Around 30 minutes.
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Mk IVC Cotton Candy extraction video
- Thread starter Gray Wolf
- Start date
Around 30 minutes.
Have you noticed any increased buddering w this method? I've had a bunch of slabs bidder and the only variables I've changed are the cotton candy method as well as switching to ISO butane and I'm trying to determine the culprit.
We haven't seen a buddering proclivity with cotton candy.
Perhaps Huge might step in with their experience with Medizin Maker.
There isn't much moisture in a -4C freezer.
There is definitely moisture, especially when you take the cold metal out of the freezer and open it and condensation is dripping
HG23
Member
I have been experimenting with the cotton candy technique and have noticed the puffed up muffin sometimes collapses in the freezer. It seems to happen with stuff high in terpenes or when I've ran several columns into the same pot and tried to cotton candy it. This can make the extract a hassle to harvest vs. pouring. I'm getting ready to step into regulation so I want to have the CC method down pat.
I am thinking that maybe I don't leave the high vacuum pump on the pot long enough even though it was at full vac for 2-3 minutes before I shut it off and the muffin stayed puffed up for 5-10 minutes before I put it in the freezer. When I looked in on it 15 minutes later, it was collapsed and had lost some vac on the gauge. Anyone have any input here?
I am also curious about the mechanism behind the cotton candy technique. Why does this happen in the collection pot but not the vacuum oven? Is it only the cannabinoid fraction that puffs up and hardens like that? I have sometimes had the puffed up, crunchy, cotton candy portion separate from the runny, terpy portion in my collection pot.
I am thinking that maybe I don't leave the high vacuum pump on the pot long enough even though it was at full vac for 2-3 minutes before I shut it off and the muffin stayed puffed up for 5-10 minutes before I put it in the freezer. When I looked in on it 15 minutes later, it was collapsed and had lost some vac on the gauge. Anyone have any input here?
I am also curious about the mechanism behind the cotton candy technique. Why does this happen in the collection pot but not the vacuum oven? Is it only the cannabinoid fraction that puffs up and hardens like that? I have sometimes had the puffed up, crunchy, cotton candy portion separate from the runny, terpy portion in my collection pot.
Its in the timing of now. By the time your reach the oven, too much LPG has already been removed.
Josh@Summit
New member
It's pretty amazing to see the new variations of concentrates coming out! I recently heard of two new revelations: a hard clear crystaline THC concentrate and a way to put concentrate into an asthma inhaler. Not sure how either one is created though.
Where will the products be in 10 years from now is the real question.
Where will the products be in 10 years from now is the real question.
HG23
Member
Can you clarify this statement please, I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean.
In a typical purge cycle, when one does a pour as opposed to cotton candy, and places the pour into a vacuum oven, the resulting muffin is expected to inflate, but the goal is eventually to purge and deflate the muffin. In the cotton candy technique one wants the muffin to stay inflated, freezing it in place, until the end, and then process it accordingly, Yes?
Yes.
errl-is-a-myth
Member
...and you are leaving it in the 70deg bath until you remove it and freeze it? Could one remove it from the bath and pull the muffin, effectively cold purging it while freezing the muffin due to the evaporative cooling? Mainly curious if you could potentially skip the freezer step by using the solvent to freeze itself, so to speak.
If you are in no hurry, you can skip the bath. It's isn't to drive off the solvent, it is to counter the heat of vaporization from the LPG boiling off, which drops the temperature so low that it sublimates rather than boiling. It still vaporizes off, just not as fast.
There is a thermocouple in the pot to keep track of temperature, in the WW Terpenators, which tells you when the butane is mostly gone and the temperature is starting to rise.
Timing would be important, unless you were harvesting it in a freezer. It warms up fast.
That aside, the freezing is just to make turning it into powder easier. You can remove cotton candy without doing so.
A good explanation, but I think suggesting sublimation is a bit overboard. While the kinetic energy in the particles of liquid is minimal (thus, less able to escape and the atmospheric pressure is hardly any lower than vapor pressure), I highly doubt it will truly freeze. It should still be a bit viscous, no?
I've seen large volumes of alcohol react similarly under vacuum, and it certainly remained above 40-50°F while showing no signs of bubbling, but still reducing in volume slowly.
The only report I know of someone freezing butane is on Bizzybee's Instagram (I'm sure others have done it). A quick online search shows butane's melting point at atmosphere is listed around -217F to -220F and I do think he was significantly colder than that. I'll have to look back to see where the thermocouple was placed (internal or in jacket/coil). I think he pumped liquid nitrogen into an internal coil and external jacket, just to see how cold he could get....butane condensed as a solid along the chilling coil in his solvent tank, while more liquid condensed and fell to the bottom of the tank. Some seriously pretty crystals!
I suggest sublimation for exactly that reason. No visible bubbling, but ongoing reduction at a reduced rate, I'm willing to call that something else, if someone can identify the phenomena.
errl-is-a-myth
Member
Is sublimation not the transfer from solid to gas bypassing the liquid stage? I would think it is still evaporating, just not a rolling boil... I think of water as it approaches boiling when you first start to see whisps of steam--when there is sufficient energy to break the van der waals forces en masse, but not enough to break the surface tension. Even though we are dealing with a solid-like foam of extract, I doubt the solvent is boiling itself into a solid trying to escape. Rather, I imagine most residual solvent is in gaseous form (because, you know, the bubbles?) So evaporation has already taken place, the gas is merely trapped by the surface tension of the resin (surface energy may be more accurate as the resin is acting closer to a solid at this point.) So... its not a matter of phase change whatsoever? Ran myself in a circle there, and started to delve into some physics that is far too much for pre-coffee.
Well, I think the phenomena is what I described. What to call it? Dunno. Sublimation suggests a solid state, which I am just saying isn't the case. If you tilt the vessel, you'll see that it remains fluid and a thermocouple should tell you it is not at the freezing point under reduced pressure.
For lack of better term, I'll call it "kinetic lock of particles in a fluid". I'm sure some chemist out there has better vocabulary for it.
