Sweetleaf V2 closed loop system

[RegisPhilburn1]

I think we could get around the need for dry ice. Considering that we are working with a REFRIGERANT I think that we could employ that to our benefit.

Just think of what happens when you recover with no heat on the bottom, and pour, like rbe's method. The waxes fall out of solution do the chilling effect of evaporating butane coupled with the increasing solute concentration, and decreasing solvent amount. The waxes fall out first. Now think if we could watch that with a viewport and when we want to filter, (valve off recovery pump) we pull it through a series of filters (like sweet leaf' ball valve in between, but no sight glass) into another chamber that had a vacuum pulled on it, then we could open the recovery pump to that chamber and recover the remainder of our solvent. And have caught all the waxes in the filters above.

It would be significantly faster than passive, and wouldn't require expensive (and too cold in my opinion) dry ice. I have observed temps at about -20 to -30f on my bottom spool when recovery with no heat, which is about the temps I'd like to hit with dewaxing.

Height would certainly be an issue. A stand would help.


For the" don't extract them in the first place" method, I do something similar to dopecook, I wrap my tube with a couple of these ice sheetfreeze my tubes overnight down to -10f and then remove the ice sheets for recovery. The tube stays at about -5f the whole time. I have worked in a few different places where dry ice wasn't available, so this is what I did instead.

I think both strategies are important, and should be used together.

 

[dopecook]

Ahh, my secret quick dewax method!

If you've frozen all your tane and columns, then do the extraction, you can pretty much just let the bucket hang out for about 10 minutes before you recover. In that 10 minutes, more wax's fall out than my filter paper knows what to do with. Using the everything super cold method, i "dewax" in a matter of minutes at the end of my run. this gives me CRYSTAL CLEAR shatter.

So I think your on to something!

(but i use a welded dry ice sleeve) dry ice costs me about $15/day on average, divided by 4-8 runs... Well, it's expensive...

 

[Lono]

Ahh, my secret quick dewax method!

If you've frozen all your tane and columns, then do the extraction, you can pretty much just let the bucket hang out for about 10 minutes before you recover. In that 10 minutes, more wax's fall out than my filter paper knows what to do with. Using the everything super cold method, i "dewax" in a matter of minutes at the end of my run. this gives me CRYSTAL CLEAR shatter.

So I think your on to something!

(but i use a welded dry ice sleeve) dry ice costs me about $15/day on average, divided by 4-8 runs... Well, it's expensive...

$15/day?? That's it?

Did you mean inexpensive or would this really be considered expensive compared to alternatives?

Expensive is pretty relative at the end of the day IMO

 

[dopecook]

Think about that $15 every day, 6 days a week. This is just freezing tane and 2" columns, not dewaxing (i de wax a la minute, like i described above).

haha... before i had my buchner, i used a mesh sieve with coffee filters. pour a little at a time and as soon as one filter clogged up, i just threw it away and used another. culinary school has really stepped my oil game up

 

[dopecook]

I am now wondering about the butterfly valve.... All the butterfly valves I've found come standard with EPDM gaskets which are rated VERY POOR for butane. I called brewers hardware and they said they know of no one making Buna or Viton Gaskets for these...

 

[HashoftheTitans]

Do you think that blasting CO2 gas through your entire system to cool it before you do your initial system purge would significantly drop the temperatures of your equipment and material? I'm not saying pressurizing the system, but just running the gas through and have a vent valve so it can pass straight through the material. Then you could close your valve and run your vacuum to purge out any residual CO2 before continuing on with your normal extraction. But you would be cooling your entire system, giving the butane less chance to heat up. I would think this could help with time spent freezing columns. Just a little more in CO2 costs. However, I don't know if any of there would be large amounts of CO2 in your chamber and what that could do to your recovery pump.

 

[RegisPhilburn1]

Think about that $15 every day, 6 days a week. This is just freezing tane and 2" columns, not dewaxing (i de wax a la minute, like i described above).

haha... before i had my buchner, i used a mesh sieve with coffee filters. pour a little at a time and as soon as one filter clogged up, i just threw it away and used another. culinary school has really stepped my oil game up

I'd love to hear more about your setup, im thinking of making a 8"x12" middle dewaxing chamber on top of one of my 12"x12" bases. There really isnt any way i could fit a view port on my 6" mkiii lid. So is your dewax chamber have a D/I sleeve like the column or are you doing the active way like i described?

15$ bucks a day for DI? do you have your butane tank on dry ice too? or just the column sleeve?

Hows the recovery time withe the D/I sleeve? i always worried the constant cryo temps would work against you towards the end when your recovering.

butterfly valves with viton do exist, my welder had some, ill ask him about it next time im there.

 

[Permacultuure]

Regis,
couldn't we incorporate another dip tube and utilize that as a "siphon" into a secondary spool in order to reduce height?

 

[rb extractors]

https://www.dixonvalve.com/product/B5101V150CC-A

the problem is that butterfly valves that I've seen aren't dry ice rated. :/ The valve listed uses viton gaskets

 

[Gray Wolf]

I think we could get around the need for dry ice. Considering that we are working with a REFRIGERANT I think that we could employ that to our benefit.

Just think of what happens when you recover with no heat on the bottom, and pour, like rbe's method. The waxes fall out of solution do the chilling effect of evaporating butane coupled with the increasing solute concentration, and decreasing solvent amount. The waxes fall out first. Now think if we could watch that with a viewport and when we want to filter, (valve off recovery pump) we pull it through a series of filters (like sweet leaf' ball valve in between, but no sight glass) into another chamber that had a vacuum pulled on it, then we could open the recovery pump to that chamber and recover the remainder of our solvent. And have caught all the waxes in the filters above.

It would be significantly faster than passive, and wouldn't require expensive (and too cold in my opinion) dry ice. I have observed temps at about -20 to -30f on my bottom spool when recovery with no heat, which is about the temps I'd like to hit with dewaxing.

Height would certainly be an issue. A stand would help.


For the" don't extract them in the first place" method, I do something similar to dopecook, I wrap my tube with a couple of these ice sheetfreeze my tubes overnight down to -10f and then remove the ice sheets for recovery. The tube stays at about -5f the whole time. I have worked in a few different places where dry ice wasn't available, so this is what I did instead.

I think both strategies are important, and should be used together.

As we’ve discussed, we’uns favor eliminating most of the wax pick up, extracting with minus -50C butane/mix, but we're also experimenting with de-waxing after the fact, cause dry ice or liquid nitrogen are not always convenient or cheap.

Astute observation ReP. We've measured -27C when evaporating a pool of butane, which is low enough to drop out waxes.

We don’t favor open containers of butane, so we haven’t embraced “pulling early”, with open filtration, and have been looking at other alternatives for subsequent de-waxing.

Leave us not forget the Fire Marshall……………….

Worse yet, to my eternal damnation and discredit, I had to work so hard to get there, that I developed an aversion to pulling early as a teen ager, and it has hung with me. I also have aversions to justifying open containers of liquid butane to a Fire Marshal.

What is missing in a quick temperature plunge, is the time element. You need it cold enough for long enough.

My first thought was to dribble in enough extra butane through the bottom injection port, with an open dump valve and the recovery pump running, to lower the temperatures far enough, long enough, to precipitate out the waxes.

A simple bottom dump pot, through a filter, into a recovery pot is an easy step, except for how tall the thing gets.

The Mk VI uses steps and a walkway, to resolve that issue, but it gets more complicated with a Mk IV or V, if you aren’t seven feet tall.

The Mk VC injects in the bottom and directs the overflowing saturated butane flowing out the vent tube at the top of the column, down through a filtration section between the two columns, before reaching the lower tank.

Prior to the bottom dump, the column is top flushed and scavenged at the bottom, with the flow directed upward through stainless tubing and then downward through the filtration section.

That experiment is in conjunction with a commercial filter manufacturer and heavily dependent on the results of our filter development program. More as that develops.

I also picked up a deep stainless pot and a 20’ length of ½” stainless tubing, from which to construct a subzero heat exchanger at the head of the column, for use in conjunction with a sock filter, followed by a molecular sieve section, to polish the extract before purging.

For those of ya’ll interested, the CO2 folks have started adding ~10% n-Butane to their CO2, so as to cut their cycle time to around one hour. Ya gots to love synergism and how the truth ends up in the middle…………

 

[Gray Wolf]

https://www.dixonvalve.com/product/B5101V150CC-A

the problem is that butterfly valves that I've seen aren't dry ice rated. :/ The valve listed uses viton gaskets

The deeper problem is that butterfly valves aren't as suitable as ball valves for the application.

 

[Grow4Flow]

I had emailed them on FB and it took a couple months for them to get back to me. Their normal response on IG is to bully, mock, make fun of, or make it sound like they know it all, which won't fly here. That is why you haven't seen them back.

Kinda sounds like you on IG, but worse, spit your words and disappear

 

[shiftypickle]

after picking up my MK5 this weekend and doing some serious concept brainstorming for inline dewaxing i still have no idea which direction to go lol. i also have no idea how to properly plumb this beast but thats a different issue altogether (Gray i need some direction and a hand haha)

but on the topic of dewaxing i really want to requisition a used cryo freezer and plumb high flow lines into the interior. while i am aware that is a somewhat complicated and possibly expensive solution; i look to solve problems and not have them return.

the cold boil loop is an incredibly interesting concept to me as well, but im not sure i would be willing to constantly run my pumps that much more

 

[Gray Wolf]

after picking up my MK5 this weekend and doing some serious concept brainstorming for inline dewaxing i still have no idea which direction to go lol. i also have no idea how to properly plumb this beast but thats a different issue altogether (Gray i need some direction and a hand haha)

but on the topic of dewaxing i really want to requisition a used cryo freezer and plumb high flow lines into the interior. while i am aware that is a somewhat complicated and possibly expensive solution; i look to solve problems and not have them return.

the cold boil loop is an incredibly interesting concept to me as well, but im not sure i would be willing to constantly run my pumps that much more

Easy to put a water jacket on a tank to circulate cryo-liquid through. You can also set the tank in a super chilled liquid, and use the cryo-chiller to keep that cold.

 

[Terpp]

Ahh Sweet Leaf. They have a nice line of products. Good people too. I met them at the Denver cup. Best of luck to SL!!!

 

[shiftypickle]

Easy to put a water jacket on a tank to circulate cryo-liquid through. You can also set the tank in a super chilled liquid, and use the cryo-chiller to keep that cold.

i have theories about total extraction at these lower temps, and that its better to extract with warmer butane to get everything and then filter out what you dont want later. maybe im wrong

 

[Gray Wolf]

i have theories about total extraction at these lower temps, and that its better to extract with warmer butane to get everything and then filter out what you dont want later. maybe im wrong

Yup, theories abound for sure. The good news is that you now have a piece of equipment that will support you in doing all the experimenting that you desire. Hoping you will share the results with us as you do!

Let the fun begin! Hee, hee, hee, snicker, snark, snort................

I'll also post the results from the Mk VII when I get an operating prototype. I've already posted the schematic.

It has a post extraction dewaxing loop, which should enable us to compare the monoterpene levels as we vary the butane temperature, without being left with waxes, or having to filter liquid butane in the open.

 

[shiftypickle]

It has a post extraction dewaxing loop, which should enable us to compare the monoterpene levels as we vary the butane temperature, without being left with waxes, or having to filter liquid butane in the open.

I have been doing this temp X time dewaxing experiment for the last few months each time I do a run of personal. So far I have made extremely shattery low flavor oil and then mostly i have made the opposite with very sappy yet ridiculously flavorful oil. I'd like to be able to understand that more

 

[A6 Grower]

terps arent a hard shatter, more terps usually cause the oil to be softer.

 

[shiftypickle]

terps arent a hard shatter, more terps usually cause the oil to be softer.

That comment is completely irrelevant to what I said. I know terps are not a hard substance they are a semi gaseous volatile compound. Obviously you haven't dewaxed very much, the lipid that CAUSES oil to shatter can be precipitated out of the solution very easily through excess low temperature, then separated with a buchner inadvertantly, leaving you with sap

Which is the process and affect I am referring to