Having strange issues purging shatter slabs that appear to be very high in thc-a. The muffin won’t fall and the slabs are brittle at this point. The pic is the slabs and they are currently at 115f in the oven with no vac pulled. Should I keep ramping up the temp to get them to fall? At 115f right now they are a little soft but not tacky at all so nervous to go hotter. Any advise is appreciated as we have never had this problem before and they’re on hold until I can figure it out.
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was your input material different than usual?
i tend to agree with your intuition of increasing the temperature, which would decrease the viscosity, increasing flow, allowing the slab to settle, however, at 46c youll absolutely be decarbing the material (not very quickly, but it will be occuring).
in fact, now im wondering if you went too hot, decarbed a bit, and cooled too quick, and ended up with it frozen like that.
increasing temperature might produce more bubbles and it might stay like that tho, if they are in fact from it decarbing.
the reason i ask about input material differences is because either grow applications or plant differences could lead to the presence of a surfactant in your extract, causing excess foaming.
I GOT IT lol hit the corner of it with a heat gun, gently. see what happens.
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Different source than usual but the run was 20lbs of trimmed smalls from 3 different strains. Material was drier than usual but I’ve ran similar material before and didn’t have this issue. This run was ran through the crc column with B80 and some XG-12 and that is a recent change to our SOP. I’ve tried the heat gun and it will settle and has the shatter look but hesitant to try a full slab. Do you think the heat gun will cause any stability problems or nucleation if I do the full slabs?
The statement almost contradicts itself. Decarb plus frozen doesn’t usually mix
Pull vac shut pump off and let it set. also u maye be stuck that way if doesn’t come down without going higher. BTW that’s a Lil hot coming from my shatter dudes u may cause sugaring this hot
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I fully agree and that’s why I’m hesitant right now. Our temps are usually 90-95f and no hotter. This happened during first pull and the oven was at 90f and would not settle. My plan was to increase temp with no vac, let it settle and then lower temps to pull vac again and keep going.
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i dont mean thrown in a freezer or anything, i should have said becomes immobile.
imagine it being just hot enough to decarb, so the slab is foaming a bit, and then throw a quick temp drop at it. youll have a hard foamy extract, because its still mostly thca so its still hard at room temp. the bubbles got frozen in place
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Melt that shit, homie!
bump the temp or gently hit it with the heat gun. that’s that SHATTER!!
For real just try hotter temp. It’s probably not gonna budder or it would have already. Looks stable AF.
(Maybe do a lil test with a couple grams)
EDIT: You already tried it and it worked!! I have been down this road many times. MELT THAT SHIT HOMIE
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if it worked on small scale id send it.
do you not want it to nucleate? that’s indicative of high purity. if you dont want it to, but it does, heat gun those crystal parts a bit to melt em back into the shatter. as far as general stability, if you were to heat too much and fully/majority decarb the slab, itd be tacky apposed to good shatter. but again, that mini slab you just tried should tell you what you need to know. the corner you hit, separate it and see how it is at room temp.
It’s getting a bit better right now. Sitting at 120f with no vac and finally falling a bit. It is oddly stable and that’s why I was thinking maybe high thc-a and that’s why it needed more heat to melt. Going to let it sit for another hour and lower temps a bit but think it might work out ! Definitely the highest temps we’ve ever ran for shatter. image|375x500
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It’s just that crunchy shatter from 2014 bro!! If it don’t shatter it don’t matter!
Honestly if it was me this is what I would do…
Set your oven to 110-115.
Melt the whole thing with the heat gun.
Slap it in there and vac it.
What kind of pump do you have?
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I’d prefer it to finish as a shatter but if they start to nucleate I’ll probably whip them to batter or rerun and try again. Probably would have been a good batch to make diamonds out of by the way it’s acting.
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looks tasty to me
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Same problem in both ovens right now. 1st oven is a 1.9cf AI with a 9cfm single stage AI pump. 2nd is a 1.9cf BVV oven with a two stage 6cfm Robinair pump. Heat seems to be doing the trick right now. Going to make them all finish falling with the heat gun and keep going as you suggested. Thanks!
Yah I would gently melt them with the heat gun outside of the oven between flips, but I wouldn’t vac it down at more than 115
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Yes planning on lowering oven temps before pulling vac again for sure. Going to lightly heat it with heat gun between flips for the next couple and call it good.
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Did you warm slab up in oven before applying vac?
I’ve had this happen pulling vac on a cold slab in a warm oven. Just used higher temp and no vac to bring it down.
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Yes it was left to heat up in the oven for 2hrs before pulling the first vac. I used a heat gun at low temp to gently heat the slabs and they fell nicely. Have another day or so left under vac and they’ll be finished.
id just pull the vac and leave it at the current heat for a day or 2 more.Looks fire…but thats just me…
Hows it looking now that its went down