Okay… if I’m understanding you correctly you have zero knowledge of distillation you have zero knowledge of making carts you have zero knowledge of the differences between the different extracts… If I’m you I’m starting with the most foolproof way, and that would be buy half a kilo of really badass distillate then buy very good cannabis derived terps buy magnetic steering hot plate (and the magnet to go along with it) buy some empty carts put it all together sell some and see how it goes for you. This way if it doesn’t work out for you you don’t have a bunch of money tied up in equipment.
If you’re still insisting on learning how to distill I will help you but I would strongly suggest against it under your current circumstances
Not to be rude, but if you can’t bankroll a liter and testing for said liter, you shouldn’t really be making products for sale to others. Distilling yourself involves at the least a similar investment.
Hey bud there there is a plethora of very competent people here on this forum that can supply you with very good distillate and I would suggest find out who the reputable people are and stick with them even if you have to pay a little bit more ( more than likely to get good quality from a good reputable person you will pay a bit more but it’s definitely goddamn worth it)
I understand what you mean. my thought process was if I buy a bad liter, I cant do anything about it and its an immediate loss of 2000. However if I can get the equipment to do it properly I can keep trying until I get it right so it wouldn’t be a loss necessarily. I was hoping I can also create distillate with less of an investment.
ill look around, I havent been here long. How safe is it ordering off a stranger on here though? Also would they do 250 grams or would i need to buy a whole liter?
If you are trying to operate on the legal market as long as you’re willing to purchase a whole liter you should get whoever is selling you that liter to give you the COA on at least whatever batch that particular liter came from. Even if you just want to stick with the 250g purchase there just might be a COA for the oil you’re purchasing to give you peace of mind. At this point as others have said you’ve made a non winterized crude extraction. The process you used (ethanol) pulled ALOT of undesirable compounds (plant fats, and waxs) out of your biomass along with the cannabinoids. I also didn’t see a step on that video for decarbing, if you are not decarbing your biomass then you need to do that at some point before you will be able to distill. Rosin is typically at a higher price point because the yield doesn’t usually compete with distillate (more biomass required to make the same amount of rosin). In practice producing rosin is usually easier, and cheaper on a small scale. If you’re not willing to invest in at minimum a short path distillation set up, and a better filtering system then I would highly recommend you try rosin.
Edited
The quality of the starting material should also be a major concern when deciding which style of extraction to pursue. If you don’t have access to high quality fresh material then distillate would probably be your best bet.
A piece of paper/COA is only as good as the person who is giving it to you. It is super important to go to a reputable person. If it was me I would pay a bit more for peace of mind and for your health and the health of your customers.
I am legally allowed to buy a liter of distillate legally? I was getting everything off the black market. Where I would I find a legal liter for sale?
Also from what im hearing I dont think im ready to make my own distillate right now. I will buy another batch of distillate first, then hopefully come back to making my own in like 6 months. I would be willing to invest in a short path distillation setup if I can make it work. I have zero experience in this though, do you recommend me do anything else before I start
Read everything on this forum. Then read it again. There is an absolute gold mine of information here, just keep hitting the search bar. Google is also your friend. Since you have already tried an ethanol extraction with a counter top distiller, this link may be helpful. It’s written for small batch extractions, so easy to relate to. Good luck! ETHANOL EXTRACTION: COMPLETE BREAKDOWN - Home Extraction by IchiBanCrafter
If you are operating under a recreational cannabis license in NJ then you should be able to buy and sell anything that is available to your license type in your state. Full disclosure I personally know absolutely nothing about the NJ rec market but a quick google search pulled up Recreational License Awardees. Sounds like the category you’re looking for is Manufacturer. If you have a rec license then there shouldn’t be any reason one of the companies listed wouldn’t sell you distillate. If you feel confident/stubborn enough to do this by yourself then the only thing I can recommend is use the search bar and read read read. Etoh, SPD, Winterization, Decarb, and Distillation would be my starting points. Pretty much everything you can within those search parameters. The other option is hire a consultant to come out and spend a week or so getting you set up and comfortable with whatever equipment you chose. Good luck!
You could - get a job doing this work - so you see all the parts it entails. See if you like doing the work. See if you think that this is something you want to put your personal investment into.
If you are working on the traditional market - then you are not in the legal licensed space. Assuming you want to take that risk - you won’t be able to buy from a legal licensed source (as they can only sell to other license holders, except through small quantities at retail) unless they are hemp folks - which is a whole different game.
2k for distillate would be cheap in michigan where i am, just now on the licensed market. so getting it that cheap in NJ seems unreasonable - except that its non-licensed traditional market and/or hemp conversion stuff.
Someone posted a great link. Start there. Read some more. Read some more. I’ve been doing this for over 10 years and I still read here every day and learn more. So don’t feel bad about it.
If you happen to be a license holder in NJ - and you really need help figuring out how to turn your cultivated biomass into something. Feel free to DM me - I’ve got a processing partner out there and I don’t mind making a connection.
But I’m pretty sure you’re a traditional market operator. And that’s fine - but its a different game and you should spend some time wrapping your head around that first. Because that game isn’t for everyone and there is a legal risk that you are taking by trying to do it. Could it work out? Sure. Could you end up in prison, maybe. Could someone scam you and you have no recourse - sure.
So think about it. Decide what you are trying to do. And let us know. Starting a business? Starting a career path? Looking to hustle because there’s not enough carts in your neighborhood?
There’s plenty of us that consult here as Cannalab420 mentioned. But really - until you know what your goal is, it would be hard for any of us to help.
There’s people here that sell thca diamonds with a minimum order quantity of 100 grams or less which you can get for under $400 easily. You can buy something to safely decarb them in and make carts that are way better than distillate for a lower initial cash outlay and have a product everybody wants right now. This is what I would do. Do some research on hemp THCA so you know what you’re getting into first though.
Your idea of trying to produce rather than buy to make it cheaper and also better is on the right track, but I would somewhat agree with some of the others advice here. If you don’t have a ton of extra cash laying around I would be cautious about buying equipment that you dont know how to run, because there is a bit of a learning curve and if you just jump into head on, I can almost promise you will get frustrated and possibly waste more money than if you had of just sourced some decent distillate. Suppliers are around, you just have to know where to look. I don’t think anyone is saying don’t do it, just to understand the equipment before diving in.
Distillation is easily scaled. Rosin, not so much.
Rosin requires premium input. Distillate has been referred to as “hot dog water”…because you can quite literally clean the dishes you made when making crude, and turn those leavings into distillate.
Try @HowToWeed’s collection. Shouldn’t be too hard to find (https://m.youtube.com/@CartandPod). Nothing on distillation there, but you’ve got some catch up to play before you’re ready for that…
…it’s not like he’s got an SPD I can shatter…
Nothing against aspirational user names.
Not convinced that distillate is where our new NJ farmer should be heading.
