Trim to distillate

hello, I was wondering how many pounds of trim it takes to get a liter of distillate. I know I won’t be able to get an exact number, just looking for an estimate

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About 50Lbs of trim

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can you give any yield percentages? say anywhere from 5-8%? of that 50#…

so fourth and so on…

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Say you’re running average trim with no water leaves, which would produce crude on the low side 8% yield.
The crude tests at around 60% thc with proper filtering.

So (.08x.6) gives us (.048)
Your starting material weight 50Lbs of trim
((50x448)x.048)=1075.2g of distillate.

This is not exact. Just a good idea on what you will produce. Results may vary.

You can easily produce more than this.

Just a recommendation, use 4” tubes instead of 6”. I have had better yield results with 4”. 6” wastes a lot of material.

Then again…
iKnowNothing

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From my own personal experience and what I get from my trim.

This is machine trim, not hand.

1.5lbs trim nets me 75g crude (clean)
75g crude nets me 60g distillate

Adjust the numbers to fit your math problem. Not all trim is the same. Some yields better. Old trim, improperly stored will result in far less yields

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What neither of those answers really addresses is what the cannabinoid content was in the initial trim. Not all trim is created equal. Your starting biomass has a potency. The higher that potency, the more cannabinoids you can extract from it, and the greater your overall yield.

As a general rule, most extraction methods target 90% extraction of cannabinoids. you can do better than this, but most folks eventually realize that running solvent over the biomass three times just isn’t worth the effort.

so: assuming starting trim is at 10% cannabinoids, and target is ~90% cannabinoids. what you really want to know is how efficient is the overall process. from biomass to finished distillate.

if it was 100% efficient, ie no losses then 1kg of 90% would require 9kg of 10% right?

The number I’ve been using is 75% overall efficiency. It is based on numbers others have been throwing around, rather than data I have generated myself (no In House analytics in the lab I’ve done my distillation in).

that means instead of 9kg at 10% potency, you’ll need closer to 12kg.

now adjust those numbers to the potency of the input you have available.


lets look at @IKnowNothing’s numbers with this in mind

50lbs at 8% yield of 60% THC.
Assuming 90% extraction efficiency on the crude.

50lb x 454g/lb x 0.08 => 1816g “crude” at 60% cannabinoids.
1816g x 0.60 => 1089g of THC available in the crude.

(so biomass has 1089g x 1.111 ~ 1210g THC in 50lb which is about 5.3%, and is a reasonable approximation of what you’ll playing with)

from that 1089g of THC in that 1816g of crude @IKnowNothing suggests ~1000g of 90% distillate.
so 900g THC out of the 1210g that were in his biomass when he started.

which is a 74% overall efficiency (thanks @IKnowNothing !!)

throw 10kg of flower at 25% THC at the problem, you get
10kg x 0.25 x 0.75 = 1.875kg of THC
or 2kg of distillate at 90% THC.


Edit: ok, I actually did have access to in house analytics, but the Sage Analyzer just isn’t up for the task of making heads or tails of heads/tails/main body.

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100lbs of trim will yeild 5% typically. There can certainly be a 10% if your luckly but estimating at 5% is usually what I do.

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So it looks like you got your numbers, you ready to dig in your heels and rip 50lbs?

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oh yea lol, still gotta learn the whole Spd process but im slowly but surely getting there!

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how would you properly store crude mass to be spun in the future without degradation of compounds? mason jars? or just spin it asap?

Mason jars are great. If you have a tiny bit of solvent left, you may even get some crystal growth before you start to process your crude

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Are you available for hire

I’m getting 6% yield from trim to final second pass distillate from old outdoor trim.
My averages are:
80% extraction efficiency.
80% first pass distillation efficiency.
90% second pass distillation efficiency.
About 40-50lb of trim to make a Liter of second pass Yellow distillate. However, I’ve gotten 2 Liters from 48lb of trim before, so it definitely ranges.
I dont think ur gonna hit 90% distillate on first pass. I dont think I even hit 90% on my second pass.

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@cyclopath This is such helpful information for calculating yields appropriately, I was just trying to explain this to a group of lab technicians and came across this post. The only part I struggled to account for in teaching them wrong from right (starting biomass weight to finished product vs. the total capture of cannabinoids in your biomass to finished product) was where the 1.111 number came from. Maybe I overlooked the post but was hoping you could explain where it came from in this post. Thank you again @cyclopath you always lend excellent info and insight.

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General rule of thumb. 50% return from crude, usually higher but a good base line. 100# trim at 8% equal 8# of oil and then 50%+ will be your distilate return. Again just a base line but a good place to start especially if you dont know the potency of tour trim and if tour running hot gas or semi dewaxing etc. there are alot of variables

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1.1111 is the inverse of 0.9.

I should perhaps have divided by 0.9 rather that multiplied by 1.1111 to make it clear.

If we are assuming that the cannabinoids in the bucket represent 90% of what was in the plant, then there were more in the plant.

Dividing the amount in the bucket by 0.9 or multiplying by 1.111 gives the amount in the biomass at start of game :face_with_monocle:

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A good clean wash nets me 75% disty from my crude. This is 1st pass 90%thc.

The cleaner the crude, the better the return.

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You’re the man @cyclopath, appreciate the clarification and that makes plenty of sense.

Usually calculating roughly 28lbs … plus minus one

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Could I use old bud to make distillate? Would it be worth it?