I have a client who’s extraction team is very resistant to the idea of Nitrogen back-fill to prevent muffining and reduce processing times in the vac oven.
I need a couple of people who use this technique to jump on a call with his team and extol the virtues of flat slab processing.
I agree that muffins in the oven are problematic for a number of reasons.
I had not considered efficiency to be one of those until reading that here.
Other than a nitrogen tank and regulator, what else do I need?
Turn the Vac on high, and open the nitrogen, then slowly dial the nitrogen back over a couple of hours?!?
I usually winterize my extracts, and sucking too hard too soon is a great way to make a huge mess. I eventually learned to stage the vac. 15in, 20in, 25in, full vac over the course of a couple or three hrs.
It is dependent on the batch that would be tricky. You could just assume the worst case scenario and program it for that. It would be an overuse of N2 likely.
I’m a fan of the nitrogen backfill. Let’s say you’ve got some moisture in your slabs the nitrogen helps pull some of that moisture out when you introduce the nitrogen and purge simultaneously
I spoke with @Sidco_Cat about this at CannaCon in Seattle around 2016, completely changed the way I purge. After introducing backfill procedures I was easily able to obtain 0ppm readings for all hydrocarbons between 36-48 hours oven time. Nitrogen also dramatically reduces the amount of nucleation we saw in shatter because all of that ambient relative moisture and oxidation no longer happen every-time you break vacuum to do flips or maintenance.
Had never heard of using N2 as a suppressant for nucleation, but that does make sense. A lot of people use n2 to blast through their material columns before running to help remove any excess moisture.
Its the only way. I waste a little nitrogen at first so i dont have babysit the muffins and it is the the only way I have been able to get consistent glassy slabs.
It’s not so much that it suppresses nucleation as it is actually mitigating a couple factors which do facilitate nucleation. When you use atmosphere to neutralize vacuum you introduce tiny particles, water and oxygen all of which degrade your concentrates and can be yet another starting point for nucleation.