$30k in equipment but do I know what I'm doing?

Q

Qwazi

Member
Aloha,

Long story short. I love dabs and had expressed interest in making it. Voila! I had a turnkey closed loop setup with vacuum ovens given to me along with a steady supply of trim. My problem? Dark oil. I need to know what causes it to be so dark. I would like to see more honey color. What I always get is opaque when thin and up against light but it's always dark. I've learned that starting with really dry material is key to making the end product stable at room temp but I can't figure out how to produce anything other than this dark shatter or snap. Call it what you want. I have no problem with it being this consistency but the color isn't pleasing.

Butane tank is 63 lbs when full. It sits in an ice bath. I generally flush with about 15 to 20 lbs. using a digital scale. Straw valve flows into condenser coil also in the ice bath and then out to top of 4' column flushing oil into a bucket sitting in a hot water bath. Butane then flows out of the bucket into a desiccant dryer and is compressed and returned to the tank by a recovery pump after going through another condenser coil in the ice bath. I pull a vac on the entire system before I start the dump and I wait until the same vac is pulled by the recovery pump before emptying the oil onto trays and putting them in a vac oven at anywhere from 95 to 110 degrees F and as close to 30 inches of vacuum as I can get.

I have tried variations of oven temp, time exposed to butane (one dump or 2), but I've never been able to get a light color product.

I know that the material you start with is important but I've had all kinds. Fresh bud to auto trim. It's driving me crazy trying to figure this out. Please give me your ideas.

I tried to upload a pic but the site is having issues.
 
Fadedawg

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Most of the color in an extract is from the C-30 sized molecules, usually anthro cyanin plant pigments, though it can include chlorophyll. Besides their color pigments, Anthro cyanins are also glucosides or plant sugars, which caramelize and darken with heat.

The way we get light concentrates is leave enough water present to allow us to freeze the material before extracting, to tie the chlorophyll in place, as well as make the C-30 sized molecules more difficult to dissolve. We then use a 70/30 or 50/50 n-Propane/n-butane blend at <-30C for a three volume flood.
 
Q

Qwazi

Member
Hey the site's finally back up. Immediately after I posted it went down for days.

So, the longer material is exposed to ntane the darker it gets. Well, I can't shorten the cycle at all. I'm at the mercy of the recovery pump.

I've been drying the material to crispy crunchy. You say that freezing is a better idea. How do you keep it frozen while doing the recovery? Won't it thaw during that time and dump more water into the mix?
 
Fadedawg

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Qwazi said:
Hey the site's finally back up. Immediately after I posted it went down for days.

So, the longer material is exposed to ntane the darker it gets. Well, I can't shorten the cycle at all. I'm at the mercy of the recovery pump.

I've been drying the material to crispy crunchy. You say that freezing is a better idea. How do you keep it frozen while doing the recovery? Won't it thaw during that time and dump more water into the mix?
Click to expand...
It is only in contact with the material during flooding. During recovery the butane/resin mixture is in the collection tank and the material is still in the column. If you only flood, and not soak, contact time is minimized.

If you use subzero butane and leave the dump valve open during recovery, the butane boiling off will keep the column frozen. It will even form ice on the outside.
 
Q

Qwazi

Member
Fadedawg said:
It is only in contact with the material during flooding. During recovery the butane/resin mixture is in the collection tank and the material is still in the column. If you only flood, and not soak, contact time is minimized.

If you use subzero butane and leave the dump valve open during recovery, the butane boiling off will keep the column frozen. It will even form ice on the outside.
Click to expand...
That is a brilliant idea! Going to try that tomorrow. In the meantime, I bought some 190 proof to see if I can clean up some of this dark stuff.
 
Carolina Dream'n

Carolina Dream'n

Well-Known Member
Qwazi said:
That is a brilliant idea! Going to try that tomorrow. In the meantime, I bought some 190 proof to see if I can clean up some of this dark stuff.
Click to expand...
Don't forget to distill that first. Also a Büchner funnel and filter media will drastically change your color after a good winterization.
 
Q

Qwazi

Member
Qwazi said:
That is a brilliant idea! Going to try that tomorrow. In the meantime, I bought some 190 proof to see if I can clean up some of this dark stuff.
Click to expand...
Not so brilliant. The additional pressure keeps the butane from boiling off. Recovery would take forever if at all.
 
chemphlegm

chemphlegm

Well-Known Member
I have to bleed pressure at least once to recover.
cold material, cold ntane, cold tanks, I got this. I like it much

upload_2017-3-9_7-3-1.png

some winterizedupload_2017-3-9_7-4-16.png
 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
I don't know if it would help with the color but it's always a good idea to treat extracts with activated carbon anyway to remove various crud. You use 3-5% of the weight of the material you extracted, finely powdered carbon mixed up in the solvent containing the extract and allowed to sit for 2-4 hours then filtered. Probably more practical if the solvent is liquid at room temperature like alcohol.

Another possibility would be to put a layer of the carbon at the bottom of the blast column just over the screens, I don't know how much, you'd have to experiment. It would be in contact with the carbon for a shorter time than mixing and sitting but since it's a layer, like maybe an inch thick, it might still work well enough. Could probably use grains of carbon rather than powder with the column method, less would get through the screens.
 
chemphlegm

chemphlegm

Well-Known Member
I use little carbon pouches at the bottom of my column, where the final drip is. I use to spin it with a mag stirrer, was cleaner, but now that sits on the shelf for years.
 
Q

Qwazi

Member
Fadedawg said:
Please explain? That is how we routinely do it and it works well.
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Well, I tried it. Normally when looking in the pot during the recovery, there is active boiling going on. With the vapor valve left open, there is no boiling. Just standing fluid. My run time from ntane dump to completed recovery is about 2 hours. I don't know if it would ever recover with the vapor valve open. If it does, it must take forever!
 
Q

Qwazi

Member
BobCajun said:
I don't know if it would help with the color but it's always a good idea to treat extracts with activated carbon anyway to remove various crud. You use 3-5% of the weight of the material you extracted, finely powdered carbon mixed up in the solvent containing the extract and allowed to sit for 2-4 hours then filtered. Probably more practical if the solvent is liquid at room temperature like alcohol.

Another possibility would be to put a layer of the carbon at the bottom of the blast column just over the screens, I don't know how much, you'd have to experiment. It would be in contact with the carbon for a shorter time than mixing and sitting but since it's a layer, like maybe an inch thick, it might still work well enough. Could probably use grains of carbon rather than powder with the column method, less would get through the screens.
Click to expand...
I like this idea. Now, where to find activated carbon pouches?
 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Qwazi said:
I like this idea. Now, where to find activated carbon pouches?
Click to expand...
I saw some in a department store recently, I think in the water filter section. Could probably use aquarium filter carbon. They sell it in bottles in pet supply stores. Please post the results when you do try it.
 
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