how long to purge under vacuum?

LostTribe · Nov 6, 2016

I am worried I am not getting all of the butane out of my oil. I have been smearing the oil as thin as I can on parchment heating slightly with heat gun until just runny and then going under vacuum. I pull until it mushrooms way up and remove the vacuum. Then pull again without more heat until I dont get a response i.e. a mushroom. Once I dont get a response I remove the top from my vac chamber and re warm and go back thru the same process until I dont get any response right after warming with the heat gun. I have an IR thermometer and never heat to more than 118 degrees before pulling vac. Usually takes about 6-8 re heats and I am done in about 45 minutes for a slab about 1/8th inch thick. I tried using a hot plate but the heat gun works faster and more directly. Oil stays light brown but not as clear as my winterized qwiso from the past.

Am I getting all of the Butane out?

EastCoast710 · Nov 6, 2016

they said 1 hour purge with a flip 30 mins in .. gets out enough to get below the 500ppm limit lol. so

jmewsk · Nov 13, 2016

Ive read 115 for 4 hours at 29.5 hg is enough to fully clean your oil of residuals. With that being said you loose most of the volatile stuff like terps.

Id suggest lowering you temps to start. Put the oil in your chamber and slowly bring the temp up until the oil is at a lower viscosity (more runny, but should be below 110 degrees). I like to pull at vacuum to 26.5 hg then seal my chamber off. This allows the oil to muffin like your talking about, but also spread evenly.

Let is sit for 20-30 mins then pull a full vacuum to 29.5 hg and let sit under vacuum until only small bubbles appear or until slab is bubble free (10-24 hrs depending on amount). Let your vacuum out flip the slab over and reheat the same way as before. Once the viscosity lowers pull another full vacuum and seal your chamber off and wait again until bubbles disappear or until only small bubbles are left.

I finally let the vacuum out flip the slab one more time and allow to reheat for one final time. This will help remove bubbles and make the slab look much sexier. At this point tho you should be clean enough forsure and loaded with terps!

Proven method Ive been using for the better part of 5 years. Hope it answers your question and works for you. Purging for a few hours might get the job done but your missing out one all the good stuff with that much heat under a vacuum.

Gray Wolf · Nov 13, 2016

Can you rig your chamber to continuously heat it?

RGG · Nov 13, 2016

Gray Wolf said:
Can you rig your chamber to continuously heat it?

Temperature controlled heat mat?

Gray Wolf · Nov 13, 2016

RGG said:
Temperature controlled heat mat?

That would work.

SkyHighLer · Nov 13, 2016

jmewsk said:
Ive read 115 for 4 hours at 29.5 hg is enough to fully clean your oil of residuals. With that being said you loose most of the volatile stuff like terps.

Id suggest lowering you temps to start. Put the oil in your chamber and slowly bring the temp up until the oil is at a lower viscosity (more runny, but should be below 110 degrees). I like to pull at vacuum to 26.5 hg then seal my chamber off. This allows the oil to muffin like your talking about, but also spread evenly.

Let is sit for 20-30 mins then pull a full vacuum to 29.5 hg and let sit under vacuum until only small bubbles appear or until slab is bubble free (10-24 hrs depending on amount). Let your vacuum out flip the slab over and reheat the same way as before. Once the viscosity lowers pull another full vacuum and seal your chamber off and wait again until bubbles disappear or until only small bubbles are left.

I finally let the vacuum out flip the slab one more time and allow to reheat for one final time. This will help remove bubbles and make the slab look much sexier. At this point tho you should be clean enough forsure and loaded with terps!

Proven method Ive been using for the better part of 5 years. Hope it answers your question and works for you. Purging for a few hours might get the job done but your missing out one all the good stuff with that much heat under a vacuum.

Not picking on you personally jmewsk...

Who thought up the low temp, full vac, for days... purge technique?

You have major terpene loss at 115F and not at 90F? Not buying it.

GW gave you the straight up purge info with residual levels that you weren't getting anywhere, and you turn around and ignore it.

No thank to your so called stable shatter that waxes up. An extraction of a particular grow of a strain will be naturally soft, firm, or solid, attempting to change the state in a vac purge chamber is all for show/greed imo.

My Sunday sermon... :biggrin:

Digital Man · Nov 14, 2016

SkyHighLer said:
Not picking on you personally jmewsk...

Who thought up the low temp, full vac, for days... purge technique?

You have major terpene loss at 115F and not at 90F? Not buying it.

GW gave you the straight up purge info with residual levels that you weren't getting anywhere, and you turn around and ignore it.

No thank to your so called stable shatter that waxes up. An extraction of a particular grow of a strain will be naturally soft, firm, or solid, attempting to change the state in a vac purge chamber is all for show/greed imo.

My Sunday sermon...

I struggle to remove ethanol from our winterization process. We are attempting to get below 400 PPM as we have many clubs in NorCal requiring such asinine levels. We try to keep the temps at 90F and go through many, many starts/stops/rests/flips that can take a week ........... and even then sometimes we are still over that threshhold. Removing Butane is one thing ........ ethanol is another.

Oh and by the way ........ I'm pretty sure we are basically pulling out many/most of the terps in the process ........... but like many things, the industry takes on an idea and completely goes off the deep end with it.

LostTribe · Nov 14, 2016

I tried a heat plate and it was a Pain in the ASS! Took forever and decided to go straight to the heat gun and infrared thermometer, but slow and easy easy on the heat gun. Replace lid and pull vac. Muffins up quick then hold for a few and release and repeat like 6-8 times over a 45 minute to 1 hour period. Stuff has no bubbles left and is crispy light brown so did get a bit hot but next time I will heat less. I dont have bubbles in my dried shatter. It is really shatter.

I have this best value vac setup but with a different brand 1 stage 3cfm pump.
http://www.bestvaluevacs.com/3-gallon-wide-stainless-w-3-cfm-single-stage-vacuum.html

Old Gold · Nov 14, 2016

I would love to have a reputable lab test 'my recent acetone winterizations. They come out like glass, and even spread pretty thin, take about 3 days (plus or minus 2 days, really - depending on thickness (a little goes a long way with higher boiling solvents). I use nitrogen to remove moisture pickup from open evaporations and aid in replacing the oven atmosphere with a dry one, then vacuuming again. I do this multiple times a day.

I know what acetone tastes/smells like. Same goes for ethanol, and even more so methanol. The taste is present for a good while, and more of a sizzle is heard when dabbed. The smoke is also harsher. The slabs stay reactive every time I flip them and throw them back in at 85-100°F, and this takes 3-5 days for me, but the end product has amazing clarity, and can be melted and reformed to glassy shatter at as high as 90°F+, without losing any of the clarity. Some of the smoothest shit my friends and I have smoked.

As Digital Man noted, MOST of the flavor profile is lost, but definitely not all of it. It's tougher and less flavorful with alcohol than it is with acetone.

SkyHighLer · Nov 14, 2016

LostTribe said:
I tried a heat plate and it was a Pain in the ASS! Took forever and decided to go straight to the heat gun and infrared thermometer, but slow and easy easy on the heat gun. Replace lid and pull vac. Muffins up quick then hold for a few and release and repeat like 6-8 times over a 45 minute to 1 hour period. Stuff has no bubbles left and is crispy light brown so did get a bit hot but next time I will heat less. I dont have bubbles in my dried shatter. It is really shatter.

I have this best value vac setup but with a different brand 1 stage 3cfm pump.
http://www.bestvaluevacs.com/3-gallon-wide-stainless-w-3-cfm-single-stage-vacuum.html

Do yourself a huge favor, (ask BVV which size fits your chamber perfectly, the 9" or 10")

http://www.bestvaluevacs.com/heatpads.html

montroller · Nov 14, 2016

Digital Man said:
I struggle to remove ethanol from our winterization process. We are attempting to get below 400 PPM as we have many clubs in NorCal requiring such asinine levels. We try to keep the temps at 90F and go through many, many starts/stops/rests/flips that can take a week ........... and even then sometimes we are still over that threshhold. Removing Butane is one thing ........ ethanol is another.

Oh and by the way ........ I'm pretty sure we are basically pulling out many/most of the terps in the process ........... but like many things, the industry takes on an idea and completely goes off the deep end with it.

In some cities they are trying to get around the no BHO rules by saying 0 ppm shatter is "solventless". Has my sales team telling me everything needs to test 0 ppm regardless of terp loss :moon:

I miss when everyone loved wax and I could do a 45 minute purge then finish it up with some whipping and still hit 0ppm every test.

jmewsk · Nov 14, 2016

SkyHighLer said:
Not picking on you personally jmewsk...

Who thought up the low temp, full vac, for days... purge technique?

You have major terpene loss at 115F and not at 90F? Not buying it.

GW gave you the straight up purge info with residual levels that you weren't getting anywhere, and you turn around and ignore it.

No thank to your so called stable shatter that waxes up. An extraction of a particular grow of a strain will be naturally soft, firm, or solid, attempting to change the state in a vac purge chamber is all for show/greed imo.

My Sunday sermon...

I am fully aware of your thc boiling points test. Way to take the word Major out of context. Although you say its not personal you make a comment about my "so called shatter that waxes up", you dont even know anything about me. Also I dont appreciate being called greedy when im just trying to give advice. Everything I know is derived from my own experience. Id never purposefully run someone down the wrong path.

SkyHighLer · Nov 14, 2016

When I said not picking on you personally, I meant it, that inquiry was to the entirety of those practicing, and promoting extremely long, very low temp purges. I'm curious who thought it up, and their reasoning.

So sorry this was so misunderstood.

montroller · Nov 14, 2016

4-6 hours at 115f -125f with 3-4 flips was the tech I played with when I first got my ovens and I had multiple tests come back in the 5-700 ppm range with that tech. I think people realized they had to go longer from their test results and dropped temp to adjust for that... Or that's how I personally came to lower temps and longer times at least.

But I still had better terps with the old purge tech :biggrin:

jmewsk · Nov 14, 2016

My apologies to for taking it a bit too personally aswell I guess.

When you say long low temp purging how long/low do you mean? I run for personal use in small batches of 40-50 gs of nug. I usually end up with 7-10 grams per run. Total time spent ender vac is 50+ hours at 90-105. I run my pump every few hours, but this is over kill your opinion for someone not using cotton candy method?

jmewsk · Nov 14, 2016

montroller said:
4-6 hours at 115f -125f with 3-4 flips was the tech I played with when I first got my ovens and I had multiple tests come back in the 5-700 ppm range with that tech. I think people realized they had to go longer from their test results and dropped temp to adjust for that... Or that's how I personally came to lower temps and longer times at least.

But I still had better terps with the old purge tech

Did you ever run same oil side by side with both purging methods? Interested to know if you could really taste the difference. Not same material, same oil?

montroller · Nov 14, 2016

No I never took the time to do side by side experiments I used to test 0 ppm with 45 minutes of purging and at the time didn't realize that whipping to wax was actually finishing the purge for me. When I found out I was above 500 with some samples I started purging 24 hours but still with high temps. That got my results back to 0 but caused nucleation problems so I lowered temps to ~100 but kept stalling in vac so I started flipping super frequently and my slabs changed to something I liked more and I just never looked back.

Here is a pic from the old purge tech

And this one is from the new one... I feel like it just looks better when it's stable and I have gotten nothing but positive reviews since switching... No one complained about terp loss my comment was purely a personal opinion and I never even did a side by side comparison.

Digital Man · Nov 14, 2016

montroller said:
4-6 hours at 115f -125f with 3-4 flips was the tech I played with when I first got my ovens and I had multiple tests come back in the 5-700 ppm range with that tech. I think people realized they had to go longer from their test results and dropped temp to adjust for that... Or that's how I personally came to lower temps and longer times at least.

But I still had better terps with the old purge tech

That's EXACTLY how that tech would have evolved. It was pushed that way because of the industry began requiring it.

Digital Man · Nov 14, 2016

montroller said:
No I never took the time to do side by side experiments I used to test 0 ppm with 45 minutes of purging and at the time didn't realize that whipping to wax was actually finishing the purge for me. When I found out I was above 500 with some samples I started purging 24 hours but still with high temps. That got my results back to 0 but caused nucleation problems so I lowered temps to ~100 but kept stalling in vac so I started flipping super frequently and my slabs changed to something I liked more and I just never looked back.

Here is a pic from the old purge tech

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=43696&pictureid=1672692&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=43696&pictureid=1672688&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]
And this one is from the new one... I feel like it just looks better when it's stable and I have gotten nothing but positive reviews since switching... No one complained about terp loss my comment was purely a personal opinion and I never even did a side by side comparison.

For a butane purge right ?

how long to purge under vacuum?

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