So Lately I’ve bin talking with a lot of people From all over the country that deal with Metrc Processing and Processors. So now I come To everyone of you to Drop this Rabbit Hole of a discussion. What is everyone’s experience with your yields?
My Experience -
-Most People or Company’s I’ve spoken with are Getting These Returns Listed Below When Sending Flower off to Get Processed -
- Distillate: 3% - 6% (Starting Material Ranging from 12% -18% THC)
- BHO: 4.5% - 8% (Starting Material Ranging from 12% -18% THC)
- Live Hash Rosin: 1% - 4.5% (Starting Material Ranging from 18% - 28% THC)
These are General Ranges of Return on Material. From information I’ve acquired over time.
Now For The controversial Part!
With What I’ve Experience With Processing and Consulting Over the years my number on Returns are Much Closer To the Detected Value of The starting Material.
So For Example -
BHO: We Run a Closed Loop Alcohol Chilled System With a Chilled Injection Coil, Mutli baffle recovery condenser our operating temp sits at -80c with 10 degree difference autocycle on switch. We recover at 50c. If our Starting Material tested repetitively at 16% THC content our end results would very 2% - 4% from The Original tested content resulting in percentage’s ranging from 12% - 14% Oil Return. Now when we run powders through same material we experience an extra 3% lost on average.
Distillate: I Honestly Hate Running Distillate so My knowledge Is More Theoretical and small amount of practice. Meaning my experience is More in Streamlining The Distillation Process For Faster/Clean Methods to Produce crude. So That there is no need for Chromatography prior to distillation or 2nd passes through a short path to Remediate color from product. So typically we Depending on Scale of client We always Recommended Mechanical separation of trichomes, as well as Wash separation and drying. Then Once Separated and rewashed to Remove Chlorophyl. We recommend washing hash in stainless steel collection vessel with mechanical stirrer with ethanol to rupture Trichome Husk and extract oil. Our typical Return on Hash/kief is 70% of Mass of Hash/kief. which typically results in a 2-4% difference from Starting Mass THC test levels. Meaning if THC measured at 16% our output would typically be 12% - 14%. (including Tail)
Hash Rosin: So in This Category lies my biggest issues so Like we all know you must wash in steps. So from my experience when collecting from my washing there are usually multiple layers of hash that all produce 70% return from hash being squished on average. So when running a strain the test at 24% hash wash overall returns I’ve seen yield a 2% - 4% variable most of the time closer to 2%. Meaning that typical hash return is 20% of a 24% strain. Granted if you only Count your 25u-73u your yield typically 3% on average. But My Question is in this situation is Why is the Top tier Wash the only one being counted and Not your second and third layers as well as your 2nd or 3rd washes??
Tell me a bit of your Process and results and as well results in your area and experience