Hey errbody. SO I’ve been mostly making crumble and live resin for the last couple of years. I prefer to use straight n-propane . Long story short, I’ve got a new client and all they want is shatter . The biomass is indoor smalls and scissor trim. Good Quality
So a couple questions :
What is the best hydrocarbon solvent or blend for stable shatter?
Is it worth investing in Jacketed Columns?
Is Dry ice what is used to keep everything cold?
Also any tips, tricks, or bones you’d be willing to throw me would be great and much appreciated.
Thanks
I agree with @Slabby
Either a mix with a max of 30% propane max or straight butane
Propane is known to be the best solvent of terpenes wich to achieve shatter conssistancy can be a little harder
Also deu to it higher boiling point butane will purge slower giving your slab more time to settle
Althou dewaxed oil can shatter
Keeping the waxes in (when extracting cold) help for shatter consistency
As for jackets on the columns
I barely use them to cool
For i fill and blast my already frozen biomass fast
I use them mostly to warm my tube when recovering to speed this process up
Dry ice is whats best
I do not use it a lot thou i work with freezers the biggest draw back of working with freezers is that the tank valves are not freeze friendly and will leak so additional plumbing is requierd
To have all valves outside the freezer and all tanks in the freezer have their valves open at all times and a hardlined
Hvac manifold is outside the freezer to controll each tank gas liquid and vacuum it takes some work and the amount of gas i have cooled a day is limited to 80kg if i place my coil in water ice and set temp to -70C
My experience has been the opposite. Because pure butane has an affinity for water solubles, at least much more so than propane does, it tends to pull terpenes you simply don’t see present with propane extractions. When making shatter in the past I would always use pure n-butane and sacrifice recovery times and product color for a more robust terpene profile. Never had any trouble making shatter with it. With that said, you absolutely will encounter strains which simply will not make a glass like shatter, best you can hope for is pull and snap with these. I’ve done propane shatter as well, simply melt your wax muffin in oven prior to pulling a vac. Usually 0ppm after 24 hours with nitrogen sweep.
You take your shatter that high?! Lol why
I never go over 100f. Your shatter must not be very terpy lol
When i used pure ntane i hated the results. Stable yes but almost too stable. Harder to purge stable. And it came out so dark when with other solvent blends it was gold.
Yeah thats the general understanding I have too. I bought a tank of it , so I might go with that straight . Possibly add maybe 10% propane just to speed things up slightly . Good idea??
To melt it, yes. I find it’s best not to assume about other’s techs until you’ve tried it. It’s rare I ever had to get to 155F but it’s happened and the shatter was phenomenal. This temp is of course with no vacuum applied. The vast majority of slabs would melt down around 100 degrees F and go into purge under vac around 97F. With the nitrogen sweeping we would steady have 0PPM at 12 hrs. To Each their own. But don’t knock it til you try it.
Iso was the strangest gas I ever worked with. Super weird pressure fluctuations, dramatic color changes with the same material and parameters…ended up staying away all together. Truly is a bastard gas lmao.
Can you explain nitrogen sweeping? Like using nitrogen to push into collection pot? I’m running pure n-propane and my investors want shatter. I will also be running a ets mep
@Slabby is correct. The process he described is backfilling. If you wish to actively sweep you simply let a trickle of N2 be pulled through your vac system, being sure to never build pressure. Shortens purge times dramatically and also reduces nucleation caused by ambient humidity.