I’m really getting into solventless carts. Feel free to share any pictures or tek.
Ideal approach: fresh frozen > bubble hash > freeze dry> press at lower temps to keep more volatile terps > jar tech to decarb > fill carts
If not using fresh frozen you ll need to supplement a small amount of CDT to achieve a desirable viscosity for cart flow.
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How long do you usually decarb, and does your rosin not sit at room temperature after decarb? With my experience the rosin still gets thick. Just have to warm it back up before the cart filler?!
This is a good video from lowtemp. Usually the bubbles are indicators while heating. 25 to 30 min at 250 is one way to do it… Should look and act like distillate at room temp. Might need a slight warmth to load into carts.
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You can also mechanically separate the terps/thc-a, decarb the thc-a then reintroduce 20% terps back into the decarbed thc-a thats now mostly D9 with some remaing thc-a(stays around 30% verified by testing) this produces the most shelf stable carts with the best non baked terps.
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Yea I would just repress the rosin in a small micron bag and squeeze the HTE out before decarb. What is with people and not separating before decarb?
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I agree with everything here except the 20% terps part. That is waaaaaay too much. I know industry standard is 7%, but generally, you will start to see lung irritation above 3%. I find that 1% is usually plenty for a balanced cart if you reintroduce, typically I’ll overshoot to 1.25%-2% because the terpenes may escape when filling (I fill really hot with distillate because otherwise it spills over and is a general mess), though a covered holding vessel will also help.
I know many people will do 10%-20% terps, and many will contest the 3% figure; that’s ok and I think that’s another topic for discussion, but any time you manufacture carts, you have to ask: is this safe to inhale?
Vape scares, vape related parenchymal lung injury, or lipioid/lipid pneumonia are all something you as a vape manufacturer should be aware of and responsible for preventing. At this point, most know that vitamin E acetate was not the cause of these vape scares due to its absence in many vape injury victims, and there is much discussion of what the cause is. My personal hypothesis is that it was a combination of multiple issues; some being cheap batteries that allowed heavy metals to be inhaled, possibly heavy metals from the hardware itself, and a lipid/lipoid pneumonia type issue. The former two are relatively easy to solve: don’t be cheap with carts and perform due diligence on suppliers. The latter is a bit more complex because there isn’t any concrete research that tells us what to do and not do. However, I do have some knowledge and personal experience that sets good guidelines for me.
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The more you press, such as is the case with mechanically separating everything, you could lose more volatiles going through the multiple presses.
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Personally i’d rather press hot (one press) which really brings out very strong terp flavors, decarb and just go from there rather than bork my yields from it and keep it relatively profitable.
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Totally agree
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What to do
If you want to see the full context for how I got to this conclusion, read what is below. If making carts from rosin, your starting material should be bubble hash or a strain of flower that produces measurably less cuticular wax and oil that will contribute lipids. Avoid using high concentrations (>3%) of terpenes as these can be problematic due to their low water solubility. Never add any of the following cutting agents to your carts (I prefer to never add any cutting agents to carts): mineral oil, long chain triglycerides, squalene, non-saponifiable olive oil fractions, or anything similar in hydrophobicity that is not a cannabinoid or similar bioactive. Functionally, you want to have only cannabinoids and a small amount of terpenes because the purpose of vaping is to uptake the same ratio of cannabis bioactives without combustion.
The Story
A bout 6 months ago, I switched the heat bath fluid of my 50L rotovap from distilled water (which had to be refilled constantly and had a max heat of ~70C) with mineral oil. I used animal grade because it would be safer to be exposed to than technical grade, and it was very cheap ($14/gallon). It also had a flash point around 130C, which means I could do decarbing and devolatilizing in my rotovap, saving me a transfer. The first time I did this, I noticed an odd smell after the temperature reached 80C. This smell stayed from then on, and I noticed that my throat hurt a bit and I would cough after leaving that persisted for hours at first, up to a whole day. This was very subtle, but a voice in my head whispered: lipoid pneumonia, and I immediately stopped production. I drained the rotovap of the oil, which had turned a bit yellow, and disposed of it. I replaced this with glycerin, which is water soluble (no lipoid pneumonia), higher flash point, doesn’t degrade, and is easier to clean. Any trace of the cough went away within a few days.
Note: No one was harmed or had any long lasting symptoms, including myself and was only used for no more than 2 weeks. I also claim full responsibility for this mistake as it was my ignorance of this that lead to this incident; mineral oil is listed as a known cause of lipoid pneumonia on the mineral oil Wikipedia page.
The Conclusion
With this story, and a bit of chemical knowledge actually gets us pretty far. Mineral oil is mostly a blend of different hydrocarbons like paraffins (straight alkyl chains), isoparaffins (branched alkyl chains), naphthenes, aromatic, and poly aromatics. Basically a group of highly non-polar, water-insoluble, and chemically inert hydrocarbons. The main issue with these in your body, especially your respiratory system, is that it is very hydrophillic, if the bioactive you are inhaling has too low a water solubility, it won’t be easily uptaken by the lungs and will deposit on your alveoli, leading to temporary to permanent lung damage.
We cannot simply take “water insoluble” at its face value though, really this means that the water solubility is very very low and there are levels to this. Here are some common solvents with low, but not zero, water solubility (the saturation point) with salt as reference for high saturation at 25C.
NaCl: 360g/1000g (36%)
Ethyl Acetate: 85g/1000g (8.5%) (used for LLE, as it does form layers)
Toluene: 0.526g/1000g (0.053%)
Hexane: 0.14g/1000g (0.014%)
Limonene: 7.57mg/1000g (0.00075%) (a common terpene found in cannabis)
So this means that we actually can inhale lipid substances, as long as we don’t exceed the respective water solubility. Something like MCT oil, which is hydrophobic and is somewhat water insoluble, is safer to inhale than its long chain triglyceride counterparts. The same goes for cannabinoids, terpenes etc.
So this is just basic water solubility, we haven’t even touched on cellular transport/excretion mechanisms. When we look at something like a long chain triglyceride, chemically speaking, we shouldn’t inhale it. It is water insoluble and won’t be readily absorbed in large enough quantities for us to vape if we use it as a carrier oil, but lets say we do. Your body isn’t going to just let the oil sit there, it’s going to clean it up. If the lungs can’t uptake these materials fast enough, it secretes mucus to incorporate lipophilic compounds and induces coughing to remove them from the respiratory system. The main issue is that this is a slow process and if you are vaping constantly, you exceed your lungs capacity to get rid these things. Some compounds are small enough to be uptaken regardless, some incorporate into mucus better than others, some degrade when vaporized, and some vaporize more readily. There are many factors that are involved, but for simplicity, we can stay with hydrophobicity.
Note: I am not a doctor and this is broad simplification of how this works, this is already a long post so some things are either simplified to my experience and knowledge or omitted for lack-there-of/space.
We know cannabinoids are uptaken very easily as distillate and isolate vape very smooth compared to with terpenes. But now piecing together the points above, we know that many of the waxes and oils of the plant are very hydrophobic and we should remove them if possible. This can be done by first making hash because the trichomes have very little to no wax/oil. But looking at the structure of terpenes, they are very hydrophobic and should be limited as well, but below the discussed threshold (around 3%). And of course, never add any hydrophobic cutting agents to your carts as any additives are know to cause lipoid pneumonia.
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Why in the world, anyone would extract using the most ineffecient extraction method and then cook their terps to literally make boo boo carts is beyond me… You do you though.
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You’re right… imma do me and you can do you.
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