What happens when a SPD is done on oil that has not been winterized or fully decarbed?
I am new to SPD and need all the help I can get.
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Non-decarbed has potential to bump and blow oil through your whole system
Non-winterized has a lot of contaminants will come out discolored/dark and requires more passes reach a level of quality expected in today’s markets
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filter and decarb before SPD. you need to dial in your vac depth and process and that will help immensely. you need to make sure you’re setting up your equipment right, your equipment is running right, and your vac depth is appropriate.
Hi Rowan
Thanks for your response. The distillate has actually come out fairly clean. There is a bit of a red line that has formed on top of the distillate.NG Isolate|666x500
Hi NorCal
Thanks for your response. Clearly I will be winterizing and fully decarbing in the future. I am having lots of fun with this. I feel like a bit of a school boy chemist. 
Hey Rowan.
I am using butane as my solvent. I notice that everyone uses ethanol to do the winterizing. Do you know if it is possible to winterize in the butane?
Depending on your extraction perameters you may not need to winterize at all
I understand some of this. What my strategy is, is to freeze the wet plant and do an double extraction at -40 degrees, then to dry the bud and do a third extraction after the bud has been ground.
Does this make sense?
I suggest filtering and decarbing fully before hand because, if done properly, the oil will be more of a control and less a variable. which will help you dial in your SPD method. that way in the future you know what is going on with your equipment/process as you experiment with new tech. for example, non decarbed oil can react in a number of ways depending on exactly how volatile it is, which is typically different batch by batch.
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if you’re doing ethanol extraction, fresh frozen is risky business. this will potentially dilute your ethanol creating a less efficient extraction and likely pick up more contaminants and undesirables like chlorophyll. cold extraction is what you want, yes, but with dry material.
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sorry i just noticed youre using butane. keep your material super frozen, and make sure you’re extraction process is as cold as can be. and you’ll be fine. with ethanol extraction on fresh frozen the ethanol can become diluted with water which lowers efficiency. make sure you are utilizing molecular sieve in line and preferably in your purging process if you’re using an oven as this will absorb water that may have gotten picked up.
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Thanks for your reply.
I want to capture the volatile terpenes, so a low temperature extraction is essential. Would -40 be low enough?
I see you mention a molecular sieve. Can you perhaps point me in the right direction?
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the best way with hydrocarbon extraction is to start with the highest quality live resin material. meaning chopped immediately flash frozen and them put into a freezer until ready. once your system is primed and cold add your material and extract. the colder you can make your system the better so long as it is rated for such temperatures. assuming you complete an efficient extraction you would then take your saturated butane/resin and crash the thca to separate the terpenes from the cannabinoids. these won’t be pure terpenes if that is what you’re going for.
to summarize, the lower temp the better. also if you’re unfamiliar about molecular sieve you should research on your own. there are various grades depending on what you’re doing with it/ if you’re reusing it. mole sieve as we like to say, is reusable depending on the grade and application.
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Hit it with -80 solvent and you won’t have to dewax at all. Extractions done at -40 are definitely pulling more fats, how much more I can’t say exactly.
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Hi there FicklePickle
Thanks for joining in the conversation.
I just want to make sure that I understand what you are saying. -80°F or -62°C for the bud and butane before extracting?
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Must the bud be pre-frozen or can I just use butane at -80
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For dry
plant matter I keep it in a freezer at -20c. Then i assemble the extractor and inject through a coil in a dry ice bath at -80c
I don’t know if you “have” to. But it’s helps. My thought is that you’ll be extracting at the right temp to avoid pulling fats this way. Otherwise it might pull some initially.
That’s 80c or -110f
Dry ice and 99% isopropyl will make a great bath for the injection coil
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if you’re using “wet bud” it needs to be flash frozen immediately after being chopped and bucked. chop, buck the nugs, vac seal them and stuff them in a cooler immersed in dry ice pellets after 6ish hours or at least just feel the bags, should be frozen solid, then you can toss them in a normal freezer. ultra low freezer even better. that’s the small scale way and how I started.
if your starting material wasn’t immediately frozen after cutting the plants then it should be dry but not to the point where it’ll pulverize when you pack your system. I don’t recommend freezing dry material before extraction as it will pulverize as you pack it opening up the plants cell walls and releasing more undesirables into your extract. you would get a higher yield but if you’re going for terpenes then that’s not the route.
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your red ring is oxidation, and will keep getting worse. to prevent this store under vacuum/nitrogen
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