Vacuum held while pump off still purging?

[Lebniis]

Trying to understand the concept: If I get the chamber to full vacuum and hold the full vacuum by closing the valves. Will the oil still be purging (provided there is a heat source) without the pump on?


Side note: I have a nice shatter after about 5 hours of purging, the temperature of the oil has remained around 100-110 degrees. I would like to get the honeycomb texture but 10+ hours of purging isn't really efficient. Maybe I should be getting my oil temps to 125-135 to help facilitate bubbling. Purging on parchment, over a double boiler with 6 cfm mastercool and a 6 gallon chamber.

Lastly, the oil is so fucking harsh on the lungs it makes me feel as if something is drastically wrong with the oil (however there is no smell or foul taste). I am very familiar with the process and not sure where I have gone wrong to contribute to such a harsh smoke. Used rolled and welded 316 stainless steel tubes and low quality trim. The oil is dark, but transparent gold when held to the light.

I came here with the first question, but any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[montroller]

First off the oil is still purging if it us under vac with heat applied. As long as you are seeing a reaction it is still purging. Sometime at the end the last bubbles can be pesky so I always give it an extra heat and pull after I see bubbles stop just to be sure.

When you get shatter after 5 hours of vac is the oil still bubbling? If so it isn't done purging and that would explain the extremely harsh smoke. 5 hours at 110 should be enough to purge even a large batch, how thick is the oil in the desiccator? Thinner layers will purge faster and retain more flavor. Sometime you have to go to higher temps though because the oil will just muffin at 110 and the bubbles won't pop. How are you checking your temps during the purge? Also some home made desiccators won't hold a full vac for very long and some electric pumps have shitty micron ratings and all of these things can affect how hot and how long your purge needs to be.

Did the oil have a cloudiness to it? Some batches I have done come out with a cloudy look in the oil and it is often accompanied by a harsh smoke. Most of the time I chop this up to contaminants from foliar sprays or possibly even oil from machine trimmers. I am not really sure what that is maybe some of the more experienced heads can chime in.

 

[midwestHIGHS]

When you say harsh on the lungs, is it like a burning feeling in the lungs, or like I can't breathe my lungs feel like they slapped shut?

The feeling is more than likely because of the large amount of non polar waxes, lipids and fats you extracted from the low quality trim, also as montroller said possibly foreign contaminate such as sprays during flower, or grease from trimming machines if you did not grow this material your self.

Your oil will continue to purge, but not like when you have the pump on, it will also slowly loose its vacuum as its heated and more solvent is released. I just run the pump non stop and only stop to let it cool down or change the pump oil.

 

[Lebniis]

Thank you for the words, both of you.

Still bubbling after 5 hours, so obviously still needs purging not sure on what the plants were sprayed with so thats interesting. Purging 20 grams .25"-.3" thick. Checking temps with laser gun. The oil has some cloudy swirls but on in about 5-10% of the oil, I figured that was the oil waxing up.

The smoke is a restricting, hard to breath afterwards, and followed by severe coughing. My winterized version is a little better but maybe my volcano lungs are to virgin to hang with the oil. The non winterized, 5 hour purged shatter was making heavy cigarette smokers cough. I'm hoping it is because it isn't purged enough.

 

[midwestHIGHS]

Try purging atleast of 1/8 of inch or less for the best results, the thinner the better. Sounds like its the large amount of non polar waxes, lipids and fats you picked up from the way you described the feeling your getting in your lungs. Low quality trim makes true lung clogging bho, one time I removed about 10 grams of waxes, lipids and fats from 35 grams of bho extracted from very low quality shake. Although concentrating unflushed nutrients, growth horomones, pesticide, herbicides, etc. from the material are also a contributing factor on how clean, smooth it will be.

Utilizing very cold temperatures will help you avoid picking large amounts waxes, lipids and fats, if you don't plan on winterizing. Although, I suggest to winterize regardless of what you do to avoid picking these contaminates up.

 

[Lebniis]

Thanks for answering. I really would like to obtain a honeycomb/wax and do plan on winterizing some portion of the oil, but I would like to be able to provide both.

The thinner the better sounds right, but how are people making wax cookies when purging thick oil?

 

[vertigo0007]

Thanks for answering. I really would like to obtain a honeycomb/wax and do plan on winterizing some portion of the oil, but I would like to be able to provide both.

The thinner the better sounds right, but how are people making wax cookies when purging thick oil?

1 way is to thin film purge into shatter and then break up the shatter into pieces, pile them in a parchment paper cup/oragami box, put it back in the chamber on heat and let it melt and sit in a melted pile in the dish under vacuum. Eventually it will comb up. The key is thick film purging, but only after thin film shatterizing it first. Youll find that some bho tastes and smells better as wax and others taste and smell brtter as shatter.

 

[Lebniis]

Can I let the oil temp reach 130-140 safely in the vacuum or would that jeopardize the ability to obtain wax.

 

[Mr Celsius]

I purge with my vacuum running constantly at 28.5inmg, with a double boiler beneath it, with a temp controller in the water which cycles my hot plate. I purge at 130 degrees for about 30 minutes, take it out get it into a a thick cake that I then spread out and purge for about 15 more minutes.

Results are an amber see-through (if thin) shatter that does not pop, crackle or ignite. Smells hashy and smokes beautifully. Key is to purge until there are no bubbles and heat speeds that up dramatically. I started off at 110 like many others suggested and noticed that bubbles were not able to escape the concentrate.

Hope that helps

 

[Lebniis]

And your oils are coming out nicely purged with no bubbles at 130 after 45min?

Not doubting you, just with the experience I've seen even 1/8" thick, oil is still bubbling (at a slower rate) after 2 hours at around 120*.

 

[jump117]

Try purging atleast of 1/8 of inch or less for the best results, the thinner the better.

I would call a thin layer no thicker than 1/48" (0.5mm).
Circle of this thickness with a diameter of 4" (10cm) weighs about 4.5g

 

[Gray Wolf]

Can I let the oil temp reach 130-140 safely in the vacuum or would that jeopardize the ability to obtain wax.

120/130F might be a better range for wax.

Under 29.9" Hg vacuum, it takes about 115F for the bubbles to start to break free of the surface of our raw oleoresin with residual butane.

We use 115F to retain our oils in the carboxylic acid form, but turn most of ours into a AA Shatter, instead of wax.

We do make raw oleoresin for vaporizing, and like the stronger floral undertones, but I personally don't like oleoresin's plant wax aftertaste and its coating sensation in my mouth and lungs, so 95% of what I vaporize is AA.

How thick we put it in the 6" Petri dish, depends on the stage in the process and what we want to end up with.

If we do thick film to inflate a muffin of oleoresin, when it stops inflating, we melt it back down again into shatter. In that case, we just glob it in the dish and it thins out itself as it melts, usually an 1/8" or so.

When we are purging the oil alcohol mix after winterizing oil for AA, we start with about a quarter of an inch of liquid in a 6" Petri dish, and after the alcohol boils off under vacuum, we end up with a film in the neighborhood of the 1/48", or .020" that Jump describes.

Alcohol is harder to purge than butane, even using a vacuum and after the plant waxes are removed, it is unlikely to wax up.

I have long wondered exactly what causes oil to wax in the first place, but suspect it is highly dependant on the presence of the plant waxes to enable it to form an emulsion and turn that into a oil or wax hydrate.

The plant wax is interesting in that while it tastes and chews just like Paraffin, in form and composition, it is actually closer to the wax Wasps bodies are coated with for waterproofing. It protects the resins in the trichomes from water, as they are slightly miscible.

It has both a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic end, so one end can attach itself to a water molecule to form a hydrate.

The hydrophilic end is another reason to question whether I want the wax molecule concentrate it in my lungs. It is delivered in far greater quantities dabbing oil concentrate, than even smoking kif or hash, where most of it is incinerated.

 

[midwestHIGHS]

I would call a thin layer no thicker than 1/48".
Circle of this thickness with a diameter of 4" weighs about 4.5g

I'll have to agree with that, hence the thinner the better.

 

[midwestHIGHS]

I have long wondered exactly what causes oil to wax in the first place, but suspect it is highly dependant on the presence of the plant waxes to enable it to form an emulsion and turn that into a oil or wax hydrate.

The plant wax is interesting in that while it tastes and chews just like Paraffin, in form and composition, it is actually closer to the wax Wasps bodies are coated with for waterproofing. It protects the resins in the trichomes from water, as they are slightly miscible.

It has both a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic end, so one end can attach itself to a water molecule to form a hydrate.

The hydrophilic end is another reason to question whether I want the wax molecule concentrate it in my lungs. It is delivered in far greater quantities dabbing oil concentrate, than even smoking kif or hash, where most of it is incinerated.

I believe you mean the hydrophobic end would be the reason why we wouldn't want these waxes in our lungs. Since it repells water there for making it impossible for our lungs to process, causing build up, shortness of breath, decrease in lung function, possibility of lipid pneumonia and even collapsed lungs.

Shits no joke, possibly one of the few dangers associated with cannabis.

I've presented this information to a few people and have seen others comments on it, almost everyone answers was they don't care, raw bho is the most flavorful there for the best and most desired. Not many care about the effect on their lungs along as its potent and the flavor is threw the roof, some just get annoyed by the information. Sad actually.

 

[Olifant]

Has anyone noticed that extracts with the waxes removed seem more potent that raw extracts with equal THC/THCa content? I've convistently gotten reports of higher subjective potency from absolutes testing in the low 70's versus raw extracts testing in the mid 80's, I'm guessing the waxes prevent absorption. I also for some reason get highly varied analytical results from the lab with the absolutes and A/B extracts. I recently processed a raw which tested at 61% with an A/B extraction pulling out a significant amount of waxes, then three different parties had the purified extract all from the same batch and purge run tested at the same lab (santa cruz labs) THC + THCA produced results of 58% - 72% - 80%, CBD + CBDA tested from .4% - .8% and 2% a 500% margin of error on the CBD content alone. I'm guessing that lower purity extracts which have been purified through winterizing or A/B purification produce more background noise. Also I'm thinking they need more sonication for full dissolution in the analytical solvent when compared to pulverized bud, crumble waxes (which seem to always test higher than they should imo), and crumble ice water hashes.

 

[G.O. Joe]

THC isn't much less if any less hydrophobic. I don't like big hits of oil anymore at all and don't recommend it either.

If the vacuum chamber is large enough, you don't need the vacuum on after most of the solvent has been purged, because you have a "reservoir" of vacuum.

 

[Gray Wolf]

I believe you mean the hydrophobic end would be the reason why we wouldn't want these waxes in our lungs. Since it repells water there for making it impossible for our lungs to process, causing build up, shortness of breath, decrease in lung function, possibility of lipid pneumonia and even collapsed lungs.

Shits no joke, possibly one of the few dangers associated with cannabis.

I've presented this information to a few people and have seen others comments on it, almost everyone answers was they don't care, raw bho is the most flavorful there for the best and most desired. Not many care about the effect on their lungs along as its potent and the flavor is threw the roof, some just get annoyed by the information. Sad actually.

Actually I am concerned about the hydrophylic end holding it in the lungs, as opposed to being expelled as a foreign body by the hydrophobic end.

 

[gaiusmarius]

where in or on the plant do the waxes actually come from? are they on or in the trich heads? or are they being extracted from the plant matter by the butane or iso? seems to me if it's the later it would explain why you don't get that lung coating effect from clean bubble hash even when vaporized.

 

[foaf]

it is really impossible to generalize as to if certain lipids are digestible or not (if inhaled) without knowing exactly what you are dealing with. Fact is, straight cannabis smoked or vaporized over long periods of time doesn't seem to cause lung disease that I know of, and cannabis would contain any and all of such agents, so apearently it isn't a practical issue.

examples of both, some situations where sesamee seed oil is misted into the nose or lungs has been shown to be of no consequence as it is digested, whereas petrolatum products that get into the lung cause granulomas that are never digested or get included beneath mucous membranes causeing a phenomenon called myospherulosis.

 

[Gray Wolf]

where in or on the plant do the waxes actually come from? are they on or in the trich heads? or are they being extracted from the plant matter by the butane or iso? seems to me if it's the later it would explain why you don't get that lung coating effect from clean bubble hash even when vaporized.

Good point, I'm not sure what type of wax might protect the leaves, but as I understand it, there is a specific wax that protects the resins in the trichomes from water, because they are slightly miscible in water.

The wax is similar to the wax protecting the body of a wasp, in that the hydrophilic end sticks readily to the moist wasps body, but the other end sheds water.

They are mostly non-polar, excepting the hydrophilic end, and are readily extracted along with the resins with a non polar solvent like butane or hexane, and less so with polar solvents like alcohol.

The past 5000 years of cannabis history suggesting wax isn't an issue, isn't necessarily apples to apples, as it was mostly combustion, which burns the waxes as well.

Perhaps a good experiment would be to split a sample and kif half of one 10% (~50%) in the Grinning Reaper, and extract the remaining plant using BHO in a Terpenator.

If we then run the second sample through the Terpenator as is, and winterize both samples, if it is simply trichome wax, the ratios will be the same and if it is a combination of leaf and trichome wax, they will be different.

Hee, hee, hee...........We can then extract the oil from the kif, for a third wax content at winterizing reference point.

Ummm, except for a couple of kif taste effect and taste samples, snicker, snark, snort......