wow! that’s humble, man! i must say i respect your honesty and gratefulness… regards, from mexico…}
if i’m reading this thread, you can probably guess why i’m lurking here… haha… my problem is similar but my distillate comes out golden and not smelly but after a few days, maybe a week or so it starts turning dark and the taste starts changing, this is after two passes, the first pass obviously smells like absolute shit, but the second not so… my equipment is probably the worst of all the site but i try to stick as close as possible to several teks and sops that be replicated with the lousy shit i have… should i start a thread with my process and equipment? i’m kinda new to the site so i don’t know if that’s like, fine…
shit i posted the same thing twice…
i think i should tell you what my equipment is, beforehand… please take in consideration that my budget was next to none and some stuff is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE here in mexico compared to the states, thus further complicating buying good equipment…
You’re not experiencing anything abnormal. It happens to all disty. You’ll have to look at filling the headspace with vacuum or nitrogen. Try refrigeration. Store it cold and dark.
Distillate doesn’t “rot”. It can oxidize and most have noticed the more potent the more it oxidizes and this is coming out now instead of alot earlier when it was talked about years ago. A great example is most of the flask pour outs into jars are a common mistake that causes oxidization.
What is changing during the process it sits is the “rotting” of the water solluables. If you mechanically separate those compounds and drag then out prior you will prevent this stuff from coming up as a foul odor or blackening.
I used to have that problem after distillation. When it cooled down red would show up. So I would dilute and rewinterize. Filter again through the hotchstrom accept I used silica in the process. The best way to do that is to get some ethanol at about - 65 °C. Then put 1:8 silica to Ethanol. Close the vacuum valve to the hotchstrom. Then pour about a cup of -65°C ethanol into the hotchstrom. Use a beaker and add silica. Then add the Ethanol and mix well. Immediately pour the silica and ethanol mixture into the hotchstrom and wait about 20 seconds so that the silica falls to the bottom. Open the valve and Pour the winterized liquore into the hotchstrom, open valve and filter it out. You should be good. If you really want to get a clean solution let the oil/ethanol reach room temperature. Depending on the amount of crude you are running. Let’s say 10,000 ml. Put ¼ cup of activated carbon into the mixture and mix for about 20 minutes. Refilter through hotchstrom and distil again.
thanks for the heads up, bro! When you say silica, do you mean like the one used for humidity control? Like silica gel? I used activated carbon and it kinda works but i read that celite also helps wonders in a buchner funnel under a layer of activated carbon… Should i do another layer with the silica? And/or where should it go?
If you do multi layers put the silica on the bottom so that it sits on top of the filter. That way it gets a nice compact cake. Then put carbon on top of the silica. For some reason the top layer doesn’t compact like the bottom one does and some oil passes through along the inside edge of the filter housing. That way you can know for sure that the oil absolutely worrked its way through the silica.
