Winterization Info

Here's a couple tables I got from patent US 2002/0086438 A1 that some may find helpful. Apparently you do lose significant THC, so it's a personal choice whether it's worth it or not. They did start with crappy 20% THC extract though.

The first tables are a little confusing. I think they started with a certain concentration of ethanol and then added water to bring it to a lower one except for the 90%. The later tables are more clear. You can consult the patent for more details.

Interresting! I wonder if they were grouping THC and THC-a?

Ethanol has a dielectric constant of about 24.5 and water about 80.1, so one effect would be to change the dielectric constant of the solution. Above about 15 is considered polar, so ethanol is polar, but not radically so, and the universal solvent water is radically so.

It occurs to me that might affect THC-a losses, more than THC, because carboxylic acids are polar.

http://depts.washington.edu/eooptic/linkfiles/dielectric_chart[1].pdf

ISO has a dielectric constant of about 17.9, so is barely polar.

They used GC for analysis, so it automatically decarbs everything. It says they make the hexane extract by evaporating below 40 C, so it wasn't decarbed at that point.

That

BobCajun said:

They used GC for analysis, so it automatically decarbs everything. It says they make the hexane extract by evaporating below 40 C, so it wasn't decarbed at that point.

Click to expand...

If we ASSume that the concentrate was in carboxylic acid form until it hit the GC and therefore in the filtration stage as well, then raising the polarity some with water might affect how readily it passes through some filter medium.

Does it say what they were filtering through??

Fadedawg said:

That

If we ASSume that the concentrate was in carboxylic acid form until it hit the GC and therefore in the filtration stage as well, then raising the polarity some with water might affect how readily it passes through some filter medium.

Does it say what they were filtering through??

Click to expand...

Nope, just said filtered. I gave the patent number in the first post. You can download it in pdf form.