I’ll have to look that one up!
I just re-wrote part of the page to get a better explanation of the distilling and disposing of the waste water.
I’m all for better looking products, but I do have some concerns with efficacy. Everyone seems concerned with cannabinoids (as they should). What about the various molecules that may act as cofactors to cannabinoids to increase bioavailability? Have you noticed any difference in how well the oil performs in comparison with the older “La Brea”?
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Hi CroutonSampler,
On molecules, here’s what Gray Wolf said in another forum.
On performace, one individual on another forum, is having success with it’s higher potency.
Hey @Lincoln20XX, I just ran a yield test with 15% CBD and your approach yielded 93% of the volume of the control case. I’ll published those results soon. Thank you for that. I’m going to add this to the process and RxCE Shop Manual with credits.
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Thanks for the info @MimiEmu. I currently work in Florida and any use of ethanol must be in a closed loop system. Because of this law, i’m trying to stay away from ethanol outside of the X40. In this formulation it states the need to reintroduce ethanol into the solution. Would it be possible to just use more isopropyl or is the ethanol a necessity for the final reduction?
The use of Ethanol in the second half provides two features. It has a dielectric constant at 24 vs ISO 17 so it’s more polar which drives the Rapid Winterization. Maybe adding bit of water to ISO to take it to 87% would work. (That 87% was mentioned by @beaker or @cyclopath in a different thread as being similar to Ethanol’s polarity). That needs to be tested to see if it works as well as Ethanol for Rapid Winterization. Fall back is going back to the freezer, but then, what is the benefit of this process?
Secondly, it being GRAS, makes it an excellent cleanup solvent to avoid any Residual Solvent violations. Using it in the second stage reduction and decarbing makes for a very robust residual solvent remediation.
So, I believe you could use ISO for the second stage, but dewaxing might not work as well. You must decarb at the end as this is a literal firewall to prevent residual solvents in the oil.
I’m sure our reactor and vac pumps could remove any residuals in the material. Thanks again for all your assistance. I’m not sure when i will get the chance to test this in our lab, but when i do i will be sure to update you with the results.
Hey @Lincoln20XX,
Here’s the results of a quick test for maximizing yield on solvent extraction. I ran four 2oz extractions. The first, ‘Grn’ was the control case that was straight away boiled down to oil (RSO) to establish a maximum yield. The second, ‘Blu’, was your approach. The third and fourth I tried something new. The 99% ISO was heated to 150f then used for a 30 second and 1 minute soak. So here are the results:
Edited for clarity…
Label Alc Time Washes Salt Yield Waxes
Grn 99% 10m 1 N 6.5g N/A
Blu 91% 5min 3 Y 6.0g 1.3g
Red 99% 30s 1@150f Y 4.6g 0.8g
YlW 99% 1min 1@150f Y 4.8g* 0.9g
*noting a small transfer loss, maybe 0.1g spilled…
Couple points. I used 91% at room temp with ‘Blu’ knowing this would penetrate the plant just a bit. Reason being, I expect 91% to be used on a regular basis by home users. 91% is what you recover out of a still/water distiller. Same rules apply to 200 proof vs 190 proof ethanol.
99% will have to be an ongoing new purchase for every extraction. You don’t want to dry out ISO thru refluxing as you risk generating peroxides. Over time, the alcohol evaporates and can leave peroxide crystals. These crystals are unstable, IE explosive. There are instances where 99% refluxed ISO stored long term has formed crystals and exploded when disturbed. Water disrupts the whole peroxide issue, so it is safe to recover 91% ISO. It’s removing the 9% water to make 99% ISO that it becomes vulnerable to peroxides.
Visually comparing the ‘Blu’ wash to the others showed it to be marginally greener, so using 91% quickly works well. There was very little ‘greenies’ pulled using 91% this way. The ‘Red’ and ‘Ylw’ tests cases were interesting, but yielded less than I had hoped for. The ISO was initially heated to 150f then poured over the plant for a single wash. After winterization, I collected the waxes by rehydrating them in ISO. This rehydrated wax solution produced an amazing wax bloom before being boiled it down for measurement. Got pics of everything if you want to see any of it.
So, there it is in numbers. The ‘Blu’ test weight + the measured waxes shows a higher total weight than the control case. The control case was a single wash boiled down so it contains it’s share of waxes.
You can ignore the the ‘Salt’ column. It indicates the use of salt to break the emulsion during distillation. It prevents oil losses with water distillation.
Your thoughts?
I think that you should edit your post so the text under the table isn’t so hard to read.
I tend not to recommend working with solvents that one has applied heat to in a home context, or even in an industrial one, for that matter.
With that said, if you’re willing to heat up your solvent, doing the same procedure that I’d recommended initially, but with hot solvent, would possibly work even better.
Something between 35°C and 50°C is probably sufficient.
It’s also entirely possible that you’ll not get more cannabinoids, but just more other shite.
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It’s also entirely possible that you’ll not get more cannabinoids, but just more other shite.
Thats why I used 99% ISO, not 91% as it penetrates the plant to easily. Using heat was just an experiment to see what happens. I’ll do a 5th test at 37c/100f with 3 quick warm washes.
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Now that I can read all that easily, yes showing pictures to the class would be good.
Depending on how far you want to go down the extraction optimization rabbit hole, you might find that having water fractions substantially greater than 9% might prove useful.
When I get to my laptop I’ll DM you some research we had commissioned years ago on the topic that you might find interesting.
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Doesn’t look that much different, but the Blu jar is marginally less magenta, little more green due to using 91% ISO where it grabbed some color. All these were then filtered thru an KN95 mask. N95 and KN95 masks are 0.3 micron fast flow filters.
ive observed more shit past 20c
How do you scale up the amount of water used? I think I used way too little water for 2lb run.
Edit: And am I able to add more distilled water to the already near boiling mixture? Final yield is expected to be 80-100g of oil, and I started with maybe 200ml of water. Solvent is 91% ethanol.
Edit 2: Well who knows what that actually pulled. Might have to try a second water wash after redissolving, as I don’t think I used enough water. Pulled over 100g of oil from roughly 80 ml of water, that was fun 
The water certainly looks like it pulled something from the oil, but I wonder whether repeating the process with more water this time would further refine the taste/smell. The water itself does not have a very foul or bitter smell, which is what makes me skeptical that I did everything correctly. But in my opinion the separated oil smells slightly less bitter and off-putting than it normally does.
Howdy,
1 - You want enough water remaining in the boiler to buffer the oil from the hot metal. You need enough water so not to run the boiler dry. Did that once with a large run using a moonshine still where we couldn’t see into the boiler until too late. Assume you’ll boil off half your water. So, add 1" to a moonshine still, a half inch to an open boiler.
2 - Scaling up, if you are using an open boiler, you can just pour in additional distilled water, doesn’t hurt anything.
3 - Learning how to recover the oil from the waste water is the new muscle memory everyone has to learn. If there’s not much water left, you can actually add ice to bring the water level up to assist in washing off the oil. (temps below 10c/50f freeze the oil).
4 - Did you taste the waste water? Boil that down and it’s really nasty. That water looks fine. Milky waste water shows an emulsion. If it’s clear to translucent, that’s a good run with little emulsion. One thing I found recently, if you add some non-iodine table salt, 1 tsp per cup (0.5%) of water, this helps break the hard emulsion that forms with the semi-polar compounds. This is optional if you have medical issues and need to avoid salt. It’s easy enough to wash out.
I see a floating oil film in that second photo. Make sure you get down to 50f or below to freeze the oil before pouring out the waste water. Even this light oil can be saved if the temperature is cold enough. This is where adding ice comes in handy.
So did you winterize and reduce to final oil?
Not yet, just wanted to confirm that I don’t need to repeat the process. In your experience is it possible to use too little water? Or did I still accomplish the separation effect using less water than extract?
I have not tasted the water, but can imagine how it wouldn’t taste great reduced.
Edit: since my end product is edibles, I’m going to skip the winterization step and observe if I can see any difference with just the most polar compounds stripped off. I did use very cold ethanol to wash and frankly believe in the medicinal power of the broader spectrum of compounds.
I am however very curious about the potential for improvement in taste and bitterness with water degumming, and hope to achieve a slightly more pure oil that’s much easier on the taste buds using this methodology.
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No, you don’t have to repeat the distilling with distilled water. Your picture is what I would expect. It’s darker than mine because you extracted a pound whereas I’ve been doing 2oz at a time for testing. Last Sunday, I did a 2oz run, poured a 1/4" distilled water in the quart pot. There was only 1/8" left after boiling out the alcohol. That was a little too close for comfort. You just don’t want to run the boiler dry or you end up with baked crude RSO, worse if you added the 0.5% salt.
Boiling out the alcohol in distilled water kinda acts like water curing, so it will be cleaner. Have you seen my summary chart of test results? By not winterizing, your potency will be about 50%, see test #2. Winterization takes it up to the high 70s.
How far have you gone with this run? Have you done the final reduction and decarbing?
Decarbing helps reduce the acidic burn in the throat.
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Just saying hello, I made a account here just to participate in this conversation. I have done a few batches so far. Can’t wait to give this a good read and get in the conversation.
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@MimiEmu Thank you for sharing your research. You state that the process scales but does it effectively scale down? I am a home user and limited to what I can purchase from my local dispensary. I have been making gummies from RSO but I can never seem to get the same strain twice and more and more it seems like the manufacturers are switching to generic “Indica” or “Sativa”. Am I better off just decarbing and infusing into a fat or ethanol when working in quantities of 10ish grams or less?
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Howdy,
Sorry for the lag. Yes, it scales easy down for small extractions. You’ll use half the alcohol to wash the plant, so boiling it down can be done in a small pan. Trying to recover that little amount of alcohol will be more trouble than it’s worth. Just use a small pan and add enough water to cover the bottom 1/8" deep. Keep the water volume down to this bare minimum with a small run to mitigate the emulsion.