How much distillate per pound of trim?

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what to expect for the extraction/distillation process.

If I have 1lb of trim at say 10% THC that is about 45.4g of active molecule per pound.

Of course this is THCA so to convert it to THC you’d want to multiply by 0.877 to account for the co2 loss. That gives you about 40g of active D9-THC/lb of 10% trim.

How much of this would I anticipate to be able to get I o a distillate at 90% TAC?

I’ve heard estimates of 20-25g/lb or other estimates that say I should be getting closer to 35-40g per lb of trim (10%).

This would be with either a cold ethanol or warm ethanol extraction.

All of your insights are appreciated.

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Youre not taking heads and tails into consideration.

10% (of input) return from extraction is too much to ask if your biomass is 10%

I would safely say 8-9% return in crude then distillate depends on how good ur crude is.

I would say ure looking at 3% total back of second pass distillate. If u can do it perfect in a first pass maybe 5-6%

So on 1# of 10% trim i would safely say 12-25g of distillate return

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Thanks for the reply, yeah I was just looking at it as a molecule, not taking into consideration the other aspects of the distillation/extraction process.

Realistically though if you’re getting say 20g of distillate at 5$/g that’s about 100$ of revenue per lb in input material… if your input Material costs say 65$/lb (6.5$/ppp) then you have a $50 tax on top of that that would be $115/lb of trim not including processing costs… so am I just going to be paying to make distillate for people then??

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And hence why it pays to be vertically integrated and not stuff yourself into a little box.

Anybody remeber MasterP? no limit? I think the only thing he paid out was distribution and that was before the internet got big

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So your advice then is to start being vertically integrated?

What about splits?

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40 lbs ± of trim makes a liter of disty (outdoor but thats what dist is made with lol)

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Splits are great especially if ure vertical. But u still have to sell it.

Unless you do splits for ppl who will take ur part and sell it for u. Those are few and far between. Usually its the other way around

My advice would normally be to open a retail brick and mortar. Lately not so much…

This is exactly why my response to your first question about opening a lab in California was…

Don’t.

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We have an outlet for sale of distillate, now we just need to find some trim on a fair split or for the right price.

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There has to be a better answer than “don’t do it” though :woman_shrugging:

The answer is to do it more efficiently. Prices are derived from market demand and supply. Demand has remained high, but suppliers have improved efficiency so that they can maintain margins at wholesale prices.

If you’re not efficient enough, it won’t work.

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I’ve always gotten 50%+ when it comes to end distillation process. So say start with 30 pounds of trim.at 15% yeild which is my average it comes out to 2016 grams of crude oil, after processing and refining down I always end up with right around 1008 grams or a little more. So I end up with 50 percent of my initial crude oil material, did I under the question properly or did I miss understand the question

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That’s not bad at all, there’s more to be had (probably, depending on your pre-distillation processes) but I mean efficiency of time and scale. It’s all good and well to have a high product yield, but to be a competitor the lbs of biomass you can process per hour is more important

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There is no better answer. Just don’t do it. California’s the worst market to be in. You’re coming in fresh with little to no connections and no brand to put it under to get a mark up. I’ve been in the California market for 8 years. My advice is worth it’s weight in gold.

Look, you asked If you should do it originally, I said no. I gave you the math breakdown. Now here you are after understanding it and still wanting to do it. The successful labs don’t have investors. Investors want an ROI bigger than what they could get elsewhere. That’s not going to happen in California. You can keep arguing saying you’ll make it work but you wont. No one is.

You think this is your golden ticket and you’ll be a millionaire when all is said and done and that’s why you are going to risk it no matter what. I love that drive. It’s a good thing to have. It’s still not going to be the difference in making it in California. There’s 10x the equipment here than the whole world needs for production. 80% of Bizzybees are sitting unused completely. 95% of distillation equipment isn’t being used to full capacity. I hate to be the grim reaper but you’re too late.

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Wanna buy all my shortpath stuff? Lol

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Lol same who wants a 12l full bore from lab society?!?

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We no limit soldiers! I thought I told ya! T R U :sunglasses:

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Hi thanks for the response, so are you saying it takes you 30lbs of 15% material to get 1Kg of distillate of 30lbs of 10% material? Sorry I just slightly misunderstood your answer.

Ok then what market would you recommend? Also, are you suggesting that no one is going to make it in California as in all labs in California are going to fail or what?