Our new lab in AZ is almost finished and after our hydrocarbon system is running along well we’ll be adding a distillation setup. I had been looking pretty hard at a BR Instruments spinning band system, as that’s what is used in our lab in Illinois and they love it. However, in Illinois they have a co2 extractor to isolate terpenes before pulling cannabinoids and then distilling and we won’t be able to do that in AZ.
My boss shot me an email to look into the Pope wiped film systems because they claim to be able to use non-decarbed material and isolate terpenes before doing the cannabinoid distillation. I understand the theory of how that would work, but is it actually practical? From what I’ve read using decarbed material is much easier to distill, and also easier on the equipment. Not to mention the possible nightmare of cleaning the Pope body after a non-decarbed, non-winterized run.
Is the Pope claim even true? Are people able to use BHO in their Pope and get usable terpenes out of it, or do you need to decarb first and it will just trap the fish terps?
If it’s all bull I’ll put in the recommendation for the BR, and then maybe get a vacuum steam distillation or Milestone microwave distilattion setup to capture terps before the initial BHO run.
Thanks for any help, guys!
check @precisionextraction their CDU 1000 and CDU 3000
Two WFE’s presumably.
But how does that address the OPs question regarding the use of a wfe to capture terps?
”can I use a wfe to capture terps?”
“Check out @precisionnick’s wfe!”
@lilibel has mentioned a WFE (Pope) based terp strip around here somewhere…
Sure it can be practical, if it fits into your business. Keep in mind that any solvent extraction will change the profile, so im much more of a fan of pulling terps from the flower itself before any extraction is done.
Youll want to dial back the heat and get the condensor as cold as you can, but you can absolutely strip the terps gently with a wiped film. You get out what you put in with terps, however.
You could strip the best HTFSE into the most ridiculously good 0% cannabinoid terpene fraction youd ever seen.
Then you could go alchemical and submerge your flower into a oil or deodorized fat, let that soak for a long time, then filter the plant material out and strip the oil of terps in the WF…
little less practical
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the BR is fractional distillation, the pope is 1 theoretical plate. Therefore you will need to do a pass to remove (heavy) terps and then a pass to remove THC.
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There is no efficient way to produce useable terpenes on the wiped-film. Yes you CAN do it, you could take the third collection vessel terps off the CO2 extractor and run through through the pope, but it will always be hard to get a nice clean fraction. The wiped-film evaporator is for large scale distillation of crude oil to vape pen oil.
The terpenes produced on a wiped film smell horrible. I’m not going to say its impossible but being realistic and going by the rule not the exception, I’m saying its not feasible.
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Running non-decarb material through the wiped-film evaporator (pope) sucks. Your thoughts about the mess and cleaning are entirely valid. The contact time with a hot surface is NOT a good decarb apparatus (too short). I suggest a reactor with stirring heat and vacuum for decarb followed by pumping through to the wiped-film with my pump.
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If you ever need a wiped film evaporator, please contact me and I can set you up- my company sells installs and trains on entire wiped-film systems. We are located in Los Angeles CA.
Kind regards,
Lilibel
Thank you for the honest information! When we ramp everything up and start doing large amounts of distillate I’ll give you call about a few WFE machines.
Pope tries to sell it as an easy way to save good terpenes, but I knew it couldn’t be that easy. I just emailed my boss with my recommendation for the BR SPD, and also added some info on terpene distillation equipment. If I’m insanely lucky maybe I’ll get to play with one of those Milestone ETHOS X setups later this year.
I wish you the best in your quest to save those precious terpenes!
Just came across this thread, it is 100%. You can do some amazing things with terpenes in a wiped film