Trim Prep - reducing solvent water retention during extraction?

In search of some common-sense good practices to most effectively dry out biomass prior to extraction.

The Problem:

Everyone salivates at the mention of fresh frozen biomass when selecting extract starting material… but one common issue seldom addressed is residual water trapped inside the material pre-extraction. This is a pain in the ass for ethanol-based extraction systems. When left unchecked, it creates issues down the line such as high concentration of polar nasties in the crude that are hard to refine out prior to final distillation. Throwing the frozen material into the cryo-extraction rig is also a non-starter as yield drops like a rock. Water seems to form ice crystals which envelop the trichomes and prevent the solvent from accessing them. Dipping the plant material into liquid n2 dewars presents some safety and regulatory challenges, while baking the trim in giant vacuum chambers just below decarboxylation point is cost and space prohibitive.

The Current Plan:

Right now, we plan to mill the buds to a medium grind (to maximize surface area) and place on trays in a warm room with 2-3 powerful dehumidifiers. After 8-12 hours, the trim SHOULD be sufficiently dry and will be packed into 5lb mesh bags to be delivered to extraction lab. We have also designed a post-extraction stage comprised of 2 large columns filled with mol-sieve. These columns would also have powerful heating coils inside which would pre-warm the cold solution. The idea is that the tincture will pass through the sieve on it’s way to the evaporator which should pull out a substantial amount of water. Once the saturation point of the CBeads is reached, the columns would be isolated from the system one at a time and placed under deep vacuum with high CFM (SogeVac should do the trick) while the hot coils bake the sieve at maximum power to dry out and recover the trapped moisture.

Any additional ideas would be extremely helpful :blush:

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@sidco doesn’t Cascade have an oven just for this?

Is that the vacuum pump sitting on top? I wonder how much CFM is required to evacuate that chamber :smirk:

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That must be the oven for this extractor lol!

:joy:

The room with the dehumidifyers would work,
I have also been looking at this thing This product is no longer available.

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