Why winterize?

Is 10:1 EtOH/Crude really necessary for BHO? I have gone as low as 3:1, -55, 18 hrs two consecutive days and had very little flocculation on the second filtration. School me!

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Its probably overkill, 10:1 is my default for supercritical co2, or any material with significant impurities. i tend not to like going below 5:1 due to the cannabinoid loss associated with a thicker solution. at 3:1 do you lose a lot of the goods while youā€™re winterizing?

I do my filtration using a Hockstraom fiter with 1st and 3rd stage filters. I can suck the cakes pretty dry so I donā€™t feel Iā€™m losing much but then I have never resoaked my cakes to find out. The main reason for lower ratios is the time it takes to Roto that much extra EtOH. I gotta get to my decarb!

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it might be worth while to test your dried wax for residual thc, you may be surprised what you leave behind.

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Whats up Future Fam,

Never Done a Winterization before, Is it suggested to mix etho and freeze inside a seperatory funnel? Im Interested in understanding how one goes about separating the different layers of of the final solution.

Please and Thank you

No sep funnel! Just a stainless steel pot and filtration!

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check out the various threads on winterization here, or @cyclopath will getcha. :laughing:

i wouldnt freeze it in a sep funnel. those things are kinda fragile, and it isnt so much about separating two immiscible liquids.

  1. hot ethanol can completely dissolve any co2, ethanol, or bho extract. it is critical to be able to completely dissolve your crude material.
  2. once completely dissolved, you throw it into a freezer in a stainless steel pot like cdplchem suggests, or a plastic jug. as the solution cools, the solvent (ethanol) loses its ability to dissolve those waxes, and they ā€œcrashā€ out of solution, becoming solid.
  3. its time to filter. take your now cold cloudy solution and filter it, all while keeping the whole thing cold. theres various ways to filter. a lotta people just use buchner funnels, with a filter flask, and a vacuum pump.
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my tek will help you retain them as you are washing buds like you would rso with the pre-winterized emulsified bho mixture. Basically youā€™re-introducing your original terps. Just remember the buds can not be post extracted, they must be the same strain as you used to extract with for high terpenes. Then winterize and 5 micron filter twice and evap Or so Iā€™ve experienced.

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For what itā€™s worth, Cu, Zn, and Mn all also have antimicrobial properties and are also essential micronutrients

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good shit dude Besides the sep funnel being sorta fragile is there any issue with freezing inside their? from my perspective i can build a sep funnel with SS and a needle valve

thats all good, are you trying to winterize and then drop your liquids out via needle valve? ive not filtered in this style, i dont imagine itll be the fastest method in the world.

The thing is though the Terpenes are originally extracted from the BHO. And I understand that Terpenes disolved in Ethanol form an Azeotrope (Iā€™m not a scientist I am quoting what Iā€™ve read).

So once the Ethanol is purged the bound Terpenes will go with it. Not 100% of them but enough.

I open air purge my stuff. I notice that once the Terps start going the weight drops become drastic and shit starts converting to CBN.

Iā€™ve been thinking about this all day. Adding a little bit of bud to the unfiltered solution. Iā€™m wondering if the bud you rewash lets go of the more volatile Terpenes into the Ethanol there-by increasing the contend and saturating the ethanol. So when you evaporate you will lose the Terpenes but be left with a lot because of the re-introduction.

Again, not Scientist; I like weed.

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I can help you with winterizing that mother liquor using butane.

Big spoon

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The new future4200 spoon

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How do I link a thread. Hold on. Iā€™ll BRB and Iā€™ll edit this comment

Go through this and clean your thca from the mother liquor.

Take the mother liquor and put it in a large mason jar and fill with butane to the top-ish.

This is also very unorthodox.

And place it in an extremely cold freezer -70/80 range. And let it winterize for the night, or longer if you care. Have another jar of the same size in the freezer, as well. Keep it closed, I feel that shouldnā€™t have to be said , but worse things have happened under more instruction. When you are comfortable with how long you have had it in the freezer, take the jars and transfer the full one into the empty one. Donā€™t do this with a room temp jar. And pour it as carefully as you can, as to not disturb the mess thatā€™s at the bottom of the jar. If you can pour as much as possible, set the now full jar aside. If you want to get the last of the 1st jar, refill it with butane after the jar has come to room temperature and then put it in the freezer again. And repeat. Then let the butane evap and then process them as you would then mix back in with the thca

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If youā€™re dewaxing, youā€™ve already pulled a majority of lipids from the solution (assuming youā€™re dewaxing at cold enough temps).

If you want to know what kind of lipid content is in your extract, add it to ethanol at 5:1 or 10:1 and cool to -80C.

If thereā€™s precipitate floating around (itā€™ll look like little white blobs) then thereā€™s still lipids left in the extract.

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If it was done with butane, thereā€™s fats. If you use the mother liquor with very little cannabinoids in comparison to the native solution. Along with freezing to -80c. Youā€™ll see plenty of precipitation.

And how cold is it getting during extraction, @sean_rhombus?

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Not with my Tek
You lose terps yes, always with purging etoh I get that but when thereā€™s MORE TERPS there itā€™s harder for it to pull them out.
My Tek gives you more terps by adding back the original terps from fresh buds of the same strain you extracted.

If you tried it youā€™d notice something.

Lol I remember your Tek