This is a general question for plant extractions, probably not for cannabinoids because leaving trichomes intact/larger particle size gives better quality (generally). I have looked around the web and found almost no results in mechanical cellulose separation…
I assume the standard process goes a little like this:
dry plant material until bone dry
pulverize
sift
I am running into two issues; not getting small enough particle sizes and getting my sieve clogged. does anyone what to share personal techniques that have worked well for you? I hate buying equipment but I am open to suggestions.
thanks, everyone!
maybe I am pulverizing too much which leads to clogging. maybe I need to use multiple sieves and pulverize to different sizes between each sieve. I am clueless about what type of sieves are ideal and what particle sizes I need for each dry fraction. I would like to do a single sieve fraction but that maybe too idealistic for the quality I am shooting for, ideally I want to particle size that takes minimal effort to keep in suspension
I appreciate the suggestion and although I am very interested in plant rosins, the product I am looking for here is more like extremely fine dust. a process may be more like chaff separation which can be scaled up, rosin pressing really bottle necks production. maybe I need to suspend dust in the air with a blower then filter, leaving the heavier cellulose particles behind. Kinda like seed and chaff separation, except keeping the lighter particles and discarding the heavier…
Upon hitting the link i see this is close but not quite it, although perhaps the same principle can be used, the particle size I want is much small than keif. exactly like Matcha, now that i think of it
you will filter out the thc if you use a screen smaller than you use for kief unless you add heat and pressure then you’ll melt cannaboids through the screen
o i get you now! i thought you were talking about thc extraction. @Rowan said before that you can extract alkaloids from the roots by putting the roots on a screen then torch them then pour distilled water over them and repeat until it’s just salts. I haven’t tried it but definitely want to.
I just listened to this video on youtube on how matcha is made. I am a noobie to this but is seems like tencha is the leaf material after the cellulose had been removed and before it is ground into 5micron powder.
I am only interested doing it small scale to start of with, witch is probably how it was traditionally done. funny how explaining myself helped me find the correct search terms!
it’s more about what cellulose does and why I don’t want it, mainly it absorbs solvent and takes up space. the main advantage I see from removing cellulose is having a much higher content of your target compounds in your starting material which means less solvent, less and filtering etc. and on a side note I love smoothies and hate the texture of fibers in my drinks
might be a great medicine you could make from the full plant after you butane extract the thca and terps out. i wonder what would happen if you do ph swings too then return to neutral