What should trichomes look like after ethanol extraction?

Hash and Stuff Extraction
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I did an ethanol extraction at -50c for 1 1/2 hours. The ethanol came out nice and blonde, but when I look at the trichomes under a microscope, they look pretty much like normal fresh trichomes with a stalk and a head. Is the whole trichome supposed to dissolve, or does the solvent kind of suck the juice out of the middle and leave behind an empty shell that looks like a fresh trichome?

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Its supposed to melt the “oil” and your left with trichome head and stalk material/garbage.

And holy moly, 1.5hr soak, i thought my 45min was long enough

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I did 30 minutes first time at -80c. The ethanol came out clear, so I thought nothing was happening. I then tried another extraction at -50c and kept checking the colour until it went blonde. I took 1 1/2 hours. Also since it wasn’t going green, I thought it can’t do any harm to leave it for a long time

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So you are saying that the trichomes should look the same after extraction as they do before? I’m using x50 magnification so they still look small to my eyes.

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No, they should be empty after wasking in a solvent

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The trichome heads should be empty imagine them as little sacks of oil the sack should be ruptured. Did you add jatate the extraction

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I gave it an occasional stir with a stick. A lot must have broken off, there was a lot of brown sludge in the filter, looked like water hash.

So do you think evidence of extraction will not be very visible under the microscope? I tested a bud in iso at room temperature and the trichomes looked the same.

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Whats the iso or ethanol potency %

The brown “sludge” should be trichomes heads and stalk reminents

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Got pics of the heads under the scope? You would need a pretty good scope to see a rupture or pinhole in the trichome heads

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I smoked the brown sludge (hash) It was very weak, Thats a sign that all the goodness was taken out but the ethanol.

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Next time If you can… consider getting a homogenous potency sample of the input material and multiply it times the actual weight. Do the same for the output and also the left over extracted material. This way you can calculate the extraction efficiency of your process. Try to do this for a couple runs. The ETOH will pull out the cannabinoids from the flower as long as it penetrates the material . Doing this calculation, you will know how much is being left behind.

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