[BigJohnny]

This is one of the things I think I'm having the most trouble with....

During distillation, how do you know when the right time to rotate the cow is?

How do I determine with 100% certainty that the terps/volatiles are done collecting, and that it's time to move on to collecting the heads?

And how do I know when the heads are done and it's time to move on to the tails?


Right now I just watch it, and when it looks like it's getting thick instead of runny, I rotate the cow to the middle, but i think I still end up collecting some terps and grossness in the heads.

[Thomas@LRL]

I do a "first pass" for volatiles specifically and then do a second pass at considerably lower vacuum depth for the specific cannabinoid fraction(s) I'm targeting.

[Alister.Frazzle]

I like to run heads a little bit longer than necessary to prevent any contamination of main body. When your vapor temperature stabilizes and the condensate looks good, give it a couple minutes before rotating to main body. I find that the main body darkens from light yellow as distillation continues and temperature rises. When it is noticeably darker, time to switch to tails.

[Terpharvester]

Only seen it done, still waiting to get my still but moniter your vapor temperature. When it is hot your collecting things and after its done collecting, the temp of the vapor will drop to room temp signifying the compounds that will come out at that givin mantel temp and vaccume level are no longer coming out. So when you see the consistency o f your condensate change from the drops that break to beads that stick move your flask

[BigJohnny]

thanks for the info, I'm seeing much of this a lot more easily now that I'm using some much cleaner BHO to start.