Extracting Kief to Oil

[Gray Wolf]

Correct - the top shatter patty is the ethanol...but (from reading and listening to GW more), it seems that the chlorophyll pickup should be minimized due to the well sifted kief and any plant matter should get picked up by the coffee filter I'd figure?
I 'think' it should be possible to get a nice amber shatter from the ethanol wash...I just haven't done it yet. But I have also been doing 99% of the purge under a double boiler that is getting reasonably hot (much hotter than I do with the butane/vac process anyway) and didn't realize that I could put a deeper pool of alcohol in the petri dish in the vac chamber and it would boil off under vac (although not sure how long that process takes). Interestingly though - the ethanol washes I did on the kief were dark right away...the only runs I have done with ethanol before came out really clear in the alcohol until I cooked the purge.

Most of the more darkly colored elements in the extraction, are the more polar elements, so alcohol will always produce a darker extract than a non polar extraction.

On the other hand, some of those polar elements are also tasty, so my palate doesn't care about the darker hues.

Both BHO and QWET extracts suffer from the Beers/Lambert effect, in that one thin film is light colored and transparent, and two or more thin layers may be opaque.

 

[Gray Wolf]

Avi - I assume that ran without issue? Looks like a nice tube

Did some prelim experiments yesterday (had already started before I got GWs reply) and had some good/interesting results. I'll do more next weekend and try a few different recommended techniques.

Here are a few pics and results:

first the giganto jar of kief-
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This was the result of an ethanol wash (190 everclear) for only 45 seconds (I did another for 45 min and another for 30 sec...kinda similar results)...I am almost certainly screwing that process up though based on subsequent intel from GW - like at the very least I am using heat to evap the alcohol before going under vac and using heat there too, so despite the shatter type consistency, I assume I have decarb'd that at least a bit during the initial purge?:
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And this was the result of the straight kief run in an open column. I used a little bit of sugar trim/larf on the top and bottom to avoid it packing out and it ran through great.
Like Avi said in the other post - it comes out darker than when running plant material...like cloudy in my case, and the yield was 25-30% in a single wash. and what was interesting (anyone that has insight - please share, I like learning ) is the way it finished out - like it kinda porous vs. settling down to a viscous oil. As in - the muffin lifted and settled some - but not fully and it almost created a honeycomb cookie, but not in the sense of a traditional honeycomb that is wax consistency. Both of my tester runs popped out like this out of the vac:
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This is a run of some GSC sugar trim that I did over the weekend as well. It came out nice. 17g. Tastes like oranges

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I'll do some more next weekend using some of my new insight and advice from y'all.
Thanks everyone!

Purdy!

 

[Gray Wolf]

Before and after (total yield 24% on the best grade, 17% on the worst grade). Did this with straight kief in a terpenator, 350g at a time.

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By total yield, do you mean from the plant, or as a percent of the kif weight that the oil was extracted from?

 

[nakadashi]

By total yield, do you mean from the plant, or as a percent of the kif weight that the oil was extracted from?

24% to 17% of kif weight from the jars pictured.

I have gotten as low as 14% on dry ice kif I made myself too (first time kif maker). The result post extraction was an unappealing black/green tar looking stuff.

 

[nakadashi]

Hey villain, what kind of yields are you seeing on your kif runs?

 

[villain420247]

Hey villain, what kind of yields are you seeing on your kif runs?

I didn't weigh the first couple testers - but it seemed like almost double of what I would expect from cured plant material. After reading your post though, I am going to weigh the next runs and let y'all know.
I may have gotten out of my schedule for the rest of the day - so may do some runs today.

 

[villain420247]

GW - that patty I made that looks like a loaf of bread - do you think I need to get it a bit warmer in the vacuum chamber to break the surface tension more given it's almost immediate shatter consistency? It vapes good on the titanium moat I have, but always looking to refine my technique and learn
Thanks for all the sage advice sir...I know you hear that all the time, but still - awesomesauce.

 

[nakadashi]

TBH I was very surprised that the golden kif yielded only 24% so now want to make sure I'm not fudging these extractions and wasting a ton. I took before and after pics of the kif pre/post extraction, looks almost identical except went from bright yellow/gold to a duller shade.

 

[villain420247]

Okay - answered my own question - I needed about 115-120 deg oil surface temp to allow the extraction to be viscous enough to allow the initial muffin to fully deflate into a normal shatter/oil consistency and then it purged like normal.

I have been doing some recent runs at a lower (90deg'ish) temp and going low and slow...but at those temps, the kief runs (so far) are shatter - like the bubbles shatter when they pop even, so this stuff definitely needed higher temps. Came out pretty nice.

1/4 lb off of about 16 ounces of mostly straight kief using butane as a solvent in a variety of open tubes - single run. We used just enough plant material to allow it to flow.

(note - even still it builds an abnormal amount of pressure on the top of the patty - especially if you have a good seal on the nozzle to tube to where it will try and blow back out when changing bottles or when your done running solvent. The first one blew the top half of the kief patty back up toward the top like a piston and pressure was blowing out of the top of the glass piece like a volcano. We handled it without issue - but just mind the fact that running kief is definitely a little different than a normal run with plant material )

Few pics:

 

[m314]

TBH I was very surprised that the golden kif yielded only 24% so now want to make sure I'm not fudging these extractions and wasting a ton. I took before and after pics of the kif pre/post extraction, looks almost identical except went from bright yellow/gold to a duller shade.

There's an easy way to find out if you're wasting anything. Take some of the post extraction kief and smoke it or eat it. If it gets you high, there's still something left to extract.

 

[Gray Wolf]

There's an easy way to find out if you're wasting anything. Take some of the post extraction kief and smoke it or eat it. If it gets you high, there's still something left to extract.

A microscope comes in handy too.

By comparison, we are yielding 60% and change from bubble.

We use a washing machine for bubble, and freeze dry sieve material before running it through the Grinning Reaper, but have never tried it with dry ice for comparison. It would be interesting to compare a dry ice and just frozen dry sieve extract, to see what the extra bulk is. If it isn't green, it ostensibly is more hairs and tricome stalks.

 

[sirsmokesallot]

Hey guys I have a good amount of stuff that i plan on running in the near future. I have a small thermos that i was going to run in small 10g increments and see if i can get my yeild up vrs doing one huge run. I will do thermos extraction then into extractor with 6-10 marbels in it, spray one can then pump with basketball pump. So one of these runs i am going to use 2 cans i will report back with the numbers and will run thermos and secondary tube run in seperate purging dishes. From this I will be able to tell if the secondary blast is worth the amount gained for the extra can.

I have what i think is the perfect miny thermos to do this size run but it has the ussual cheap plastic lid with plastic threads. Will not use lid but I am wondering if you guys think its safe to strain with the plastic threads on the thermos still or if i should go through the trouble of cutting it off?

Thank you for any input.

 

[CatManDoo]

Alcohol vaporizers in bars? lol That shit's legal? WTF

 

[AlterEgo860]

bigger the batch for me.. the darker it ends up being..

also freezing material.. butane and tubes before extracting has helped my shit stay a lot lighter

 

[lifehack]

bigger the batch for me.. the darker it ends up being..

also freezing material.. butane and tubes before extracting has helped my shit stay a lot lighter

Try using dry ice holms.. hope you get what youre lookin for!

 

[Gray Wolf]

Hey guys I have a good amount of stuff that i plan on running in the near future. I have a small thermos that i was going to run in small 10g increments and see if i can get my yeild up vrs doing one huge run. I will do thermos extraction then into extractor with 6-10 marbels in it, spray one can then pump with basketball pump. So one of these runs i am going to use 2 cans i will report back with the numbers and will run thermos and secondary tube run in seperate purging dishes. From this I will be able to tell if the secondary blast is worth the amount gained for the extra can.

I have what i think is the perfect miny thermos to do this size run but it has the ussual cheap plastic lid with plastic threads. Will not use lid but I am wondering if you guys think its safe to strain with the plastic threads on the thermos still or if i should go through the trouble of cutting it off?

Thank you for any input.

Depends on what kind of plastic. Unless I knew what it was, I would remove it.

 

[m314]

Alcohol vaporizers in bars? lol That shit's legal? WTF

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/vaportini-alcohol-vaporizer_n_2458038.html

I've read about several brands like the Vaportini. Some of them look more sophisticated with different settings for vapor concentration. I haven't had the chance to try one yet.

 

[sirsmokesallot]

So i went ahead and ran 10g last night with what i would call minimal success. It seemed like i lost alot with the themos after about 45 mins i poured out what was about a g and a half. The secondary spray brought it up to about 3 g mabey closer to 4 but have not wieghed yet.

I have now changed to a stailess pipe with 3/4 diam that fits about 10g i ran two batches with a can each and am hoping to get about 6-8 g without bothering with the thermos extraction. The thermos seems to have got alot of kief and oil stuck on its sides and has turned me off of this method. Really wish i could get GW scrape of 60% but not looking good.

 

[AlterEgo860]

I thought people were bitching about keif clogging tubes and having blow outs.. and claiming it was impossible to run butane threw a tube of keif.. and that's why people were just adding the keif into the liquid tane.. and just filtering and purging..

? I have a can of butane left until my 3 cases get here.. and I want to use it the best of my ability.. ive also noticed.. that with a SS Turkey Bastor.. 1 can of tane.. is fucking wayyy to much.. i used like 1 can for 6 turkey basters i don't do the second run on the material.. i just let the butane escape.. put into a bag.. wait until my 200-300 gram tube comes.. and ill just mix a bunch of KIEF into the shit that's been ran.. just incase i left anything behind..

but i was hitting 3.5grams per turkey baster.. with 1 single spray threw them.. until clear. sprayed a few seconds longer.. and then stopped.. did next and next..

why are people using soo much butane.. ? ive also found. that spray holding it almost sideways.. and spinning it a quarter a spin at a time continue to spray until it does a 360.. and it helped get all the material evenly wet with tane.

 

[lifehack]

I just did a run lastnight.. Fresh Frozen + Dry Ice + Grain Alcohol, filtered thru just one layer of filter paper.. Not even green (might post pictures)