Soak time BHO

How long do you soak?
My new job uses N-butane and soaks for 8 min.
We run frozen bud with lot of moisture.
I feel something is not right.
Is soaking necessary?
Doesn’t it just pull out more fats and lipids and stuff?

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Im soaking around 20 to 30min max under added pressure from nitro gen

I use 6x48in columns.

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If your column is chilled then you can soak for longer without pulling the BS ime

If it’s not chilled I would limit your soak time to a 3-5 minutes (or less)

Chilled column I soak for 20-25 minutes

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Yeah my columns are chilled at -50C got a good chiller.
But our RND guy was complaining that the samples were too thin and he thinks it is from fats and lipids.

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Im doing a cold injection but not a chilled column without issue?
I do use a column packer so i like to make sure i have full saturation.

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From your pics you have shared we aren’t really taking about the same end product even. No offense. What you are aiming for isn’t what I’m aiming for…

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Too thin?

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Yeah like the viscosity

I do slab and crumble. That was a fixer batch

Just the terp portion?

What is the end product consistency? Like terps and thca?

If so then your terps being watery/runny/thin is a good thing imo and means the opposite of what your guy thinks

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True let me check on that part tomorrow at work. Thanks for the insight.

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I just had an unstable batch the other week. Difderent reason than yours for being im guessing unstable?
The pictures he mentioned.
I ended up winterizing it to pull out fats.

Did you shoot bud or trim?

Are you going for slab crumble?

Are u Realterpsmatter?

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I agree terps are a good thing. There can be a couple different reasons something comes out unstable…

I posed the question to determine what material was ran to better figure out what was going on.

Definitely one of these chumps that’s been here before

Can your R&D guy even tell you the potency?

Or are they just making guesses?!?

See: in house analytics.

If they are basing their process optimization on following the cadabinoids rather than the cannabinoids, their “insights” are unlikely to be particularly insightful…

Soaking will get you more. Of everything. The ratio of “I wanted that” to “#%^<>^” will depend on the temperature.

Potency, and extraction efficiency (total extracted cannabinoids/total input cannabinoids) are pretty decent optimization metrics. Using raw yield will lead you to extract unwanteds in search of product weight.

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Seconding what Pupparoo said.

quick soaks are usually higher in terpene content. i think if you soak longer you will see an increase in viscosity and also cannabinoid potency.

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This is where in-house analytics is the ace in the hole.

You should be testing your raffinate (post-extracted plant material) in order to dial in variables like solvent quantity and soak time. The only thing that will tell you for sure is what you’re leaving behind in the plant material.

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Preach it!!

SRI-GC has a model configured explicitly for this industry with a list price of around $10k

Does a great job on potency, and a decent job on terpenes (liquid or headspace) & residual solvents.

The 310 MM is not set up explicitly for headspace, so “headspace terps” are qualitative rather than quantitative but the residual butane numbers are usable for guiding purging procedures.

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We run frozen bud with lot of moisture.

Stated clearly in first post.
Frozen wet buds.

Asking questions good.
Reading also required.

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