So at my lab I run fresh frozen only. I use a 70/30 n-butane/propane blend. My solvent is -60C, recovery is 35ish C, I do no soaks just a fill and dumb, and my material is never older than 2 weeks. I’ve had some runs come out great, like a light khaki coloro on some budder’s, light yellow or orange on my sugar, good looking stuff. However, on some of my other runs the extract is coming out slightly green. Like a baby poop sometimes. I’m wondering if it’s something I’m doing, even though I run uniformly for most everything and tend to have good results. Is it just not good material? All this material is stuff I’ve never ran as we’re kind of doing R&D on what extracts well from our grow, so I can’t say that any of the stuff coming out green has a history of doing so.
And this leads me to ask, if I have a large batch that’s coming out green, say 130lbs of FF, should I run it through some very light CRC?
yes it is. The grow does the freezing then moves it over in a -25 freezer. It’s maybe 30 seconds between when I take it out of the freezer and it’s in the column, then another few minutes just to vacuum the column and get cold solvent on it. They recently started filling the socks and freezing them instead of putting them in plastic bags and freezing them for me to then fill, could that be the problem?
If they can put them in smaller packages and vac seal them a little bit (not all the way snug, just barely form fitting) and then freeze it (colder, faster the better), it’ll work better. Don’t let the material defrost. At. All.
Also, how fast are you opening your liquid valve to the material? Are you just turning them and letting it rip, like a psycho? Or, are you slowly opening the valve, letting the solvent start to wet the material, then opening the valve full retard?
Unless you have a tiny little mol sieve column. You should be able to go several days, given the type of mol sieve you’re using, before you have to regenerate them. They are actually extremely inexpensive, and a consumable. I’d just change them fresh (no regeneration) every week or two.
I run in Missouri, so it get’s very humid, and we were having some ice buildups. So I just made it habit to change it daily since it only takes a few minutes.
In response to your other reply, I had a lot that I ran last week that frozen in the same manner as this green batch, stored the same and ran the same, that came out so light it looked like rosin. Is there a chance it could be the material? just a few bad batches. It seems like when they come out green the smell is almost kind of planty.
This has happened to a me a few times processing other people’s FF - granted I don’t do solvent based extractions but when you see people who don’t freeze their FF properly you end up getting a rotting chunk in the middle while everything else on the outside is frozen. This happens more often than not when I see people using vacuum bags to stuff their fresh frozen into - since the thickness doesn’t exactly allow the cold to come in quickly it’ll start the rotting process and since the rotting process creates heat it’ll rot longer than you think.
Usually putting it in turkey bags with a VERY small ‘breathing hole’ in the top and not stuffed to the max you’ll almost always get a good freeze. If you can pick up the bag and shake the nugs around where it’s got space in between the nugs and they can individually freeze you’re (in my opinion) right where you need to be.
Yes. You get more than just green color. You get green taste too.
The folks packing your bags don’t care as much as you do. Solve that. perhaps by making them smoke green hash till they get it right…
And as far as molsieves go, their location in the system (post collection) means they can only ever stop your NEXT round from turning green.
Weighing your sieves before and after each use/regeneration is advised. Let’s you know if you’re regenerating on the correct schedule, let’s you know when you need new beads, and likely demonstrates that you pick more water up after a “green” run (allowing you to focus on WHY).
I would wager that your columns are warming up after extraction. I had a new tech who is making green garbage and it was because he wasn’t getting the sock out before it defrost even with it going in at negative 80 and pumping negative 70 butane over it. Can’t let that shit defrost even a little in material column.
If you don’t chill your column though you should get a -80 freezer for the packed socks prior to extraction.
I too would wager on some thawing post/during extraction or incomplete freezing. I believe the ice crystals in fresh frozen help rupture the cell walls, exposing lots of chlorophyll. This is fine if they remain crystallized, but if that water thaws you will have a green mess. Basically, just make sure your material is frozen quickly, completely, and stays that way until you are done with it. You could try adding a temperature probe to monitor your solution temp as it exits the material column.
