Allow me to introduce Heptane barrel tek:
Basically a ghetto version of how they do large scale hexane edible oil extraction. Use a mag drive centrifugal pump with appropriate atex motor to pp from the sump in the bottom to a spray ball in the lid. Pump through a BPHE hooked to a small chiller to keep the solvent cooled so it doesn’t boil off.
Connect a large Graham condenser or dephlegmator in the lid to a flex line connected directly to your explosion proof exhaust system (this will negatively pressurize your barrel keeping the vapor from leaking out).
Mill your material and use undyed cotton cloth above the sump screen to hold it. You can easily fit 40kg of fresh frozen in a go.
Lastly, make a press to squeeze the lion’s share of the solvent using the same vent system. Obviously only do this while the solvent is cold.
3 washes of about 50l of solvent for 1 hour each pulls just about everything. Then LLE into methanol for room temp winterization.
There’s a ton of common sense stuff with this method (like ground the shit out of everything) but that’s the rough method. This is not how we’re currently processing but considering switching over.
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You can probably do 100lb a day with buckets and several pandas. Won’t be the most efficient but will be cheap. Get a bunch of 5 gal extraction bags, load them up with weed about halfway so that they still fit in the panda easily. Get a 30gal poly drum. With 30gal of ethanol you can definitely extract 50lb of weed (in batches) and get a good yield. Get a large -80 freezer such that you can cool 30gal of ethanol.
Soak 50lb in 30gal ethanol (in batches), or even more in a 55gal drum, in cryo ethanol, pull bags of weed out, spin in panda, suck tincture out of poly drum thru a staged stainless steel cartridge or bag filter assembly, rotovap. Would probably be pretty tough to get 100lb all the way to a decarbed state in 8 hours with this method tho.
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Also adding up total costs for the barrel tek, excluding labor, you’d be pretty close to that budget.
3 barrels at $300 each with an additional $150 in parts -$1350
Expeller press parts including extra lid - $550
Pump -$1000 (got ours set up for $150 but it was a hell of a deal)
60l sep funnel parts -$300
Lid vent condensers ($200 ea), hose ($100 ea) and fittings ($50 per lid) - $700
Solvent cooler HX and fittings $250
Small chiller - $750
50L rotovap ($6k ea) -$12k
Feed and drain kegs+fittings ($400 ea) - $800
That’s $17,700 total by my probably sketchy math. This is assuming you have some stuff which maybe you don’t (vacuum and cooling source for solvent recovery). Also not included is filtration gear for winterization. But if you have a couple minions (one to run the extractions, another to tend solvent recovery, another for running the LLE, and one more to run filtration you could conceivably run 100 lbs a day soup to nuts. What you do with the crude when you get it is also in question. IME heptane and methanol are both very volatile so if you run deep enough vacuum in the rotovap you’ll have a very flavorful crude that can be polished to make a great extract without going the distillate route. Only issue is that you’ll have a shitload of fats that will make polishing shitty if you do it in Heptane and it just flat doesn’t work with methanol. LLE or distillation BACK to heptane is an option but there goes your yield and throughput (but it will make a hella clean oil if done right).
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Care to spoon feed me the info on the Chinese centrifuge that caused fire in Washington?
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@anon16547145: I second @broken_glassware’s request for more data on these flaming Chinese fuges. What’s the tell?
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I mean it’s from Elliot so take it with a grain of salt
But the investigation I heard I’m from the owner of the processing company I’m director of operations for. We sold all the questionable gear and uprgraded to appease our insurance company and landlord.
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Thanks!
While I’d say that the safety concerns are genuine, I suspect that the operator(s) had some level of culpability based on the way some of the crews I’ve seen run them ignore strange new noises.
if you don’t maintain them, they can be pretty scary. The trick is not to ignore them when they ask for help.
in order to go up in flames, someone has to have been ignoring a leak imo…and chances are they were running above the flash point of the solvent (16C iirc).
I’d be more worried about the rotor getting loose.
and I have found the nut (that should have been) securing the rotor completely undone after a panic stop for unusual vibration. I don’t recommend spinning rotors held on with a reverse threaded nut backwards. or continuing to run any machine that is making loud noises that it didn’t make when it was new.
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The Chinese motors inside of the slotted breadbox on all of these scare the shit out of me. I question the intrinsically safeness HEAVILY.
Like obviously it’s safer than a panda, but it’s not a safe piece of professional extraction equipment.
I can see the shitty fabrication and balancing causing wobble after awhile and if it started rubbing…metal
On metal creates sparks…not a safe thing to have around a spinning tub of solvent.
that actually depends on the metal(s).
see: Spark testing - Wikipedia
yes, stainless sparks…
if your solvent is 20C below it’s flash point, it will take more than sparks to get it lit. that “new rubbing noise” should alert the operator well before enough heat is generated to set the machine on fire.
I prefer to throw Baldor motors in them. so I can swing them harder.
making the landlord happy is always a good thing. As is complying with your insurance companies and the fire marshal’s requirements.
If you are running stuff in a very meagerly budgeted lab or trapping in your garage I get it.
I really do. The price tag on some of this stuff is not justifiable at a small scale.
That being said…f you are running cheap Chinese gear in a gmp certified lab that costs you hundreds of thousands to millions to Build out, you are cutting corners on the wrong stuff especially when the good stuff is available with financing options.
Hedge your bets, spend a lil bit extra on safer gear.
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45# start to finish (wash-filter-panda) in 1 panda with 2 ppl total…4hrs or less.
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Ok, I’m not sure what my buddy was talking about but there’s no way he was using pandas.
I’m starting to see how I “could” accomplish this on a really tight budget. So I’m putting together 2 scenarios for your guys input. Budget or fuck it.
The budget route would obviously be what you guys have been trying to get me to wrap my head around. Bucket tek and pandas and I’d probably just pop for a 50L rotovap/chiller/pump.
The fuck it scenario would have to include a little larger budget. I’m considering getting the BVV centrifuge for the all in one convenience. Pairing that with a 50L rotovap and starting from there.
I’m locked up on a few things on the expensive option. Best way to prechill the solvent then pump the solvent in? Where do I pump the solvent out to from the bottom on the floor? Can I filter/scrub inline?
I think both scenarios pose the option of way more scrubbing and winterizing than I’m used to, so any advice there would be great.
I appreciate everyone’s input so far, it’s been very educational 
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If you search thru the many many many tidbits, I actually have my entire ethanol was sop in a few threads. I like efficiency and saving $$.
2x 40qt SS stock pots
2x 20qt SS stock pots
Bubble bags
Food grade 200 proof ethanol
2 people total
1 panda
1x 3000ml buchner funnel
1x 5000ml erylemyer (sp) flask
Welch wobl
Dry ice
3x 5 gal buckets
Then rotovap
Then spd
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I wouldnt get a 50 liter roto. They are a bitch to empty and you’re gonna leave like 300g in the bottom every time.
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@Demontrich thanks for that, I’ll definitely go searching through your posts now. Do you not carbon scrub or winterize at all?
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Shit I didn’t even think about that hahaha. That’s why you recommended 2 20L’s. Can I run one large chiller and pump for both roto’s?
The 20 liter set ups are cheap. Im sure you can share a chiller, and probably a pump.
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Still have my set up. It would be perfect based on what I read from the OP
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