You out of Oregon? That was sewn into the rumor.
We’re in the Northeast, though I wouldn’t be surprised if others have seen the same results. It’s a big pain in the ass though and I wouldnt recommend it over other conventional recrystalization techniques
Oh yeah I’m sure, that’s not exactly an efficient way to do things, haha. The company I work for doesn’t care a bit about crystals… So I’d likely have to go elsewhere if I was passionate about it. Mostly just curious.
I haven’t found anything that can contain some of the splatters with the tubes off. We go with getting it hot with the heat gun and using a stainless container with a cover with an opening like what would be for a ladle handle. @ExTek90 The waters machine cannot go low enough for terpene pulls due to the recycler. I’ve considered not using it and burning through CO2 to get it to a lower Bar.
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@anon13684764 I guess it depends on what state of the terps. I’ve gotten fatty terps off CS3 w/recycler that I had to filter to get into anything useful, but I have pulled MUCH better terps using methods that don’t use the recycler. The heat gun/can trick was my 7am routine for months I feel you.
@ExTek90 I’ve rarely worked for or consulted a company that did waters or any SFE that cared about isolation. CBD/Hemp and connoisseur THC/THCA companies don’t generally deal with SFE from my experience.
Then again, I am not a fan of SFE. LCO2 has some great use in the terpene scene though…
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I do SPD and WF as well, making D9 distillate. Averaging 86%.
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I was running pretty much the same thing at the time minus SPD. SFE > Decarb > WFE. I was averaging 85-94% on that method, but in the end the waters machine couldn’t give me the throughput once that company was gaining traction. In the end the waters became a R&D instrument and we moved on.
Edit: A very, very expensive R&D instrument
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@ExTek90 @Phytoalchemy I wouldn’t mind if all the waters machine did was get some vape pen terpenes. I’ve gotten terpenes as well, also check my insta. I seems more strain dependent in my experience. My terpenes I get are usually dark and don’t even really smell all that great. Admittedly I am using in some instances 18 month old material. Yea, my main issue with the recycler is that it holds CS3 to tank pressure around 720 psi not allowing it to fraction out below that point. I also will soon be moving to a SFE > Decarb > WFE Then shortly to a BHO>Decarb>WFE
@anon13684764 are your decent terps red by chance? In the end, just like cannabinoid extraction, I found that SFE is not optimal for terpenes either.
If youre already on sunken costs with the machine there’s lots of ways to Frankenstein them into some interesting stuff 
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@anon13684764
Yup those sure look like the terps I’m talking about. Whats your viscosity? If you bypass the recycle like you want to, you can get some really thin and useful terpenes. It’s not quite as decadent as hydrocarbon extraction terpene profiles (in my opinion), but they’re still useful nonetheless
They aren’t too sticky, like a oily salad dressing consistency. Some people in my company (retail) think it would be cool to reintroduce terpenes from our strians, so I need to either give them something or explain why its not worth it. I don’t want to highjack this thread too bad, but thanks for your help.
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@anon13684764 If you’re willing to take a yield loss, you can filter those through a filter paper and a simple glass funnel, or with very light vacuum. That would be if you had to do it with little other options on running.
The most luck I’ve ever had with Waters is to questionably void the warranty, but they seem mostly interested in you not touching their pump and ABPR
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If distillate is your final product you should dry and decarboxylate your biomass prior to extraction. That should solve your clogging issue (if THCA is the problem) and allow for a more efficient extraction. We’ve seen first hand that CO2 is about 30-35% more effective at extracting D9THC compared to THCA.
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We currently use large vacuum ovens to dry and decarb for about 2 hours prior to extraction, the idea being we can collect the terpenes from better material for reuse. We have it finely milled prior to decarb and extraction to maximize input material mass on both steps.
I’ve been looking at the cascade sciences dry and decarb oven as a cheaper large scale option. You wouldn’t be able to collect the terpenes but for certain processors THC becomes the only important/practical active ingredient to be concerned with.
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@KSlabs
We tried vac ovens for decarb back in the SFE days, but as you said it trashed our terpenes and terpenes were a priority alongside cannabinoids at the time. I put a couple acetone/dry ice traps after the oven and it did capture some terps.
Extracting active D9 with CO2 that way is definitely a good approach for just cannabinoid runs, although at least on. Waters SFE I would still like to see a wider ID on the lines.
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@Phytoalchemy
Earlier you mentioned you are no longer a fan of SFE and I am just curious as to why? and what would your preferred extraction method be?