Terpenation at Terpene Station

[mr. durden]

I think Gray Wolf recommends 4.2 grams per square inch... I overpacked the other day and had to abort a run because the solvent couldnt make it through.

are you using a hammer to pack your material? lol


I'd recommend people pick up a backup tank so that they can clean and drain one. i noticed our product was clumping to the bottom which is usually an indication of water in the system. we use a filter dryer, so i didn't think it would happen, but there was water at the bottom of my tank. i'd recommend cleaning out tanks once a month or so just to be safe, assuming you are running your system 5-6 days a week and 4-9 tubes a day.

we did a dry ice run yesterday and i finally got around to using our temp gun again. although the tank was around -50, the butane coming out was 0 degrees on the exterior of our braided lines a few inches after leaving the tank.

when my sight glass arrives, i'll probably just freeze it before using it, but i'm not worried about it shattering or anything like that.

 

[mr. durden]

FatherEarth - Seems that you are doing well with your dry ice runs. Have you "done the numbers" on what the cost of a dry ice run is vs other cooling methods and what is the Return on Investment (ROI) is?
Is the yield significantly higher or more potent?

Right now I'm using a 5 CU Ft chest freezer with a 30# bottle in an anti-freeze bath, teflon core stainless steel braid covered hoses and a MT69 CPS Molecular Transformator Recovery Submersible Subcooler in its own anti-freeze bath. Cost me pennies to run the freezer and dry ice is spendy and over an hour away from my lab.

i'd only use dry ice on better product as you'll pull less waxes and what not resulting in a better product. freezing your tubes will help along with doing less cycles...2 or 3 at the most on material.

we pay about 30 bucks for 20lbs of dry ice. you could always get a few days worth assuming you have good material.

also, how much you make off your end product will determine if you really want to do dry ice. if your ice extractions are getting you a good dollar, you might not need to bother

 

[Lebniis]

What is the procedure for cleaning out the tank? Does the valve head need some sealant besides tape once it's being put back on the tank?

 

[Gray Wolf]

are you using a hammer to pack your material? lol

We pack bud material reduced to ~ 15/20% moisture content and reduced to 10 mesh, at 4.2 grams per cubic inch. We just press firmly with the dowel, until it stops moving, but don't hammer it.

Trim, or prime bud loosely broken or run whole packs at less density.

 

[mr. durden]

oh, I know how you do it GW, i just find it hard to believe that someone could pack it so hard that solvent couldn't make it through. i'd think there were other issues for the guy.

just pack a column like you'd fill in a hole... in lifts and compact with each lift

i did find freezing out column the other day with dry ice, using DI on the tank, and being a bit low on butane (under 7 lbs) resulted in 3.5 min column fills. amazingly, i was able to pour off a 3 cycle run in under 18 min using an inch or so of butane leftover.

as for cleaning the tank... i realize there are times when i'm running my appion where it is pulling from atmosphere. mostly when i'm purging my mts-69. i tend to take the filter dryer off for some dumb reason, so this might have been one of the many ways water was introduced.

i transferred all my butane to a smaller butane tank that my n-tane originally came in, and then flipped the mastercool tank on end and let it drip dry. i then used compressed air a few times to fill the tank and then blasted it all out via the vapor port to help remove whatever is in it. just make sure your compressor has a water trap or you'll be adding water back into the system. i let the tank heat up in the sun with the ports open and finally vac'd for a half hour or so with a good quality 2 stage vac pump.

in the future i'll always leave the filter dryer on the appion, will try using an oversized filter dryer between the tank and IIIa, and then clean out once a month or so.

 

[Hash Man]

oh, I know how you do it GW, i just find it hard to believe that someone could pack it so hard that solvent couldn't make it through. i'd think there were other issues for the guy.

I put 454 grams of bud into a 2"x36" column... I have never packed that tight before. The solvent would not pass more than a few inches. I had my appion on it wasn't helpoing at all. I unpacked the portion of the tube that got soaked in solvent, threw it out, unpacked and repacked the tube and got a nice extraction going.

 

[nakadashi]

mr. durden, can you explain a little more what "clumping to the bottom" looks like when there is water in the system?

Also, would you recommend the mts-69 for every mkIII user? I was looking into it as well but I have no idea how much it would speed up recovery by so its just sitting on my wishlist..

 

[mr. durden]

oh, I know how you do it GW, i just find it hard to believe that someone could pack it so hard that solvent couldn't make it through. i'd think there were other issues for the guy.

I put 454 grams of bud into a 2"x36" column... I have never packed that tight before. The solvent would not pass more than a few inches. I had my appion on it wasn't helpoing at all. I unpacked the portion of the tube that got soaked in solvent, threw it out, unpacked and repacked the tube and got a nice extraction going.

wow... that is a lot of material. :/ i can't even imagine how hard you had to work to get that into the tube!

 

[mr. durden]

mr. durden, can you explain a little more what "clumping to the bottom" looks like when there is water in the system?

Also, would you recommend the mts-69 for every mkIII user? I was looking into it as well but I have no idea how much it would speed up recovery by so its just sitting on my wishlist..

i never took a pic so unfortunately i can only explain. bottom line, it was due to water in the holding tank. so we poured off what we could and scraped the rest. being that water is our nemesis, it did make for some whiter material than it deserved to be.

an mts for every person? i wouldn't go that far, but it is a worthwhile investment.... especially if you are running dry ice. there is a dramatic temp difference between the hose leaving the appion and the one leaving the mts. for 139 bucks, i think it is a worthwhile investment. you'll just have to get ball valves to place on either end of the hoses so that you can reclaim any butane left in the mts. they have instructions on how to do so on their website. i have never not run the mts, so i certainly can't associate an amount of time saved... kinda like i don't know how much savings is associated upgrading from a 1/4" hose to a 3/8" to a 1/2". there is a solid rationale as to why bigger is better, i just can't back it up with times

 

[FatherEarth]

Dry Ice keeps my reusable ice packs for about a week without thawing. I dont reserve dry ice for the best material, as it only costs .98 cents a lb and makes my extractions easier to manage and faster with lighter colors in my end product. Not to mention its only costing pennies to run the MKIII to begin with. Even if I am running heat on the collection, I still use it. A little dry ice isnt going to make the margins unsavory by any means. I normally buy 10-20lbs, fifteen being the best without getting my cooler too cold. Id rather pack my cooler once every 5-6 days than have to reload it every night with fresh packs.

Anyone find drier material yielding better numbers?

 

[Gray Wolf]

Dry Ice keeps my reusable ice packs for about a week without thawing. I dont reserve dry ice for the best material, as it only costs .98 cents a lb and makes my extractions easier to manage and faster with lighter colors in my end product. Not to mention its only costing pennies to run the MKIII to begin with. Even if I am running heat on the collection, I still use it. A little dry ice isnt going to make the margins unsavory by any means. I normally buy 10-20lbs, fifteen being the best without getting my cooler too cold. Id rather pack my cooler once every 5-6 days than have to reload it every night with fresh packs.

Anyone find drier material yielding better numbers?

We've found that drier material yields a higher yield by percent of weight, because there is less water being weighed.

 

[FatherEarth]

We've found that drier material yields a higher yield by percent of weight, because there is less water being weighed.

It would seem that water in the extract would make for heavier yields. Im consistently having the opposite experience. Dry as I can get it, will turn to dust if handled rough, I get better returns by about 20%. I use a dehuey to dry material instead of the oven. I dont like the idea of drying @200F, seems counterproductive to terpene conservation...

 

[furrywall11]

yes, of course, I've always known this and that's why I leave my garbage bags of trim in my garage. Dries 'em right out. Drier more powdery material will probably put more waxes in your end product though. More surface space that isn't trichome covered.

 

[nakadashi]

It would seem that water in the extract would make for heavier yields. Im consistently having the opposite experience. Dry as I can get it, will turn to dust if handled rough, I get better returns by about 20%. I use a dehuey to dry material instead of the oven. I dont like the idea of drying @200F, seems counterproductive to terpene conservation...

My understanding is that moisture present in loaded column remains frozen and un-extracted during the process? What you seem to be suggesting in the first sentence is that water ends up in the extract, which will give the impression of higher yields?

My interpretation of what GW was saying is that when there is less moisture in the column, your % yield will appear higher. (Eg, 100g with 15% moisture content yielding 10 grams should be 10/85= 11.7% , rather than 10/100 = 10%).

I am thinking of using a dehydrator instead of an oven to dry as well, partially for terpene conservation. If 85F is when the product begins to darken in the collection chamber, shouldn't we be aiming to keep temperatures under 85F throughout the entire process, including pre-process dehydrating?

 

[Gray Wolf]

It would seem that water in the extract would make for heavier yields. Im consistently having the opposite experience. Dry as I can get it, will turn to dust if handled rough, I get better returns by about 20%. I use a dehuey to dry material instead of the oven. I dont like the idea of drying @200F, seems counterproductive to terpene conservation...

Are we saying the same thing?

Assume: 100 grams of material at 25% moisture content and 20% yield, or 20 grams.

Wet, you would still have 20 grams of oil, but start with 400 grams of fresh material, which would only be a 5% yield, but still be 20 grams of oil.

 

[FatherEarth]

yes, we are saying the same thing.
Thanks for the clarification.

A River City oz of shatter.

 

[Lebniis]

Cool shape, Is that the shape of your petris dish or did you get it into that shape another method?

You mention you are getting lighter colors with dry ice ( I would agree from my experience), but the picture above doesn't look much lighter then what I have seen with normal ice.

 

[FatherEarth]

That was not a dry ice run. It was a 1.5 column quick run of a friends trim using heat. .125F here is the oil before the mold. You cant judge the color very well by looking at a solid chunk...

 

[nakadashi]

I have run the MKIII a couple times per the instructions on the first page of this thread, I think I am doing it right but I just want to make sure because what I see in the sight glass is a bit strange.

During the final evacuation, is the butane supposed to plummet straight into the collection container? When I open the vent valve + dump valve, the butane level in the column drops very slowly. When the system is at -7"hg I can still see golden liquid butane near the bottom of the sight glass. I don't have a sight glass below the packing column so I can't tell whats going on underneath. Is this consistent with your observations in the sight glass, FatherEarth?

 

[FatherEarth]

yea it takes a second till the butane drops, its not quick. If you are seeing oil still in the sight glass after the last dump, rinse again you didnt get it all. If you dont overflow the recirculation tube( the compression fitting at the top) You will have a lot of oil in your column from evaporating off the butane under vacuum. By the last flood you cannot get the oil out with one dump if you dont over flow. Each overflow carries a bit of oil to the collection where it boils off. This is why I do multiple dumps of the main column before I finish. I dont wait til the end. Last run I dumped all of the 3rd flood in the collection a little at a time so as not to flood the appion with oil laden butane. I ended up with a huge gob of oil stuck in the bottom of the down tube. First time I had ever seen that....same heated run as the one mentioned above. This is exactly how it looked when I opened the collection pot. The main down tube was sealed to the bottom of the terp.