Getting consistent honeycomb

[Hash Man]

Hey, so now that I have been getting more light colored waxes I am going to start a new thread becasue I have been getting light colors, but really inconsistant results, even with the same trim.

I have been going off of slimjoints advice.

Cooking between 115 and 125 for up to 5 hours.

I have been happy with about 50% of my batches.

The first few batches i made were around 150g each and formed perfect honecombs.

Lately I am not sure if I am overcooking or undercooking my wax beause the top is dry and waxy. but the bottom is still wet sometimes when i scrape. The batches I did well scraped off like cookies with no oil on the bottom....

Here are some pics of different waxes/crumbles.

I am really not happy at the moment, I just burned a run (cooked for over 5 hours trying to dry it out-- and it had wet oil at the bottom of it.

Anyone have any insight?

 

[Momerath]

Hey there! I too have had the same problem and have been pondering it a lot. Here are my thoughts/conclusions:

Even the same trim can end in different results based on small factors during extraction, such as how much butane was used and the max temp the extract reached during the extraction process. The higher the max temp was during extraction, the higher I have had to set the temp during vac purge to achieve honeycomb.

Also I believe how deep of a vacuum you pull affects what temperature you need to use. Even if we vac to what we believe to be a full vacuum every time, I believe it can vary due to the entropy of water in the system (how much moisture got into your extract by whatever means) making it hard to know EXACTLY how deep of a vac we are pulling, without a fancy digital vacuum meter. Maybe I am totally wrong on this but it has been my observations that putting damper extracts into my chamber, I can't pull as deep as vacuum. I even put a glass of water in my chamber to test this theory and sure enough, it would not pull a full vacuum while there was water in the system, no matter how long I left the pump running.
What I am getting it is that 115f at -29.5 is VERY different than 115f at -29.9. You may have an inconsistant vacuum level, even if your temps are dead on.

Also one more observation, that IMO has made a big difference, is getting to your target temp ASAP. I have noticed that things tend to comb up easier and more reliably when they hit their target temp, say, within an hour or less, than any longer than that. I hypothesize that this is due to decarboxilation. The longer it sits at 115-120 under full vac, the more decarbed your oil will be. My nicest honeycombs were achieved by hitting the target temp quickly, MAINTAINING target temp accurately, and not disturbing it. My hardest and dryest combs take less than 24 hours usually (1-2oz slabs). If it is taking longer than that, I find it gets that oily underside like you mentioned, I am guessing because of the decarbing taking place.

My conclusion has been that making in making honeycomb wax, you are essentially wrecking the oil in several ways at one time in order to achieve a very specific result. If you waver in any one of those ways, the results will vary.

 

[Momerath]

Also forgot to add this. Recently I tried ran a few open tubes using freshly harvested material (7 days from chopping, dried til stem snap, then into food dehydrator for 4 hours using no heat until completely frangible) and added no heat during the initial purge, followed by a 100f water bath. Once scrape to parchment, it was almost shatter but still had tane trapped inside. Into the vac with NO heat added. Once the muffin had stabilized, heat was introduced, bringing the extract back up to 100f but absolutely no more than that. Within a few hours it had begun to comb up. I have achieved my lightest colored honeycomb to date using that method (was yellow. Not yellow-ish gold or orange, but just yellow, nearly pastel canary yellow).

And one last bit of interesting info, which people may or may not agree with or believe, but I have repeated this several times (and remember, science is repeatable ), is seeding with crystals from another extract. Father Earth has been documenting his crystal findings, which I am following closely as I too have been finding crystals of my own which I have believed to be THCA but couldnt prove anything until FE started the investigation. Anyway, I have added a tiny chunk (<.05g) of waxed/crystalized extract to a slab of unheated oil, and then put it into the vac chamber, only to watch it wax up several hours later. And the waxing ALWAYS grows from the site of the seeded crystals.

Maybe others can do experiments and confirm or refute my findings? I have done this 3 times (only with one strain) and observed it every time. However since it was only with one strain, more research is needed.

Hope you find any of this info useful

 

[Juicepuddles]

Tips for better purging:

- The thinner you can get your product on a warm surface area the better, if you have an inch of solvent soaked juice its going to want to naturally honeycomb as it purges, due to tane bubbles forming and not being able to escape into the air.

- 5 Hours is really long and will degrade your product over time, the longer heat is applied the more terpenes escape(Taste)

- Try to start your purge as fast as possible, the longer the solvent sits with the trichome juice the harder it will be to separate etc..

Good luck

 

[Juicepuddles]

I am not sure if this is allowed but here is a link to another forum

http://www.tokecity.com/forums/showthread.php?35829-The-Purging-Thread

This thread has every answer to your purging questions, good luck indeed