Hey guys! Just getting started, and debating between fresh frozen or cured trim. I am going to be using C02 with ethanol in a “Bambino” extractor from Apex.
Looking to make high quality distillate and add the natural terpenes from the plant back in as an end product.
What are the benefits of each? Do different types of extractions favor one or the other? Any and all information on this subject would be greatly appreciated.
New to the forum here. I searched for posts pertaining to fresh frozen vs trim but didn’t find anything. Hope this topic hasn’t already been covered.
I’m not expert on these things… but I don’t ever run wet material (aka Fresh Frozen) in CO2 or ethanol extractors without first prepping the material (aka DRYING) it in some way.
So you don’t want water to get into your ethanol (some does even when you start with cured trim, but smaller amounts…) and I’ve seen people use wet biomass with CO2 (even partly dried…) that comes out terrible. Doesn’t mean it isn’t physically possible to do - just means you’ll have to spend a lot of additional time and effort to fix it.
I think you might start with some general understanding of these processes. Check this out. The handbook is super high level but might help with this stuff.
You could also ask your vendor Apex what parameters you should run Fresh Frozen in that machine (perhaps they have a plan for you…)
There are a lot of differences between Fresh Frozen and Cured Trim - but I think you are leaving something else out as well Cured Buds.
Fresh Frozen potentially gives you better color because there is less degradation to begin with. It also gives you slightly different terpenes and also often more terpenes than dried material. Slightly different because terps like to degrade at room temperature and above, and so you get terpenoids and all other such things. And you get less terps - because when you harvest fresh and freeze those terps are kept with the biomass and when you dry/cure - you lose some to temperature.
I’d do a bit more searching and READING if I was you. Or hire someone to come talk you through these things.
I’ve done some R & D runs with fresh frozen and CO2 but its not ideal. Like @Cassin was saying, you will pull a lot of moisture in your fraction even without the addition of ethanol. You’ll also find a lot of moisture in your accumulator as well.
The reason for this is because extracting fresh frozen needs to happen well under 0 C, found commonly with hydrocarbon extraction. Most CO2 extractors are operating well above 31 C for supercritical fluid. Even doing a low and slow subcritical liquid CO2 extraction will require temperatures above 0 C. Also, water is partially soluble in SCF CO2.
Another thing to consider is your heavier fractions are easier to extract from decarboxylated material due to acidic cannabinoids being less soluble than activated cannabinoids in liquid and supercritical CO2. Can’t decarboxylate fresh frozen material without it curing first, right?
To simplify, your best yields will descend from decarbed cured biomass > undecarbed cured biomass > undecarbed uncured biomass/freshfrozen/etc. This is not to say that individuals and companies do not extract the acidic compounds first and then decarb it afterwards like many hemp manufactures.