What temperature should I purge ethanol out to get shatter?!

Nobleski1 said:

UPDATE: found out after dissasembly that across international are cheap and garbage (lesson learned) but I was able to find the leak in the vacuum release so I just by passed it and put in a ball valve on the pump hose, and a bleed valve. I'm and finally getting full vac and am getting bubbles to break at 125f. I have been purging for two solid days now but I still can't get it to shatter!! Sticky oil. Almost snap and pull texture. I have flipped once. Smells and burns clean though. Maybe it's just not going to stable up?

Click to expand...

Is it possible that you have some water content in there? In theory winterizing should help remove water content, but if you're not careful of condensation when you're filtering the ethanol you can end up adding some water to your stuff that way. I've gotten better results with Everclear extract stability ever since I started filtering them inside the freezer then bringing the cold jar of filtered Everclear out of the freezer in a sealed container to let it warm up to room temp.

PDX Dopesmoker said:

Is it possible that you have some water content in there? In theory winterizing should help remove water content, but if you're not careful of condensation when you're filtering the ethanol you can end up adding some water to your stuff that way. I've gotten better results with Everclear extract stability ever since I started filtering them inside the freezer then bringing the cold jar of filtered Everclear out of the freezer in a sealed container to let it warm up to room temp.

Click to expand...

It's possible there could have been some moisture contamination because one morning there was a lot of condensation in the oven from the leak i believe.. Would that ruin the whole batch? Is it still possible to purge it off? Wish I would have started with a small batch lol.. Smh thanks

the guy who is using a roto, yea ur oven purge is easier becasue rotos thin oil out into paper thin layers constantly while evaping till practicaly almost all alcohul is gone so for everybody not using a roto usualy higher temps are needed. etoh only wants to leave at surface so specialy thicker slabs will seem to never finish
also:
winterizing wont magicaly make sumthing that isent shatter to begin w into shatter. try a small sample of material first , like few handfulls wich is such a small run it cant rly pick up any waxes, so the results will b simlar to "as if" u had winterized. if a tiny run w no waxes wont shatter, then winterizing a larger batch wont make it into shatter ether.

Im in the middle of a vacumn purge for my ethanol solution after I winterized a batch of BHO Shatter that was very waxy and sugared up. Anyways my acrylic top for my chamber has become "crazed" (many small cracks inside the acrylic, it is still smooth). At this point I am continuing to bring it to full vac under a heat matt. Solution temps are 95f currently, I open it to air out the ethanol, as I don't keep my vac pump running as the ethanol should not go into my vac pump correct? I didn't want it to wreck the pump or my pump oil, so figured I will bring to fac, shut off pump, and then let heat matt do its work, and just release vac open up and air it out every half hour.

Is this all ok? I know I can get a "cold trap" to capture the ethanol and keep the pump running that way so there is no ethanol build up in the chamber, but I didn't want to complicate my setup any further.

PaulieWaulie said:

Im in the middle of a vacumn purge for my ethanol solution after I winterized a batch of BHO Shatter that was very waxy and sugared up. Anyways my acrylic top for my chamber has become "crazed" (many small cracks inside the acrylic, it is still smooth). At this point I am continuing to bring it to full vac under a heat matt. Solution temps are 95f currently, I open it to air out the ethanol, as I don't keep my vac pump running as the ethanol should not go into my vac pump correct? I didn't want it to wreck the pump or my pump oil, so figured I will bring to fac, shut off pump, and then let heat matt do its work, and just release vac open up and air it out every half hour.

Is this all ok? I know I can get a "cold trap" to capture the ethanol and keep the pump running that way so there is no ethanol build up in the chamber, but I didn't want to complicate my setup any further.

Click to expand...

Your chamber lid is cracking because it isn't thick enough and is flexing under vacuum.

You need to run your pump continuously for best effect.

When using an AC vacuum pump, I usually remove most of the ethanol first using simple evaporation in a shallow casserole dish, to minimize that going through the vacuum pump. A heat mat around 125F will help that along.

I also watch the oil level and change it frequently, to preserve the pump. Vacuum pump oil is relatively inexpensive.

Gray Wolf said:

Your chamber lid is cracking because it isn't thick enough and is flexing under vacuum.

You need to run your pump continuously for best effect.

When using an AC vacuum pump, I usually remove most of the ethanol first using simple evaporation in a shallow casserole dish, to minimize that going through the vacuum pump. A heat mat around 125F will help that along.

I also watch the oil level and change it frequently, to preserve the pump. Vacuum pump oil is relatively inexpensive.

Click to expand...

Hey Wolf, thanks again as always for the insight! See I would have tried to evap as much of the ethanol as I could before putting in the chamber, but was under the impression that with the roughly 170F boiling point it would not evaporate in open air, even on a 125F heat mat. After doing some reading I do see now that it still evaporates at room temp open air, although much slower, which I am ok with, if it takes 10 days so be it. The key is as much surface area as possible so I would use a large glass casserole dish 10by20 inches in size.

As far as this current batch, I had to open and vent out the chamber about 10 times to evap all the ethanol out from about 350ml worth I would say. I spread it out very glass thinlike (maple syrup texture&consistency) onto parchment paper and it is purging now at 120f under vacuum.

Also side note, Im really curious to see how it turns out, as I had in freezer at -6F for a week, and ran through a 2.5 micron filter. It was very cool seeing all the waxes that have been removed. I would say about 10% of overall weight. I really hope it stays clear and doesnt sugar up and turns candy hard. Will update by 48 hours!

thx Wolf, you always seem to answer my questions, no matter what thread or what forum. I owe you huge.

^^^^ If you run a small fan across your dish it will cause even faster evaporation of the alcohol.

maple syrup texture ethanol transfered to parchment for final purge


Waxes caught in coffee filter - I learned coffee filters are 25 micron, so bought 2.5 micron and ran it again and got almost another 1/3 of what you can see in this picture of waxes out


this is the BHO that waxed up on me. which has been my arch nemesis for over a year.