I make individual slurries and pour one at a time. The amount of etho used varies from media to media. I like to over use etho, cause it allows for an even distribution. But it varies from run to run. Lately I’ve been trying to use less, cause I’m running out of etho atm. I think 250g bento in a 2l beaker when filled with etho and bento went up to the 500ml mark. With the carbon I try to use enough etho so there isn’t any black sticking to the walls, it’s normally a 1 to 10 ratio. But you’ll have to play around to see what fits your needs. Again I’m most likely overusing it.
Edit: I’d follow the curiouschemist advice and switch out the carbon as soon as you see amber come through. Save the carbon for washing later.
I personally don’t even make slurry first. I put in a filter paper, wet it with minimal etho, draw a weak vacuum just to pull my paper down, then I add my measured amount of t5(lately that’s been 100g), spread it, tap the outside edges of the funnel with my spreader, then cover with a filter paper and apply enough etho to wet my bed. I then check the bed for channeling and press the edges one more time before running about 50-100ml of etho through to ensure no more powders are clearing the filter. Then I just add my carbon and one more filter paper and start filtering. The carbon will quickly spread itself evenly across the surface of your filter paper without any need for spreading ahead of time.
I’m always trying to use the least amount of ethanol I can for every step.
Cold extraction is useless if going to SPD. Plain and simple. Scrub with carbon, decarb, scrub again, roto and SPD. We get 97%+ first pass most the time. Cant ask for more, full extraction at room temp for the SPD win!
If I take your meaning of “vacuum still” correctly, as in a rotovap, it would be used for solvent recovery whereas short path is for refining cannabiniods out of crude.
I see your point. There is always a trade-off between yield and quality in extraction. We do longer soaks at -30 or so for straight crude runs. It picks up a lot more color and other undesirable compounds but if the only destination is SPD then it’s not so much a problem. We had done room temp soaks but found that the cleanup wasn’t worth it. We also have some unique considerations as we also have some acidity issues with our crude due to some unavoidable treatments the plants get while being grown. Unfortunately altering the pH of our oil in post processing is complicated by several state regulations preventing us from using traditional methods. Going colder reduces the solubility of the acid in question, which is a big benefit for us on the SPD end. When we go straight room temperature any extra yield we pick up in oil is negated by additional isomerization in the flask.
Like I said, trade-offs exist and the considerations that go into them will change depending on your situation. Going cold for crude works for our situation but I respect that going warm works for yours. Figuring out what is best for each situation is all part of the fun!
Do you find that the carbon really sucks up most of the terepnes? I’ve been finding lately that the carbon really holds onto the terpenes more than I would like. I guess that is the trade off with color vs flavor when using carbon.
I haven’t noticed a loss of flavor due to carbon, in fact I usually find my products taste much better after a good media filtration, though the color change isn’t nearly as spectacular as using non polar solvent with media.
I really wanna know how you figured carbon was the culprit in taking terps. Never tested without carbon but I know my shit stank still and I’ve over done the carbon on multiple occasions.
I figure its the carbon because after filtering the filtered oleoresin smells nothing like how it did prior to filtering.
Prior to filtration i bring the extracted ethanol oleoresin to an approximate 1:10 ratio then I run 1.5L of the oleoresin through approximately 100g carbon cake and rinse the cake with 1.5L of fresh ETOH.
Generally if using carbon I do it just after extraction, prior to any recovery, so the concentration of oleoresin to solvent isn’t very exact, probably somewhere around 20-40:1, and I generally use 1-2% of carbon to projected cannabinoid content. So if I extract 2500g of 11-12% pretested biomass I expect to have around 250g of oleoresin and as such would filter through a cake of about 2.5-5g of carbon and likely around 1-200g of bentonite clay, in a 150 ml buchner funnel.
Research papers state you get peak efficiency from bentonite clay at a 1:1 ratio, and findings with nonpolar solvents have shown volumes of between 5:1 and 10:1 solvent to oleoresin generate the best results.
I found trying to use the media with ethanol appears to be most effective if done immediately after extraction, as @TheLostBiologist suggests, if you recover ethanol to a lower concentration it seems to have a negative impact on any further color remediation done in ethanol.
Yea I do it right after extraction, never had a problem here. I hear carbon loves thc-a so maybe bringing it down to a lower ratio solvent:crude might be grabbing it more?
