[BigJohnny]

For a while I had neglected my butane and it contained a bit of water and apparently some rust or dirt.

However the BHO I had been extracting was coming out kind of black, and I was seeing returns at 23% consistently.

So I decided that I should clean my butane and loaded up a 2x36 column with 3A sieve and ran my tane through it.
Looking through the sightglass the butane was beautifully clear.

The end weight of the sieve was about 15g heavier than before I ran the butane through it, and I noticed some water in my collection pot after the process was finished....so altogether it looked like I had about 30ml of water in my 28lbs of butane.

Now that the butane is clean my returns are only 18% consistently, but when I winterize there is TONS more crap in the oil than I had when the butane was dirty.


In the picture the bottle on the far left of the freezer was done with dirty butane, the bottle sitting directly beside it was done AFTER the butane was cleaned and dried.

What the hell is going on here? aside form cleaning my butane I haven't changed anything or done anything differently.

[Gray Wolf]

Originally Posted by BigJohnny

For a while I had neglected my butane and it contained a bit of water and apparently some rust or dirt.

However the BHO I had been extracting was coming out kind of black, and I was seeing returns at 23% consistently.

So I decided that I should clean my butane and loaded up a 2x36 column with 3A sieve and ran my tane through it.
Looking through the sightglass the butane was beautifully clear.

The end weight of the sieve was about 15g heavier than before I ran the butane through it, and I noticed some water in my collection pot after the process was finished....so altogether it looked like I had about 30ml of water in my 28lbs of butane.

Now that the butane is clean my returns are only 18% consistently, but when I winterize there is TONS more crap in the oil than I had when the butane was dirty.


In the picture the bottle on the far left of the freezer was done with dirty butane, the bottle sitting directly beside it was done AFTER the butane was cleaned and dried.

What the hell is going on here? aside form cleaning my butane I haven't changed anything or done anything differently.

Define crap?? The second jug from the left looks like it still has water in it.

Water changes polarity, so extracts more polar and water solubles.

What is your process??

[BigJohnny]

Crap = unknown exactly. I allowed a small bit of liquid butane to spray out onto some paper and got water and dirt looking stuff. The paper had a black'ish residue left on it that looked like dirt or rust, and it was wet.

I make the BHO in a Mk4 style terpenator.
After I collect it from the pot it goes into the oven at 220F for an hour and then allowed to cool in the oven.
After it's decarbed and still warm I pour it into ethanol mix it up and put it in those jugs to go in the freezer. The ethanol is room temperature when the warm BHO hits it, which seems to make some of the waxes immediately coagulate, but it was never this bad before running my butane through the molecular sieve.


To dry the butane I basically just replaced bud in the column with the sieve and ran through the process as if I was making oil....so the column was flooded from the bottom up and poured into the pot where it was recovered leaving the dirt and stuff in the collection pot.
I even transferred the butane to a new recovery tank.

Shouldn't the sieve I used have absorbed a lot more water? there was only a 15g difference between it's unused weight and it's used weight....on top of that I was surprised to see any amount of water in the collection pot as the sieve should've absorbed it.

[Gray Wolf]

Originally Posted by BigJohnny

Crap = unknown exactly. I allowed a small bit of liquid butane to spray out onto some paper and got water and dirt looking stuff. The paper had a black'ish residue left on it that looked like dirt or rust, and it was wet.

I make the BHO in a Mk4 style terpenator.
After I collect it from the pot it goes into the oven at 220F for an hour and then allowed to cool in the oven.
After it's decarbed and still warm I pour it into ethanol mix it up and put it in those jugs to go in the freezer. The ethanol is room temperature when the warm BHO hits it, which seems to make some of the waxes immediately coagulate, but it was never this bad before running my butane through the molecular sieve.


To dry the butane I basically just replaced bud in the column with the sieve and ran through the process as if I was making oil....so the column was flooded from the bottom up and poured into the pot where it was recovered leaving the dirt and stuff in the collection pot.
I even transferred the butane to a new recovery tank.

Shouldn't the sieve I used have absorbed a lot more water? there was only a 15g difference between it's unused weight and it's used weight....on top of that I was surprised to see any amount of water in the collection pot as the sieve should've absorbed it.

How did you clean your butane storage tank after dewatering? Have you turned it upside down and vented water below the dip tube through the vapor valve yet?

[BigJohnny]

Originally Posted by Gray Wolf

How did you clean your butane storage tank after dewatering? Have you turned it upside down and vented water below the dip tube through the vapor valve yet?

Yeah that's how I got the butane into the CLS, and recovery was done into a different tank that was mostly brand new except for having used it for venting excess gas into after I'm finished.
I used it for emptying the lines into.

Before pumping the cleaned butane into it I vacuumed it down to somewhere around 100 microns IIRC.

[Gray Wolf]

Originally Posted by BigJohnny

Yeah that's how I got the butane into the CLS, and recovery was done into a different tank that was mostly brand new except for having used it for venting excess gas into after I'm finished.
I used it for emptying the lines into.

Before pumping the cleaned butane into it I vacuumed it down to somewhere around 100 microns IIRC.

Do understand correctly that you have black gunk and water in your extraction even after dewatering and using a clean tank?

[BigJohnny]

Originally Posted by Gray Wolf

Do understand correctly that you have black gunk and water in your extraction even after dewatering and using a clean tank?

Well the oil itself is coming out pretty dark in the collection pot, but the black gunk I was referring to earlier was left behind on a piece of paper, so it's safe to assume that it's ending up in the oil because this isn't really old bud and it should be coming out fairly light except isnt.

Really I just want to reduce the amount of stuff that I have to filter out, I thought running my butane through the sieve would do the trick, but apparently something bigger is going on.

[Gray Wolf]

Originally Posted by BigJohnny

Well the oil itself is coming out pretty dark in the collection pot, but the black gunk I was referring to earlier was left behind on a piece of paper, so it's safe to assume that it's ending up in the oil because this isn't really old bud and it should be coming out fairly light except isnt.

Really I just want to reduce the amount of stuff that I have to filter out, I thought running my butane through the sieve would do the trick, but apparently something bigger is going on.

If you've had dirty solvent in both tanks, I would start over with a fresh one. If water sits in a carbon steel tank, it develops a rust layer.

Next I would re-distill the LPG into it using the Mk IV as the cold trap. Use the same procedure as for removing mystery oil: https://thealchemistresource.thealch...g-page_83.html

I would then disassemble and clean the inside of your sysem thoroughly, for a fresh clean start.

After reassembly, flush clean butane through the injection plumbing and recover as vapor, so any remaining contamination should be gone.

[Chunkypigs]

Originally Posted by BigJohnny

...
I make the BHO in a Mk4 style terpenator.
After I collect it from the pot it goes into the oven at 220F for an hour and then allowed to cool in the oven.
After it's decarbed and still warm I pour it into ethanol mix it up and put it in those jugs to go in the freezer.

just an aside from your problem, I would be shocked if a collection pot of BHO would fully decarb in a 220 degree oven in an hour.

you might want to try Gray's dewax and decarb protocols for better results.

[BigJohnny]

Originally Posted by Chunkypigs

just an aside from your problem, I would be shocked if a collection pot of BHO would fully decarb in a 220 degree oven in an hour.

you might want to try Gray's dewax and decarb protocols for better results.

I'll look into it but I'm only talking about maybe 850g tops, which is generally divided into two dishes.

The reason I only go an hour is because after the hour is up the oven stops heating but the oil remains in the oven while it cools down, so there's all that time involved.

After that I have to heat it up again just so I can pour it into a beaker to weigh, and then keeping it warm so I can pour it into the ethanol....so generally it ends up being heated up a couple of times and for about 2-3 hours total at that heat.