No sign of a “distillation” plan that I can see.
Only solvent recovery and a wish to achieve EHO dabbables or vape pens.
Did I miss something?
I agree that actual cannabinoid distillation should be part of the plan if carts are the goal in California.
Like you, I don’t see how distillate can be achieved by OP given the budget constraints. I wouldn’t call the task impossible by any stretch, but the skills required to nail this in one generally take years to acquire.
Your the 2nd person to speak to keif before extracting and I looked into this more, specifically DIY options for this which would automate it. Saw the video and it just looked labor intensive.
Then I found this video
"Simplest way to make keif and canadian rock hash bricks w pressed kief "
And from that was able to discern an example for automation of parts of the process.
And the cheapest but out of stock auto kiefer machine i had found was $300 and operated by simply a vibratory motor ( 30 bucks ) and some springs. I have been chewing through how to recreate that since they are out of stock and from each of these videos I see a way to create an automated kiefing machine for less than $100.
5 Gallon bucket
with bucket mount -
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08M3NH4NJ/
connected to vibratory motor strapped to the side
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09FLLFBFG
5lb of flower and dry ice, vibrate for 3 m
pour into bubble bags already inside of each other
return to the machine face up
vibrate another 5m
pour each bag and the bucket into separation buckets for each tightness
This then can be
My only working assumption is that I would need to hang the bucket… hope this helps others.
Really?
tried to hand that 
to you that more than once, along with the link to the $1k Rotovap….
The second time I pulled in a picture too…
Yeah. Lot to take in. Which is why I offered to assist. Your budget doesn’t have room is an acceptable answer…But you’re gonna need to read
I have gotten this feedback from several people and I want to clarify the most intuitive counterpoint and ask for your opinion on that.
There are lots of people on youtube that will simply extract in a mason jar quick wash, evap by leaving out, and show off the product as though it’s legit. Looks good too.
And then others who will soak a bit longer, add the step of the Buchner funnel but for small amounts and then use a source turbo to be a tiny rototap for making a couple of g at a time
That also seems really legit. They are using these concentrates for vaping.
And then there’s the matter of scale. none of that is very scalable and I would hope to get 10# of concentrates out of the 100# of starting material ( I get 10% on the rosin press as basis for that )
So from that my interpretation ( please share yours ) is that the process is not necessarily complicated for a savvy learner to pick up and be able to do to correctly, however it requires some skill and investment to…
From this point of view, I interpret that I should be able to pull this off on a small scale before attempting a large scale approach ( for example using a mason jar for a test run ) and make sure my system is working, and therefore get to a relative confidence through learning of how to make this work. Does that sound right?
Also one thing to know about me. When I travel to a tropical island, Im the kind of guy that will hunt for a great deal on a motorcycle, buy it, ride it for just a month, and sell it on the last day for the same amount of money i paid for it. over and over. Thats my style.
But my weakness is taking things too far and acting before learning. For example, I don’t know if I have adequate ventilation and need to make sure I don’t start till that’s sorted. I don’t yet know how flammable 200 proof eth is nor 180p eth 20 proof hexane
And I don’t know for sure whether the temp limitations of my smart pot are compatible.
My gut sense tells me its the wrong device, and that if I want a DIY advice, it would be a magnetic heating stir plate ( I have one ), with a cork that connects to the still.
Then I can set the temps to the ideal range for evaping alcohol ( 190F?? ) and have it simulate a rototap with the DIY still. Needing feedback on whether that will work.
Gut sense plan is keif first, press higher grades to rosin, extract lower grades, filter, and then pay for the best deal on a 5L rototap i can find ( likely 1k ), and then pay for a vacuum oven ( ~$800 ) and pay for a water chiller ( ~$300 used ) but extract the keif instead of the flower to minimize processing time and alcohol requirements through the auto keif system I described earlier.
Thoughts?
What steps are missing if I want to go to distillate? I am not clear on the difference between eth extract, filtered, winterized, dried out, and distillate yet. Is it just the need to make sure it’s fully decarbed so that it does not recrystallize THCa in the pens?
I do get the message from you that vape pens are. not a viable utilization case for the current plan, would love to know whats missing. If its just the rototap Im leaning towards getting the 1k version soon on the basis of scalability and efficiency.
To accomplish continuous distillation as mentioned by another post is reason enough to put the 1k in and then try to recover that by selling the gear after
yes! You did show me the keg connection however in my learning process I was unable to discern the purpose of the system it held. Now I get it.
Seems easy to work around for only 100# with a rototap that has a tap on it, can simply hit the lever to pour back into the original alcohol container yes?
There was a system like that a 5L I think for 1k that you showed me.
Friend, I am so thankful for all of it and I am vigorously reading all of the links that you are sending, it’s really helpful! If I was going to be around for thanksgiving I would have opened a conversation into this already. I’m missing the holiday unfortunately due to some travel plans.
I think there should be a way to tip helpful people in this forum through a simple crypto tokenization. I could definitely build that.
Ummm, hey Lincoln, I think you mean this for the sake of comedic relief. If you are actually asserting this statement literally then I think I might have a bit more to say about that, lol.
tbh when I read 30k and then read a makeshift boiler system and pressure for evaporation of solvent from product I thought it was a troll
not a derail comment
No. You have solvent recovery (distillation of your solvent) conflated with distillation of cannabinoids. most of the carts in your market are made from distillate with terpenes from another source.
The videos you’ve watched are for home users. You can absolutely make usable carts and dabs that way. What you can’t do is capture the full flavor of the flower. The monoterpenes and other light volatiles leave along with your solvent.
Your choices are therefor to use a more volatile solvent (Eg butane) or none at all (hash rosin).
Decarbed QWET pens will be a very hard sell in CA. They have certainly flown in other locales in the past.
Right now the folks in your neck of the woods would be more likely to purchase rosin based carts.
I haven’t been through I make terrible distillate....why? recently, but my recollection is it should have all the pieces needed to explain cannabinoid distillation. You might have to chase some of it down.
Could have sworn I linked it earlier, but that’s not what the record shows. #%%~>*>?ing hallucinating again? Possibly…although I don’t recall any good reason for that 
Thats fair. Honestly the still idea was based on a couple of other things. There was a very large scaled video about a guy using simple heating kettles to a still in one youtube vid, have not found it, and that was what got me thinking the DIY still could do the job.
So far there’s not really a solid understanding why it wont work but a general consensus to abandon that idea and integrate a rototap.
As an update, I did find a cheap DIY keif machine and that process looks damn simple so my current best sense plan is
Both of those extractions are low priority given that I only expect about 20% of the actual concentrates to come from it, but this order of events gets me faster to shelf stable and stocks the startup with 2 new inventory items pretty quickly
Thats my current gut sense after about 40 hrs of research so far on the best possible method.
any feedback?
You’ll probably need to achieve cannabinoid distillation to sell the ethanol based product. Even for edibles.
“Bricks” don’t have a place on your shelves. You have a maximum serving size limit (all knowing one suggests I can carry 8grams…retail “serving” may be smaller)
“Medallions” may. Or temple balls.
Not all chemovars (strains) squish well (rosin yield). This is important, as you need to run what you brung (or hung) this time round.
…understand that is only a fraction of what can be found in the Data Dump! (Scientific Papers)
Looks like I mixed up our current (self professed) noobs 
Which are both valid for you @CannaConnectDirect, so you may want to check out @Dorian’s exploration
Etoh concentrates come from evaporation and whatever post processing consistency you desire:shatter, diamonds, sugar, oils.
Distillates come from purifying already made etoh concentrate further to distill thc on a molecular level and the result is a thick thc laden syrupy concentrate. Which usually results in the upper 70’s to near 99%thc.
When I mean purifying I mean near perfect dewaxing, pH balancing, decarbing, terp stripping, degumming prior to putting it through a wiped film, rolled film, short path distillation unit or anything else meant for further refining on the molecular level.
Etoh concentrate is dewaxed bucket tek that’s been post processed into whatever the end consistency is desired by the operator.
It just takes a shit load of electricity and purified and decarbed etoh to make disty.
But if I can be clear you could get a bho rig and a crc then look into making clear diamonds.
Apparently old material is a crc’s best friend.
Because as disty is called hot dog water, I wouldn’t touch it if you’re aiming for market reasons.
To simply put it disty is when you fill your boiling flask in a spd with purifird decarbed etoh oil to distill that into a high thc concentrate
Etoh oil is the stuff you get in your boiling flask after evaporating etoh from the oil.
Most are making “bubble hash” rather that the “dry-sift” before squishing.
See:Commercial Solventless Systems for how that’s done at scale
If you recover your solvent(ethanol) in the presence of sensitive organic substances(cannabinoids and more) at atmospheric pressure the temperatures will be so high they will degrade your sensitive organic substances.
Cannabinoids already degrade slowly at 176°F(the boiling point of you solvent) and when suspended in a solvent, potentially still acidic from the direct application of dry ice to the ethanol, they degrade and react with other molecules(remaining terpenes which are even more reactive)at an accelerated rate. You just really want that whole process to complete as fast and as low temp as possible. Then you’ll need to buy a short path distillation system.
So spd, roto, pots, panda, buchner, media, accessories. Sounds like over 5k in equipment to me. That doesn’t even calculate the labor and the time. Alternatively, give the other guy 5k and get back a product you can immediately turn into carts while they still have some value. The market isn’t going up in value. At 10lbs/day you want to process that’s 10 days, or at minimum 1k in potential earnings from a job.
Also if your rosin isn’t coming from fresh frozen bubble hash freeze dried it’ll also be a very hard sell and probably won’t make desirable carts without even further processing which would require more equipment to get good separations.
260f wouldn’t be ideal.
70c is the max you wanna hit for etoh concentrates and that’s if you want to make edible concentrates 35c will land you the smokable oil.
If it’s hexane denatured it’s not gonna be fun
Hexane residuals aren’t a pretty thing to deal with either.
His still looks legit. ZERO temperature control. It boils at atmospheric. Yeah, he can turn the burner up or down, but that does NOT change the temperature of the boil. Understanding that is mission critical to understanding distillation.
If you’d like an honest evaluation of what you built you’ll need to show us what you built.
DiY solvent recovery is a huge thing here, if you learn it well it will help inform you cannabinoid distillation technique.
See:Distillation on the budget / silly idea / some questions
Edit: 10.8.1 Introduction to Short Path Distillation, by Erich Berkovitz - GrayWolf's Lair (cannabinoid distillation intro)
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