The “why”? - Extraction at home is a mess. As GrayWolf documents, Isopropyl alcohol takes 20 seconds, ethanol 3 minutes to take 80% of the cannabinioids in a quick wash which sidesteps a huge portion of the problem. Its the Human Factor that becomes the problem now. From the center propagating outwards by word of mouth, extraction times keep doubling. I’ve heard 30 seconds, 3 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, a day, and I have one friend swearing by month long soaks. Ug…
What is happening on longer soaks, the targeted oils and lipids are taken in the first few seconds of contact of alcohol on the trichomes. Alcohol hits the plant cell structure and it begins breaking it down either fast or slow depending on the water content. Water facilitates alcohol’s entry into cells, so the more water, the bigger the problem. 99.9% Alcohol ‘denatures’ the proteins, sealing up the plant’s outer layer so there’s less protein extracted but its not 100% success. There’s always protein in the mix, it’s unavoidable with a non-targeting solvent. For more info, google the reason 70% isopropyl is more effective than 99% for hand sanitizer.
I brought this up in @Beaker s thread to start a discussion about that unnamed ‘green gunk’ he mentioned. It’s not a problem for commercial extractors, but at home, impurities are the unnamed scourge in RSO. I dare say, most RSO I’ve encountered, even store bought RSO, is gritty and usually burnt. It’s the overheated proteins that cause the grit and the first to burn. You don’t burn oil at 212f, but you can really fuck up remaining proteins. Take a look at the picture above showing a ‘bad’ result. Denatured proteins hydrophobic side bonds to the oils, the hydrophilic side points outwards. This causes separation between the oil droplets. As the proteins go from a ‘salt-in’ hydrated state, to a ‘salt-out’ hydrophbic state, they look curl into spindly hair structures. Eventually, they fold up in to a tar ball and sink.
Of course its all about concentration. Frozen quick washes minimize protein extractions so that and winterization is the best path to clean oil. Longer soaks are pretty much the standard failure at home. I’ve spent the whole year (2021) sorting out a robust extraction process that is effective and inexpensive for creating a refined RSO.
Here’s an interesting study on alcohol & proteins.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Qiang-Shao-2/publication/221972591_From_protein_denaturant_to_protectant_Comparative_molecular_dynamics_study_of_alcoholprotein_interactions/links/57c6d31b08aefc4af34c2681/From-protein-denaturant-to-protectant-Comparative-molecular-dynamics-study-of-alcoholprotein-interactions.pdf
Here’s a couple interesting pics from the current run. I save the biomass for a 2nd extraction so this is my worst case scenario for messy RSO. This particular extraction was a 3 day 2nd soak. I use 2nd soaks for much of my testing since its such a f$&'d up mess. So, 3 day ISO wash, Lime Juice, swirl, then add water as a catalyst. Instant Bang! with flocs and settling. Pic 1 and 2 show the results and are filtered out via KN95. The 3rd pic is another 24 hrs in the freezer showing the coagulated waxes. (The optimal order of pipeline execution is still to be determined…)
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