Talk me into buying a homogenizer

Debating buying a CAT x1000 homogenizer. I don’t produce much, only enough for family and select friends. I make carts in 100 ml batch’s, hard candied and chocolates in small batches. I understand how they work, I just need to justify spending the $$$

Would i be able to use the x1000 for chocolates and hard candies? That make the cost a little bit easier to swallow.

I don’t have any testing, but i know my mixing is inconsistent. I do the best i can with basic stirring, but hotspot’s happen with my edibles. I haven’t noticed with carts, but that doesn’t mean I’m not having issues, maybe i just don’t know what to look for.

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Buy a homogenizer

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If your really serious about your hobby or products. Buy a homogenizer! There really isn’t a way to uniformly mix medicine in with other products properly.

$1000 is a small price to pay for proper medicine distribution. The cat 1000x is only $570 euro direct too. Which is like $525 plus shipping. There website has an English version.

Buy a homogenizer!

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I’ve read stable oil in water nanoemulsions can be formed by vapor condesation, maybe it’s worth trying.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01420-8

Downside is that you need to vaporize your product first.

I mean, if one uses proper emulsifying agents in a system with all of the proper HLB values and a correct order of addition of components, one can create some very stable O/W emulsions with just mixing.

Having said that, if the goal is to do the best you can, and optimize, you’re going to be better off with a homogenizer than with traditional mixing. I’m thinking of buying one myself just because they make things so much more efficient.

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I am in your same position. I know a homogenizer is the best solution for mixing terps with distillate for carts. But the issue I’m having, which is similar to yours is related to batch size. People have said, that 100mL or really anything less than ~500mL, the x1000 is too strong/big. It seems like for small batches you will at least need a narrow and tall vessel to mix in like a tall form beaker or heavy duty test tube type vessel so that the rotor/sator portion is fully submerged.

I think 500ml is pushing the 1000x to its limit with a 91% distillate mix.

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Upper or lower limit? What would you say the minimum amount that one can reasonably mix with the x1000?

does the workload depend on the shaft? I was recommended a g20 shaft, but looking at the this

seem they sugggest the g20 for 250ml-5000ml

would it even work with 100 ml? i guess i would need a tall narrow vessel?

Max. We had a real hard time mixing a 1/2 liter. Once it was hot enough. It really did it fast but struggled till it was pretty warm

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Oh word. That’s good to know, thanks. My batches are currently ~250-300mL.

Ah yes, the motor is $500, but then you need the shaft. I was looking at a x1000/g20 kit that comes with a stand and everything for $1100.

The g20 shaft is what was recommend to me, but based on that shaft pdf I linked, I’m not sure a g20 shaft will work with 100ml

Most of my batches are 100ml

I have achieved stable emulsions using a vitamix with a lid you can vac before mixing. I think these sheer homogenizers (cat, kinematic etc) are stoopit, overpriced garbage. I got one and sent it back. I personally think the vitamix does as good or better job for completely homogenizing edibles. no data to back it up, just my watchful eye and thrifty checkbook… IF I observed the sheer homogenizer worked better, I’d own one.

That said, making water soluble emulsions is not the easy. There are many, many factors that produce the end result. One of those factors is mixing. Here’s water soluble crude homogenized with a Vitamix. Yea. Crude :wink:

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A cat 1000 would be perfect for your size.

< img src=“https://cart.farm/laughingwooks >
he doesn’t even make carts :joy::rofl::joy:

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@qma OP asked about dual use, edibles and carts. But more to the point: mixing terps and distillate to squirt in carts is 3.7 shit-tons easier (linked to source) than making crude water soluble. :kissing_heart:

Would i be able to use the x1000 for chocolates and hard candies? That make the cost a little bit easier to swallow.

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This might be a sour note for @qma as i know he trashed a homogenizer shaft his first run at making gummies.

Just imagine what his answer is gonna be…

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Good to hear, thanks!

I actually got it clean with boiling water.

I later learned I was an idiot when I sold the “failure” double batch to the edible girl for $80. She literally added it to bloomed gelatin and it looked normal. I just didnt know what it was supposed to look like or act like.

She came back and showed me a sampling. They were normal gummies, no grainyness like I thought

You can use it for anything that can remain at olive oil consistency. Hard candies are the easiest, but you will want to use a much larger homogenizer than a tiny cat for this purpose. You need either a 1750 and their largest shaft or an actual purpose built homogenizer because edible people have to mix bucket sized amounts of high/exotic viscosity material

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we make live resin carts, whats a good homogenizer for 200-300 ml batches? After it mixes are you putting it on a heated stir plate to than make carts?

How hot are you heating the mixture prior to introducing the homogenizer?

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I know some people using quick bursts in microwave to get distillate to the right temperature.

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