Hi all. New to the site and was wondering if i could get some help. Im wondering how to keep more terps in my material while i purge. I run a closed loop system and purge in a vacc oven. I purge by letting the jars sit in 90° heat with the occasional whip and vac. Ive noticed that ive been losing a lot of terps and my material is starting to dry out. Any tips? Solvant goes in at -60°c and material column is jacketed and filled with some dry ice to keep temp low. Collection pot is jacketed and temp is set to 38°c
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How terpy was starting material?
Welcome.
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Fire in fire out
Flower tests 2.5% terps. Fresh frozen material from harvest
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Fire in fire out, true and no way around that. Also, different starting materials will produce different types of products. Throughout processing, we have many techniques to steer the results. Not enough background in this case to get to the bottom of what is happening. You are losing a very small proportion of your terps with your oven technique. But that is not enough to explain your dry finished product, which does still have the glisten of oil on the surface. Are you using CRC? What is the temp of your starting material? How did the starting material look? Are you running propane/butane/iso? Is this a one-time problem, or a developing problem? Are you able to post the complete test results for your FF input? Will you have access to your output testing results?
Cold Crashing THCa out prior to recovery allows you to separate the HTE to be purged separately. The reduced viscosity allows you to purge with much less heat. After purging, you can recombine the THCa and HTE at whatever ratio that you prefer.
If you’re looking at retaining more terps while purging, use less heat over a longer period of time. Purge shallower amount puddle of oil to increase the surface area to the the amount of oil being purged. This will shorten the amount of time that it takes to reach an acceptable residual solvent level.
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Presumably that’s 90F, certainly 90C would explain “loss of terps”
How “occasional”?
What vac depth?
For how long?
(Diagnosing requires data…)
Noticed? Or have analytics that demonstrate?
Whipping makes for smaller crystals, which means more surface area to spread any liquid onto …such material will appear “drier” than material that was purged without whipping.
Do you have residual solvent analytics?
I’d like to explore why you’re trying to purge in jars…
The surface to volume ratio is working against you there as well.
Dry weight?
Got that COA?
Does it include potency?
Assuming you got ALL of them, can you do the math on your expectations?
hint: mass balance
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“thick” strains that don’t do too great in carts tend to make “wetter” looking batters from what I’ve seen
You could also explore capturing terps with a cold trap and re-adding them to the oil
Not all “terpenes” are created equal. Mono terps are bound to get evaporated or oxidized when you purge. Even in a fuge. Most SOP’s don’t give terpenes/volatile fractions alot of attention.
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