[SkyHighLer]

A laundry washing machine stripped to the bone and rebuilt for extraction would be far less expensive.

https://www.deltaseparations.com/pages/cup-15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=PfgFh6ksBKs

[Pastelero]

Originally Posted by SkyHighLer

A laundry washing machine stripped to the bone and rebuilt for extraction would be far less expensive.

https://www.deltaseparations.com/pages/cup-15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=PfgFh6ksBKs

Well of course, but do I raise a cow or do i go into a restaurant and buy a fcking steak?

I like the implementation of the CUP15, especially along with the post-processing equipment.

[c03rcion]

I have been working on a cold ethanol extraction method but just can't seem to get my yields higher than 5%. I am working with bud that was freeze dried after harvest and stored in a freezer. The ethanol is 200 proof and is kept, along with everything else, in a -86 C freezer. I have even tried doing a 30 minute wash, and while the color and clarity are still great, the yields don't get better.

Any suggestions? Is this too cold for an effective wash?

[WaterFarmFan]

Originally Posted by c03rcion

I have been working on a cold ethanol extraction method but just can't seem to get my yields higher than 5%. I am working with bud that was freeze dried after harvest and stored in a freezer. The ethanol is 200 proof and is kept, along with everything else, in a -86 C freezer. I have even tried doing a 30 minute wash, and while the color and clarity are still great, the yields don't get better.

Any suggestions? Is this too cold for an effective wash?

5% is very low if you are processing flowers, but it depends on the quality of the starting material. I get over 25% return doing a single -50C pass with soak times of 20-30 minutes using very high grade flowers that have been cured and are ground to less than 500 micron.

How are you pre-processing the flowers? Were the buds dried first and then frozen or frozen fresh? If material is fresh frozen and you are not drying it, perhaps the very high water content and very low temps are locking out the alcohol from extracting the cannabinoids. If you are not processing the material into smaller pieces, then perhaps this effect is amplified even more.

As a test, you can thaw and dry a volume of material in oven to near complete dryness. There might be some decarbing in your sample, but it will give you a baseline.

[WaterFarmFan]

Also, if your material is fresh frozen, then your starting weight will be very different compared to the same exact material that has been dried. 1000 grams of fresh cut flowers might weigh only 100-150 grams when dried. You could again weigh a sample before and after oven drying to get a baseline, so that you can get an accurate yield percentage.

[Gray Wolf]

Originally Posted by c03rcion

I have been working on a cold ethanol extraction method but just can't seem to get my yields higher than 5%. I am working with bud that was freeze dried after harvest and stored in a freezer. The ethanol is 200 proof and is kept, along with everything else, in a -86 C freezer. I have even tried doing a 30 minute wash, and while the color and clarity are still great, the yields don't get better.

Any suggestions? Is this too cold for an effective wash?

You need longer soaks at -86C and flow or agitation.

Check your spent material with a microscope to check progress.

[c03rcion]

The bud was fresh harvested and kept in the freezer, where after sometime it was transferred to a freeze drier and moisture removed. Bud was then kept in freezer once freeze dried. Material is pretty descent, good bit of trichomes and smells very nice.

[WaterFarmFan]

Have you thawed the material and then refrozen? It will have no ill effect on the ability to extract. Have you tried braking the material into smaller pieces? If material is frozen in your deep freeze, it would be quite easy to smash with a pestle to get a finer material. You will need a better way to filter the fine material as with a vacuum assisted buchner and whatman #1 filters. It would help you test yields if you allow the etoh to warm a bit from -86C to -50C while you buchner filter, which takes longer (10-20 minutes) with 1 micron filter and finer ground flower material. I was concerned that I was not picking all the terpenes at -50C, so I allow the material to drift to -30C at the end of filtering. You might get a tiny bit more chlorophyll pickup, but the green color always disappears within a hour, and less if I start vacuum distillation immediately. I always end up with a honey amber color shatter.

[c03rcion]

Originally Posted by WaterFarmFan

Have you thawed the material and then refrozen? It will have no ill effect on the ability to extract. Have you tried braking the material into smaller pieces? If material is frozen in your deep freeze, it would be quite easy to smash with a pestle to get a finer material. You will need a better way to filter the fine material as with a vacuum assisted buchner and whatman #1 filters. It would help you test yields if you allow the etoh to warm a bit from -86C to -50C while you buchner filter, which takes longer (10-20 minutes) with 1 micron filter and finer ground flower material. I was concerned that I was not picking all the terpenes at -50C, so I allow the material to drift to -30C at the end of filtering. You might get a tiny bit more chlorophyll pickup, but the green color always disappears within a hour, and less if I start vacuum distillation immediately. I always end up with a honey amber color shatter.

The bud was harvested from the field and placed in a walk in freezer. The frozen bud was then broken up and and placed in a freeze drier. Then returned to the walkin. Bud is very dry and will crumble easily.

Have done a few runs with it now and the end product always looks great, amber shatter. Terpenes are present, smells and tastes are great. The yield has just been a consistent problem.

I just tried doing a wash on 1.6 gram of bud i broke into dime sized pieces or smaller. Left it in the -86 freezer for 1.5 hours, swirling the little container every 15 minutes. After filtering the solution, laid the bud pieces on paper towel to dry and checked them under the microscope. To my surprise there were still trichomes!!! Maybe I should agitate the wash more?

[WaterFarmFan]

It definitely sounds dry then if it crumbles. You really just might be going too cold. Start it out of -86C and then place outside the freezer and let the temps rise some to around -50C using a thermocouple to measure.

I have done quite a few ethanol extractions using nothing but trichomes collected from dry ice hash. Most of the trichome matter remains after the ethanol wash, as ethanol only interacts with some of the organic matter that composes the trichome head and stalks.