Hey,
So a not so smart friend of mine did something not so smart but ended up with an interesting result…
He “washed” some distillate with ethanol (was trying to “loosen” some distillate out… His words). Then froze the distillate and then poured the alcohol off.
The alcohol had a deep red color (obviously took some cannabinoids with it) and the distillate that was left over was like 2-3 hues brighter than before. Seemed like it pulled the reds out real quick.
He didn’t bother to check how much stuff he lost into the ethanol. And it wasn’t really much of an experiment lol…
But it got me thinking. It seems like either oxidized compounds or antho-cyanins present in the distillate. But would actually “rinsing” the distillate in a low % alcohol solution (to avoid much cannabinoid pull) actually be a viable method to clean things up?
He did a dumb thing, but I feel like we could turn it into a smart thing.
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I agree there may be something here. Seems like just tinking around in the shop is what makes breakthroughs ha
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did you offer to dispose of their waste for them?
yeah, repeating that with 80 proof seems like it might make some sense. or would if you still had analytics. I’ve tried straight water and wasn’t supper impressed with the results.
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I’ve got analytics… Now to find some shitty distillate.
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So they didn’t get the entire chemistry set!! Good to know.
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Yeah, they left a bunch of stuff. Didn’t take a bunch of other stuff. It really didn’t make any sense.
They also took the safety meters I had, put them front and center with their box and stuff. Then placed it prominently in the middle of a cleared table. I think they were being cheeky.
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So the alcohol slowly leached the red impurities as is sat on top? Or was it mixed and able to separate from the oil?
He didn’t do a dumb thing. It is common to do liquid liquid extraction after distillation. Even if you are trying to do low temp as possible, you still likely cause degradation (of everything). Since the degradation products are of lower molecular weight and have some higher polarity components, they could be flushed out with an aqueous/alcohol wash. Keep in mind, that the cannabinoids will be extracted with alcohol. Other phase modifiers such as sodium carbonate or dilute acid can alter what impurities enter the aqueous phase.
Afterwards, you will need to remove entrained alcohol/water from the oil, which is adding more steps. It might be best to do the distillation/pre-distillation steps better to minimize this in the first place.
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Yeah I’ve done a whole whack of LLE up to this point now.
I usually do some water rinses until wash water is near clear.
I also haven’t really been making or seeing any dark distillate, so perhaps those problems are behind me. 
it’s certainly worth toying with if I’m cleaning up other people’s product though
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LLE is certainly a a valid approach, but the genius in question missed the whole immiscible in each other part of that trick.
He used what I would characterize as a solvent/solute combo.
Read it again.
Distillate is very soluble in Ethanol. Not quite infinitely, at some point you’re dissolving ethanol in distillate…
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It’s intriguing that it did clarify the impurity. Even at a much lower concentration than the cannabinoids, the impurity had a much higher affinity for the alcohol. This would be successful as long as minimal amounts of alcohol are used so as not to dissolve all of the distillate.
If the alcohol wasn’t mixed thoroughly into the distillate and allowed to sit there as the mixture cooled, a gradual exchange would occur. Allowing the higher affinity solutes to enter the alcohol. I would agree that a significant amount of cannabinoids are being lost to the ethanol as well, which could have a much different impact on the final distillate.
While the deviation provided an interesting outcome, let’s remember to follow the SOP. If you still feel like it, do these tinkerings on a small scale so as not to ruin a larger batch. It’s also hard not to get carried away with further tinkering when you experience something promising.
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Yeah I’ve certainly had some “experimental” batches that were way too big. Although making what could’ve been costly mistakes taught me a ton about how to fix things on the fly lol.
I do like that exchange idea… Maybe leave it for a week or something. Even if you lose a % of cannabanoids you can always use your darker oil for something other than nice distillate.
Might be an interesting cleaning method
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