Milestone Ethos X Water Clear Terpenes SOP

This is my first post and contribution to Future 4200 and the community.

I have seen a few posts in regards to running the Milestone Ethos X - Microwave Dry Heat Steam Distillation.

Tips, Best Practice, Are the Terpenes Desirable?

I had the chance to dial in this unit while working with one company as it was deemed no good, ( or did not present desirable or pleasant terpenes) after our consult/ training.

After one employee breaking the vessel lid and on both chambers, I was asked to take over.
In doing so I was able to develop a process that took a some trial and error with ratio distribution.

With this SOP the Terpenes will be desirable given the material has been stored and handled properly and processed within reasonable time… The older the material the less desirable the terpenes will be as degradation has began, again unless stored properly.

I do not recommend fresh frozen or live material.
I have had best results with dried, readily cured material (trim or flower)
I do recommend to break up the flower in small pieces not ground.
And always remove as much sticks and stem.

Also note this is not a large production yield… on average I would pull 6-12 grams per 1,000 grams processed.
Water clear, desirable and concentrated. (less needed for vape pen dilution rates)

Much Love and I hope this helps anyone looking into this unit.

I have included a downloadable file as well as written out below.

4200 milstone sop .docx (15.5 KB)

Purpose: The purpose of the SOP is to outline a step-by-step procedure to maintain a regulated process and consistent quality as well as maintain safety for the employee.

Definitions:
Milestone Parameters & Ramping Temps/Time/Fan Speed:
3 minutes – 700w – T2 100 - Fan Speed 1
7 minutes – 1,100w – T2 110 - Fan Speed 1
55 minutes – 1,500w – T2 110 - Fan Speed 1
5 minutes – 0w – T2 0 – Fan Speed 3
Cooling – 5 minutes

Reference Chart:
Material (per Gram): RO water
500G-800G < 1,600ML-2,000ML
1,000G < 2,400ML Best Results
1,000G-1,250G < 2,600ML
1,500G < 2,800ML

Supplies: PPE, Sanitary Gloves, Safety Glasses, Lab Coat, 5gal food grade buckets with Lids, Heat Gloves. 1oz/2oz collection jars, 40ml QEC vials for Final Product. Decarb Oven, panda dryer, 5gal 220-micron bag.

Procedure: Turn on chiller and Milestone.
Pre weigh bag, then weigh out material in 5-gal buckets.
Saturate material in RO water using measurements reference chart.
Mix thoroughly then compress material to bottom of the 5-gal bucket, completely submerged and pressed in RO water.
Allow bucket to sit for minimally 20 minutes to soak up RO water (prep as many buckets needed per shift capability, usually 4max)
When loading the material, loosen and mix up from being compressed and soaking.
Loosely fill the Milestone vessel (as not to pack the material down, it must stay loose)
When assembling the lid to the vessel slightly grease the seal gasket for both sides on glass contact. (not Necessary but does aid sealing)
Lightly tighten the lid clamp one at time and opposite sides until all are fastened, make sure clamp is centered before tightening all the way down, and do not over tighten.
Prep the condenser arm assembly, slightly grease the glass fitting, and fit into the lid of the vessel inside the Milestone.
Unscrew the lid to the Sep funnel, fill the Sep funnel with RO water to the 5-7ml marker, reassemble the lid to the condenser arm.
Run the preset Standard (Approximately 1hour 9minutes)
Once complete, drain waste Hydrosol.
Tare an empty jar then collect Terpenes and record weight.
Add RO water to an equal amount of weight in terpenes (i.e., 2.2g terpenes: 2.2g RO water)

Store in Cryo freezer to crash Hydrosol and separate the Terpenes for 24 hours minimum.
Then remove and empty material out of glass vessel into empty 5gal food grade bucket.
Prep Milestone now for successive runs until complete. Once milestone is prepped and running next Successive run, Continue next steps.
Using a Panda Dryer, Spin-dry the material using a 220-micron bubble bag.
Once dry, break up the material onto trays in micron mesh bags and load into the drying oven.
Rotate shelves on the first hour and mix the material up on the trays then rotate and mix again every 30 minutes until dried efficiently. (less than 1,000G takes about 90 minutes up to 2 hours for max material up to 1,500G)

Terpene Isolation: Finished Product
If Terpenes have not fully separated, then add more RO water to appropriate levels and refreeze for another 24 hours.
Tare a Storage Vial (amber or blue) and record tare weight.
Once Terpenes and Hydrosol are separated, using disposable pipette, pipe out Terpenes into tared storage vial and record weights.
Hydrosol can be collected and stored for further separation or disposed as water waste.
Store Terpenes in Cold Storage (Freezer)

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Awesome write-up! Thank you for the contribution and welcome to the forum

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thank you been here for a bit. finally made an account! time to contribute!!!

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wow this is awesome! thank you so much this 100% gives me a place to start.

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Do you mind elaborating the thought process behind choosing the milestone parameters that you chose? I am curious why you want to run at 700 w for 3 mins, 1100 w for 7 mins, but 1500w for 55mins? Are the two initial microwave exposure periods just warming up the vessel? or are you looking for a collection in these first two periods?

:pray:. Great read and findings

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Don’t waste your money. These are steam still equivalent at best and you can’t run a lot.

I tried one of these in late 2018, ruining a pound of lemon tree mugs in the process.

Get a steam still for similar capacity. Get a vacuum steam still to reach even lower temps.

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These are just to ramp up the wattage while staying under temp…as nothing (desirable) really starts collecting until you get up to 1500w. The timing will show that the terp layer is no longer increasing as you are just recycling water and or more hydrosol (undesirable) at this point and will settle with the water that we separate when freezing.
So no collection or separation from this.

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For sure, I stated that in the BIO. These are not for yield and or scalable operations… unless you are running 10 of these per shift and enough decarb ovens to accommodate the material… this was more of an info drop for those that get gifted, over-sold, purchased and or just want to know about it… I know others here in the forum have used this but no actual SOP that can produce desirable terps… and im no sales man just sharing my SOP

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Yea I was gifted one, I want to try an play around with it and see what I can come up with, I also had a few ideas I wanted to try. One of them being using spent water from a solventless run and see if that has an impact on yield.

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I would imagine the terpenes that are carried over or left over in the spent water from a solventless run are the water soluble terpenes. If that is the case, I am sure there would have to be a secondary separation method for the water soluble terpenes to be isolated from the water. r&d away… the only way to find out!! But then also would be concerned with the water storage and the time it sits? Does spent solventless water carry or build bacteria and or some form of micro organisms after time…? I would prefer clean fresh water (RO) do this process, as the terpenes from the water would affect the outcome of the already desirable terpenes, making them not so desirable anymore. only r&d will know.

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The beauty is our solventless team is next door and is always stirring a batch. In my mind I imagined using water from a solventless run pretty much immediately. It wouldn’t be sitting out long at all. I have a couple of methods for terpene/water separation I am going to try for sure. I am just excited to play with new equipment. Thank you so much for all of the input! I will make sure to keep you updated on my results.

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update… this machine was extremely underwhelming lol

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I’ve run one of these before and the only terpenes I liked were those we made from fruits.

We threw so much decent biomass at it for no reason.

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I’ve gotten good terps out of it. It’s hard to avoid burning unfortunately especially if it’s milled biomass.

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I do want to say that the customer service I received from milestone was top notch.

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I have a unit for sale, in great condition located currently in NorCal. Feel free to reach out if anyone is interested in purchasing one.

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