Newb, growing for child, need assistance. Rotovap

Hash and Stuff Solvent Recovery
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what’s the difference between eating literally any edible plant on the face of the planet and eating cannabis? what nonconsumable compounds are in rosin? why are you claiming there’s no medicinal benifits of terpenes, flavonoids, fats, and lipids? why are natural food more healthy than processed foods?

cannabis as medicine is not some new breakthrough science it has literally been used for thousands of years without the equipment you sell to make distillate. one example is the old Laos and Thai people i know say it is very common in that part of the world to cook cannabis into a soup with other medicinal herbs to cure all kinds of illnesses

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adding water to a lipid infusion promotes precipitation of gums which then want to hang out at the oil water interface. I have a difficult time fully separating water-infusion mixes for this reason but I figure a draw-off port positioned above the interface could do the trick so long you’re ok with neglecting that lower part of the oil phase.

I’m under the impression that several lipid infusers out there use pressure cookers where they mix oil water and hemp so they must have a reliable way to do the separation. Still, I imagine their batch methods suffer from low extraction and/or labor efficiency.

The main issue with freezing is to confirm your carrier oil isn’t going to freeze too.

Personally I find it ok to make an infusion with oil only. Gums still tend to precipitate out on their own I suppose because even the infusion picks up a little water from the biomass. So normally I wait a day or two after decarb for the infusion to cool down, let anything that wants to precipitate do so, then do a final ambient temp filtration. Haven’t noticed major differences taste or colorwise between degummed and nondegummed lipid infusions.

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If it freezes first, the trick still works. And absolutely.

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@batsona thank you that is very helpful. I might try that with an ounce or so to start and see how it goes.

What filter do you use? We have a Buchner but not sure about running oil through it, would it be too viscous ?

So you decarb the infusion rather than the flower? We have a smaller ardent and usually declare first. But we’re open to learning better ways.

@Autumn_Ridge_Hemp. We have but they were poor harvests. We’ve only had 1 indoor now and yields are much better and no mold or mildew issues like previous years.

I bought some CBD, CBG, & CBN isolate from extract labs. I was planning on running a few mini batches anyways to play with adding those is different batches and mixtures. Heavy cbn for night time and 10mg or so cbd added as we’ve found it with thc works so well. Haven’t tried cbn or cbg yet.

@TheFire210. I still think I’m going to play with rosin. Since everyone is sold out of the presses I might just try a cheap eBay non caged 4x7 press plate setup. Then mix some of the rosin with the “tank 3” or low concentration oil in a bracket on a magnetic stirrer for an hour at 40c to combine well.

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Fyi definitely make sure there’s no pesticides or mold on the bud if you’re making rosin

decarb the rosin before you mix it into the oil but besides that you’re good, i use a magnetic stirrer too just don’tgo too hot. 50 Celcius is plenty hot to dissolve extract. you can even press rosin with a hair straightener to try out before you spend a few hundred bucks on a press!

and a small amount of cbg goes a long way. i do 6:1 cbd:cbg tinctures

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Go to harbor freight
Look for their 20 ton H-frame
Go to low temp plates and get their 3x5 plates
Swap out ALL the hardware that comes with the harbor freight press for grade 8 hardware. You’ll thank me later.

Press
Press press

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he already has that press bro! i recommended the same exact thing except longer plates

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Yeah buchner works great! (Especially with vacuum assist.). Indeed you can still filter oils like mct and their infusions it just takes longer than say an ethanol tincture. Some might want to filter infusions hot, immediately after decarb, but I find filtration to be more thorough when it is done at ambient temp, even if it takes longer. A lot of gums can really slow down the filtration rate… if you find this to be an issue then pour just enough into the buchner, let it pass through, and replace the filter. Personally I like to filter decarbed, cooled-down infusions twice just to make sure it looks nice… if it’s going into capsules then above and beyond filtration might not be necessary.

Decarbing before infusion… not sure if I’m right or wrong on this, but my intuition says that unless you’re decarbing the biomass in an inert (n2, argon, etc.) environment then you could potentially degrade some pigments and terpenes while you decarb the cannabinoids. Same issues can arise when decarbing the infusion, but it’s easier to minimize o2 contact for the infusion whereas with biomass all the compounds are dispersed and have easier access to oxygen. Low decarb temps also really help taste… go too high and it can definitely give a burned taste. With just a kitchen oven I would find a glass container with a narrow mouth, set to 100degc and wait til the bubbles are negligible (at least 4+ hours but no agitation may increase the needed time some more). On the other hand a heat mantle/magnetic stirrer with built in temp controller (ebay/amazon) and an argon bottle satisfies more of my ocd!

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I have a better press, with pressure gauge and 2 stage pump, can feather it really well.

@TheFire210 I’m just going to buy the cheap ebay 3x7, they are half price of low temp, and dabpress and dulytek are out of stock:

However today I might experiment with a small batch of infused coconut oil.

Help me understand:

I have found cited quotes for infusion and decarb efficiencies, which are much lower than generally accepted, which leads me to beleive that is why our last infusion attempt didnt go well.

Follow along my thought/math process please: 18% flower, 68% decarb efficiency, and 81% coconut oil infusion efficiency.

  • 18% flower x 1oz = 28,000mg x 0.18 = 5040 mg available
  • 5040mg x 0.68 (flower decarb not infusion) = 3427mg thc
  • 3427mg x 0.812 (infusion efficiency) = 2775 mg.
  • 2775mg / 35mg dose = 79 ml.
  • realistic )) capsule fill volume i calc at .9ml to be conservative as its hard to fill 100%, 35mg/ml x 0.9 ml = 31.5mg actual dose.

Decarb efficiency: Decarboxylation Efficiency - #4 by srihugh1
Infusion efficiency: How To Make Cannabis Infused Oil | Ardent Cannabis

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o hell yea even better! i haven’t used those plates specifically but i do have a low temp press which is the same design and works great.

i would ask @cyclopath about your math, decarbing in mct oil, or decarbing flower before you infuse it. i always decarb extract and then infuse it because i can actually tell when it’s done decarbing that way and the math is a lot more accurate and repeatable

your first line of math is correct about the mg in an oz if the flower tests at 18% but i would also ask cyclopath about the rest of your equations.

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I started to chat with him last night but i was tired and had to tap out as its hard to think like that.

I think we weren’t talking the same thing in terms of lingo which is likely my fault. I’m a data kind of guy but i dont know enough or have enough experience in this industry to be able to have concrete numbers, so I’m making a lot of assumptions.

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yea he would be a better person to ask or @TheGratefulPhil

Its hard to measure extraction efficiency without having a solvent you can evaporate off for baseline numbers. I “measure” this by doing my initial extraction, evaporate the solvent and record yield, do another extraction on same biomass and record yield. if there’s not enough extract left from the 2nd extraction to make it worth your time then you’re extracting efficiently. this is hard to do with mct oil because you can’t evaporate it

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True. In the end I just need to figure out how to optimize my setup. And that will come with experiences for being good about tracking and controlling variables.

But I don’t know how to optimize and that’s where I need to learn.

My wife has been handling the extractions and I primarily did the indoor grow. She’s more of a wing it type. I’m going to be taking over the extractions.

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So, you also have to account for decarboxylation weight loss.

Aside from the fact that you only decarb ~62% but the 62% that has been decarbed weighs 13% less than the original THCa it came from.

What are your decarb parameters, I imagine youre taking well ground bud and putting it in the oven?

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We have been using the Ardent Nova machine. It’s like an easy bake oven :joy:

I need to figure out what I’ll be doing for larger batches. Haven’t had to because the source is so small.

I’ll do more research but was thinking 30 min at 245* F.

Based on this:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d78356a87d32d1947de497a/t/5ea2489d7af7995a080c66d2/1587693727066/Deep+Dive+Into+Decarb.pdf

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I try to do a few water removal steps, it does get complicated. Hanging the cold coconut oil in a mesh bag and hitting with a fan might be the best approach. I try to bring my final product to 210 f as well

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man if it works it works lol

i decarb at a lower temp for a lot longer but you’ll just have to play around with it

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I’m skeptical of this number of 68% - granted the medium of the cannabinoids (biomass, concentrate, infusion) can change rates & efficiencies. My most recent infusion decarb was:

pre decarb: 0.951 g/mL with potencies (3 tests) of 53.0, 52.7, and 54.7 mg cbda/g and 4.6, 4.5 and 4.6 mg cbd/g which average to a total potential cbd of 51.5 mg cbd/g

after decarb: 0.948 g/mL with potencies (3 tests) of 48.8, 51.1, 48.9 mg cbd/g giving an average of 49.6 mg/g

My hplc methods aren’t perfect but they are usually good to within a few percent, at least. Point being, decarb ‘efficiency’ of lipid infusions is well above 68%. It’s at least 95%. (96% using the data above).

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In their writeup they consider batchwise infusion - the countercurrent method I wrote out above gives extraction efficiencies of over 90% with MCT, olive, avocado, etc. Reason being, after your first wash of stepping up your potent oil as much as possible, you follow up with a second wash with a less potent oil that more readily dissolves the remaining cannabinoids. And even more so if you do third and fourth washes. Then once your most potent wash meets your spec, you take it out of the process, and your lower potency (2nd, 3rd, etc…) washes become your 1st and 2nd washes.

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the simplest way to calculate the maximum amount of oil, infused to a certain potency, that you can make from biomass can be written as

m_o * c_o = E * m_b * c_b

where

m_o is infusion mass
c_o is the infusion potency
E is the efficiency
m_b is the mass of biomass
c_b is the biomass potency

so the amount of infused mct oil, at 3.2% potency (by mass, or 30 g/mL when density is 0.94 g/mL), you can make from 28.35 grams of 18% potent biomass is

m_o = 0.9 x (28.35 grams) x (18%) / (3.2%) = 153.1 grams of oil or 163 mL

There I assumed an efficiency factor of 0.9. (which I have verified for this process running 180 lbs at a time…)

The result of the equation above however occurs only if you get all of your cannabinoids into your most potent oil. Realistically, at the end of your extraction, there will be some cannabinoids left in the lower potency (i.e. 2nd, 3rd, etc.) washes. In the long run, after running lots and lots of minibatches, you approach the result of the equation above. In practice tho you don’t want to have to run an infinite number of minibatches so there is a compromise that must be reached!

All that said, I expect you can get at least 70% of the cannabinoids in the potent oil that you take out as product if you do 10 minibatches at 2.8 grams per. Thus for an ounce you should be able to make at least 110 mL of oil infused to 30 mg/mL.

Since you expect to be taking out 110 mL from your process, I would use a 20 mL syringe (pack the end with cotton) and take out the ‘first wash’ after the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th mini batches.

After all the washes and minibatches you will have 100 mL of potent oil that you took out of the process, as well as 20 mL of your second and 20 mL of your third wash. Your 100mL of potent oil should be up to spec so that you can dilute with the 20mL of your second wash.

In my experience, the ‘spent biomass’ triples in mass if you squeeze it reasonably well… so for 28 g fresh you should expect to lose about 60 mL of dilute oil to the biomass. All in all looking at 200mL.

I hope you can appreciate that some of my numbers aren’t exact… trying to get some ideas across first and foremost!

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