to get a quality CBD product from industrial hemp, via ethanol extraction ?
Other members of this forum are way more qualified than me to detail hemp extraction, but I am just curious, do you know what the trichome quality+density of the flowers will be like? If I recall correctly Finola was bred by Skunkman Sam and co, for the production of seed.
I have no idea. Right now I’m thinking of the leftovers from the seed harvest. It’s not out of the question to cultivate other strains in the future. Better male-to female ratio, maybe a possibility of sensimilla.
Let’s say I have leaves, chopped up de-seeded flower… Do I have something to work with at all ?
Hey guys just seeing this. You can definitely use it for extraction. You’ll see some low yields however it can still be top quality depending on how its extracted and the machines used. Not all ethanol extraction systems are built equally. Your best bet if you don’t need the hemp or extraction is to just sell it to the higher bidder or to an extraction lab depending on the quantity you have. Some labs would love that for tolling if its a million pounds. Others would like it to make plastic or other impressive things using the hemp itself.
3% is the cutoff for several large hemp processors I have worked with, that’s often the number the Canadian pulverized “tricrop” comes I at. Mind you, these are very large, industrial scale CBD manufacturers. Good luck making bucket tek profitable at 3%
That goes without saying, but what part is the most time consuming ? Ethanol washing seems fairly straightforward, so it looks like that’s not the problem here. So what part of the process is so slow, that it’s not worth doing ?
If the cbd content is below 3% like @future mentioned extracting the material would be a waste of your solvent. your solvent costs/losses will outweigh your potental profit.
To add insult to injury like @Apothecary36
mentioned your time =money.
If your spend all your time and don’t make a dime
you cant even pay yourself for the work!
Get your hemp tested for cbd, you need a good average of the feild as far as your estemated yeild. Only jump in waist deep once you know the potental profits and losses.
3% is our potency floor for stuff we’ll even consider placing orders for, and we prefer a minimum of 6%.
Though that’s hard to come by in legal channels in Canada.
If you’re paying yourself or others by the hour the economics just don’t work out for anything under 3%.
If you’re doing it in your garage, making products for yourself, and/or don’t care too much about yields you can certainly extract 3% material.
Maybe I should have clarified, I’m not from the US or Canada. Ethanol cost for me is about 30 cents per litre in your currency (and that is if I want to pay taxes on it). I don’t even understand why that’s a problem, since you are recovering most of your solvent ?
I am not necessaraly even doing it in my garage, the funding is there if I need it and if it makes sense. Is the problem really the cost of the solvent and not the time it takes to purify the cbd ? I’m still lost here…
Solvent loss is a factor that remains constant around the world. I just was curious where you were located, and how you were getting etoh for that low of a price. Go extract your feild already!
Bucket Tek, looses about 1gal of solvent for every 10lb of biomass processed. if that solvent costs you $0.3/liter then you’re probably in decent shape.
If it costs you $75gal or more, as it can in the US if you’re not running tax-exempt heptane denatured, it’s clearly a different matter.
if you’ve got unlimited cold water, then getting your solvent back is also less expensive that having to use electrickery to cool the output from your evaporator (still). unlimited hot water (eg geothermal) as well would make it a no brainer.
Not all Alcohol is made via distillation, there are also technical ways to produce. They are really cheap. You can buy alcohol from chemical companys in great quality, most labs use it.
This is all true if you have a tax except licence, or are some huge company in the USA. But for the people who have to pay tax on the proof gallon it can be very expensive vs say denatured alcohol which is rendered unfit for human consumption. It seems that the “intent” of the etoh effects its tax… if you want to have a good time say drinking it, that pleasure will cost you taxes… but if your the poor bastard who has to soak parts in it all day and use it for an industrial solvent then well no fuss there! Where abouts are you located? What do you pay per gallon/liter out of curiosity?
For the record the only stuff we ever used was 195 kosher grade, which was produced by distillation.Does the chemically produced etoh some how fit into the category of unfit for human consumption?
