Hi.
I’ve been researching the best possible way to extract terpenes and came across of this post on youtube.
Have anyone tried it ?
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I have heard cold trap terpenes aren’t very pleasant, I haven’t actually smelled any myself.
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I’ve seen it tried but never very seriously. Its a valid method to a certain extent, especially for CO2 extraction since the now dried material is better.
We can order harvest Right freeze driers for folks that want to give it a shot. Going rates are 2k-5k depending on model.
Very simple method and the makes a lot of sense in some areas
Interestingly enough this is how we started before we focused primarily on distillate. We have a Harvest Right freeze dryer and it does work quite well to help retain terps while removing water content which is very important for us CO2 extraction folks. What drains out the back is hydrosols, mostly pinene and water really and it is PUNGENT! The entire facility smells like those hydrosols for hours. Despite this, it’s a great pre-processing step for anyone wishing to retain terps before extraction.
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We have steam distillation sets, and even our reactors can do a really nice steam distillation of the terpenes on a large scale. Apply a vac and keep the water under 70°C and it comes out really nice.
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I would like to take a look at it. do you have a page with info and pricing?
Its how Ive been doing it for years, minus the last part with winterizing. Just cold trap the terps and water from the flower and separate. KISS. I use jacketed triclamp fittings instead of a freeze drier. No need for sparging inert gas etc.
I shared how to do it crudely with a freeze pump thaw/ static method a while back on icmag and reddit.
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I rember seeing your rig in a chest freezer! how were your yeilds?
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Depends on what happened to them to get them into the cold trap. Cold traps serve a variety of purposes. Sometimes it is for capturing otherwise wasted terpenes for re-use, for example if I was running my vacuum oven at 90F the terps I get in my trap are going to be nice! The cold trap on my distillation rig is more for keeping them out of my vacuum pump than re-using 'em. They’re so degraded they smell like stinky foot cheese. So, yeah cold trap terps aren’t inherently good or bad, they’re just re-condensed.
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I was referring to a conversation I had with a tech that was trying to isolate them with a vac oven. He mentioned using cured and fresh material at various temps, but, was unable to produce anything viable in his opinion.
I would imagine even if the terps were decent, that’s not exactly something reasonable to scale up very high.
That was version 0.1 alpha build, proof of concept, it worked but did not yield well at all. A funny memory of ghetto tek!
More recently ive achieved close to full yields, 5% return on a variety ive had the flower tested at just over 5%. Havent moved it into my main production yet though, but thats mainly due to budget restraints.
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the commoditization of the cannabinoids themselves makes it so that you’ll want to start looking into scaling the terpenes extraction with whatever viable method you can. The terpenes cannot be replicated so if you have a relatively rare strain with a good scent you can set the price. The only thing stopping anyone from scaling is that you’ll need pesticide free material and that’s hard to acquire consistently.
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Kali,
- Is your intent to separate strain-specific terps by themselves, or to do a resin extraction with maximized terp content?
- What methods of extraction and/or distillation do you have access to?
-Spock
I have some clones left with very nice fragrance smell genetics. lI’m trying to find the best possible method for terpenes extraction/separation. Equipment purchase will depends on which method is the most efficient and available. I have equipment for bho extraction… But terpenes are very new to me and trying to gather as much information possible
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Kali,
To tune a BHO run for maximum terp output I suggest to keep your system as cold as possible during the evaporation phase. Keeping your extraction vessel between 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit and your solvent collection vessel between 0-10 degrees Fahrenheit will prevent terps from pulling into your tank and keep them in your output product.
From here you could keep a little butane in your pot and pour for shatter slabs. The down side of shatter is vac purging which does remove terps. A pour into Pyrex and whipping into wax at cool room temp would keep more terps than vac’d shatter. Best terp output would be to keep a lot of butane in your extract and make sauce following the OTS method. You wouldn’t need to go for diamonds (but I would), and a sugar sauce would have just as many terps as diamond sauce as long as you keep things cold.
-Spock
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thank you for you input.
up till now I have been doing open blast. But little-by-little I start I built a small vessel. Now I’m just waiting for solvent to arrive So I can start processing material.
I bought a big built in sub zerorefrigerator Which is in process of modification. Right now I can get -30 no problem. So I used to chill everything there and then just do they extraction early morning outside. Butane I was keeping I the fridge in a jar for several days and dewaxed itself. I was purging @80F with -20 vac for about a week. I could definitely feel taste and smell of terpenes. I whipped it a few times But then it changed texture and color
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