Just got my hands on a bunch of low yield biomass and where getting a 2% return. Note: very cheap price per lbs so we expected the worst. Now for the questions.
Does mold and age of the biomass affect the yield?
I’m doing 15gal of 99% Isopropyl to 20lbs of biomass ratio. Since i have such low yield could I bump up my ratio for better results?
At what temp and singel wash or twice ?
what percentage Iso?
are you recovering your solvent?
do you have a centrifuge?
yes, chances are you could run 8-10lb per gallon.
but only if you have a decent way of getting your solvent back off your biomass.
Sounds like a waste of time. Production costs will outweigh your yield
99% iso and we recover almost all our iso back in the stilling process, minus whats left in the bags after spin cycle. We do two 9.5lbs bags of biomass in a delta cup-15 with 15.5gal of 99% iso. After the wash is done it goes into a cryo.
Do you think mold and age of biomass affects yield?
Single was at around room temp. The chiller we have hooked up to the cup15 only brings the iso down to 6ºc . We would go -40 if we had more room in our cryo (work in progress).
@Apothecary36 says, that’s a lot of work for the yield.
you do have appropriate tools for the job. more biomass through the same solvent is the right approach. figuring out exactly where your optimum lies requires analytics.
Sorry if I’m repeating myself.
Lets say I ran 100lbs of low yielding biomass through the same 15.5gal keg of 99% iso, would it be safe to say the yield per keg would go up? Or when the ratio goes up the iso losses its stripping ability and I’ll end up with a bunch of wasted biomass that could of give me crude?
I see losses in the 1gal/30lb range with a CUP 30 (not my data).
so after you’ve run 100lb through there you will be a couple or 3 gallons shy of 15.
the advantage is that you have less solvent to evaporate. you pay for that will slightly decreased yields per lb of biomass. you get 4+ fold the yield per “keg”. not the nominal 5 you might hope for.
Last questions and I’m done on this thread. Thank you @cyclopath @Apothecary36 and @Roguelab for you quick replies and great information. I’ll be sure to apply all that you’ve said over the next few days.
Does mold and age of biomass affect the yield?
Does how fine I shred the biomass affect the yield?
Mold: not sure Its relationship with thc if any, I guess it could boost your yield with impurities???
Age: material that is improperly stored or old can cause your initial cannabinoids to convert to something else (isomerization).
Finely ground cannabis will extract very green if you dont grind while frozen, and if you dont extract below -30 with an ideal temp of colder than that
Aged biomass Will have a high CBN content making a concentrate with CBN Numbers of 20%+ not un common
This used to be THC giving you even less in the concentrate
IT takes good spd working to keep them in the tails
Mold can deteriorate cannabinoids but Does not have to A lab report can fill in that blank