Considering modifying my wash setup to constantly recirculate water make to the wash vessel. I’m curious if anyone would happen to know why fresh water tends to extract trichomes better than hash-laden water–if it does. Seems interesting that people tend to do 3x 15min washes for example, instead of a 45min wash
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At least from my eyes I like doing the small bits of separate washes simply because I’ve had some strains and materials get progressively darker over washes and pull more plant material. Although I am with you, I’ve often wished I could do just one really long wash and make the process much more streamlined but I believe things like that are what’s keeping the cost of really good rosin up after all of these years
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It’s my understanding that washing for too long can break off more than just the trike heads and end up with a lower quality product. Similar to dry sifting too long. I don’t run our solventless machines, but I have heard the tecs speaking of this. And, I’ve seen it spoken about on this 4200 forum.
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Maybe people like the short washes because it gives you a chance to address the output, and decide if you want to continue or not? Companies like Whistler utilize constant recirculation systems, I’m just trying to figure out why everyone doesn’t
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Assuming temps are maintained, I can’t imagine one long wash bringing out more chlorophyll than multiple short washes
I know a lot of big name guys who will do like 1 90min wash and they make some incredible hash
Me personally I agree with @SubstituteCreature some strains will get darker as the washes continue as well as the quality of hash in the premium bags will suffer
I separate by wash typically 5-9 min per wash
And by micron
220
150
90
73
45
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If your temps are good and your agitation is light, a 45min will dump more right off the spin comparative to a 15min interval and collect. IMO a constant recirculation is only useful when you have a vibratory seive screen inline with 4”- 6” of depth between each screen deck. This will allow you to accumulate mass amounts and not worry about having to pull a bag when it’s full.
After 2-3 spins you’ll notice the water looses efficiency for the extraction as it’s becoming saturated with compounds from the bio that you’re not collecting and rinsing through each recirculation.
Which is why for more clean hash the shorter intervals will be better. Each strain will wash differently, and keep in mind each wool paddler isn’t built the same either. There are many variables in good hash making, make sure you have constant parameters held all around from temps to agitation by hand if you’re hand washing.
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Saturated water will create foam, and enough foam in the water changes how the process works. Cleaner water passes through bags/sieves easier. As things saturate the water, it becomes thicker. Thick enough impact the smaller micron filters. If filtration is too slow, trichomes can start to stick to each other. Once that happens you get compound filtration, what should be in the 73, may be stuck in the 160 for instance.
That being said, Recirculation has its place in the wash depending on material type and your given environment.
Outdoors for instance, i would reccomend (after filtration) draining completely and filling with new water and doing something of a blanch.
If the water quality doesnt decrease to much ( i.e build up foam) then you might as well get another use out of it.
How you return the water can be important as well. Foam is created by saturation and shear. If you use an aggressive centrifugal pump to return the water, you will generate excess foam. I recommend a cheap AODD for return pumps.
No matter what method you use. Drain to waste. Recirculation, hybrid. The thing that matters most is the final rinse of your collection.
Or i dont know what im talking about and should ho back to lurking
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Also Fresh water doesnt exactly remove the trichomes better.
People break up agitation into increments to reduce possible impact on already liberated heads. Certain machines lack a " safety zone " for heads to settle into and the freed particles are active in the agitated solution.
Also also: as stated above. Recirculation benefits greatly from using a vibratory sifter. However the sifter does not benefit much from Recirculation.
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why would the quality of hash in the premium bags suffer?
As you get into your fourth, fifth and sixth washes, more time then none ls when the hash will take on color
That hash always has a lower yield percentage return then let’s say your one through four washes again this is just an example and I’m sure with the right set up you could do continuous flow I’m just speaking from my personal experience
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That’s when you can usually spot it with your naked eye and make a call about if you’re going to make some old school, food grade, or toss it into carts if it isn’t up to snuff too. It’s a shame to allow one or two pulls to darken what would usually be a really nice batch
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ahhh so it’s the foamy water that inhibits mechanical separation, that’s the sort of answer I was looking for. Constant recirculation through a larger reservoir would seemingly solve the foam and head impact issue
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Spoken like a pro
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Why thank you sir!
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Even with three vessels for recirculation you end up with foam pushing through your pumps outlet into your wash as that’s the nature of what happens when the water is pushed through with force. You can reduce this by loading the recirculation holding vessel with 3/4 the way ice, which also chills it to temp before reintroduction to wash. I found that much ice will hold back a majority of your first recirculation so you can second pass filtration or dump into wash to collect some heads that may have washed through.
I’ve always theorized the idea of running a membrane inline to remediate the water but that will be more costly than just making fresh water that you have to chill anyways. Rather collect first pulls and discard wash water for first few washes as you should be collecting a majority of you hash within those runs, then like mentioned above into the 5th & 6th washes you can tell by eye if you’re gonna continue dumping good quality hash or if you’ve agitated it to far and are now collecting small particles that you may or may not be able to rinse through your bags as heads accumulated or as the bags get tacky from not being kept at temperature parameters as well.
Keep everything cold
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