I have a sambo creek filtration trolley and wanted to know what temp should the solution remain during filtration. I have winterized 1:10 crude to ethanol mix and froze it to -50C for 48 hrs. The filter trolley currently takes 1 hr to filter 5 gallons. So im a little worried because of the long time its taking to filter and the fats, lipids etc are warming up, which might mean I have to winterize again.
Are you doing staged filtration to reduce the load times? Like for example do you do a room temperature winterization+ filtration prior to doing your -50? It would help a lot if not.
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Would it be feasible to keep the solution chilled in the freezer and pumped into the sambo as needed instead of pulling it all out at once and playing the wait and scrape game?
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no a lot of fats are showing up on top. Lots of clumped material. on top of my carbon+DE patty.
I have my material in 5 gallon buckets and I take them out one at a time. Also the Sambo Creek Filter I have can hold 30 gallons at a time but Im only putting 5 gallons at a time to avoid the solution from warming up as much as possible.
You should take all that shit out while it’s warm and then winterize and refilter. It will move much quicker
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Those chunks are coming out after winerizing, as soon as i see those clumps, i am taking it out to avoid clogs. I would like to avoid re-winerizing since it takes too long. But thanks for the input.
That looks like plant materials more than fats waxes and lipids
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Hello! Check out this link.
5 GPH is crazy slow. Post here your SOP so we can all learn and help you.
What grade/porosity filter paper are you using? What type of filter aid, what brand and how much are you using?
As NewLevelProcess ays, staged filtration usually is the fastest, so check out the article I link above.
The picture you sent is what? DE with biomass or what? The SOP would help us understand what is happening. If you have biomass there I would filter that out at room temp first and then winterize, as Dr.Stanky suggests.
Also, for fats to drop out of suspension your solution needs to warm up significantly. Under normal conditions that would not happen on the trolley, but at 5 GPH and 30-gallon batches, it could be an issue.
Have you thought about filtering after 24 hours, then putting the solution back in the freezer for another 24 hours. Then filter again? I’ve done this process over a 3 day period, and everyday there would be less and less fat separation and usually day 3 there are no fats and its good to distill the ethanol out now. It doesn’t seem to affect the potency or terpene content either.
So for my initial run
- I made a paste out of 1kg carbon + 2 kg DE + 4 kg ethanol.
- I used a 25 micron filter paper
- poured my paste, and shook the trolley to make my paste leveled and even.
- started the pump to pull vac, then ran fresh ethanol to make sure everything was ready.
- got my mix of tincture (1 part crude to 10 parts ethanol) in 5 gallon buckets and started to pour against the wall so I don’t create craters in my patty.
I actually re froze all the stuff I previously ran and it worked better the next day. Thanks for that info, I think I will try your experiment of filtering and refreezing 3 times.
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- What carbon? What DE. What are the specs on these? Where did you get them?
- OK, probably not the issue. If you were high in fats I’d start at 45 microns. Are you 100% sure it’s 25? Is the paper thick like cardboard?
- OK.
- Did you use a filter cloth under the paper? Is the cloth clean and not encrusted with crude? Did you run the pump with the trolley empty to be 100% sure the pump is working right and there are no obstructions?
- Try some filter cloth over the patty and remove it after you flood the hopper.
Typically this is a 3 step process as others stated above. Check out our blog for more tips and also review our SOP.