Hi Kam,
That looks like you got some great medicine. Congratulations! (The medicine I extract myself tastes better to me than the commercial stuff, and I think it helps me more -- but that might all be in my head.)
Your new rig looks quite nice and I find your collection-vessel redesign interesting. Tell me more about that, please. What is the extra hose doing (the one bent back onto itself, with the exit in the water)? Is that a bleed-off into the water? How did that work out? Was there oil in the water afterward? Were you able to recover it? I hadn't thought of trying to process the exiting gas like that. My mug-warmer with stretchy-rubber lid was just designed to slow the escape of the gas, passing tightly between the warm vessel and rubber, to capture the oil on the inside. Before I realized I should be heating it, I would sometimes see a white vapor cloud of transitioning gas escaping (especially from the provided vessel), so I heated it and now the gas escapes transparently (a lot less dense gas, means less oil escaping, I think/hope).
The collection vessel is just an ordinary small jam jar with a 2 piece lid that I drilled two 1/2" holes on it. The blueish hose you see is the exhaust. I thought I can further slow down the escaping CO2 by sticking the exhaust hose back into water, but it didn't go too well because water started to spill out and a made a little mess, so i just redirected the hose upwards instead. I noticed that by keeping the collection vessel in a warm bath, I'm able to capture most of the oil before the CO2 escapes, thus loosing very minuscule amounts during the escape. So I agree with you that transparent gas equals less oil escaping.
I purchased my second tank after I was doing a run and ran out of gas in the middle of it. The stress and anxiety of that made the purchase make sense. Lol -- I didn't want that to happen again. I also found that the tank gets quite cold during an extraction, so the output pressure may drop below the required 800psi minimum. I wrapped my tank in an electric blanket to keep the pressure up, and it helps me get more CO2 out of it. I was having to throw away many pounds of CO2 because the tank has to be empty to fill, but when the tank gets low, the pressure drops.
Yea, I noticed that also. The pressure does seem to drop a bit when the tank gets cold. I'll definitely wrap a small electric blanket.
When I load the reaction chamber, I don't grind my material beforehand. I just remove the stems and drop it into the tube, tapping it down lightly. I usually can get around 26g of material in each run. The directions indicate that if it's packed too tightly, some areas get shielded from extraction, so I keep it slightly loose (tight, but not packed). I only mention this to point out differences in our process -- so we can develop investigation points for quantity and quality experimentation. How are you weighing your material? I am going to start measuring exactly how much material I am putting in the tube, so I'll be able to stop saying, "...around 26g...." LOL The scale I was using (my roommate's Weight Watchers scale, <snicker>) wasn't very accurate, so I purchased a better one.
Through my research, I've learned that the size of the material has a big impact on the efficiency of the extraction process. Too big of a size and CO2 wont dissolve the essentials in time, too small and packed and CO2 will not reach everything. Seems to be a just a matter of getting the art of packing correctly. I watched some of Eden labs videos on YouTube and they recommend particle size of between 1-3mm. Next time I will do 26g with 1-3mm sizes and not packed down too tightly. Let me know what your average particle size is. I'm weighing my material using a digital scale.
Did you get very much oil during the reversed 45 minute extraction? I wasn't sure about that part of the plan, and I actually meant to write 15 minutes for the tube reversal (sorry). My schedule changed, so I think I'm going to run an extraction tonight or tomorrow. More later on that.
Honestly, I don't know if I got much oil. I observed some oil still pushing down the side of the glass jar but again dont know how much it could have been. Let me know if you got the same results from the 15min reversed as you did from the 45min reversed.
As for the heating temperatures, I assumed that the temperatures (as displayed and as needed) were approximate. I read somewhere that the range for THC extraction using this equipment is between 57C and 68C, so nature is looking for approximates, and the device has a target temperature it maintains. This means, if you set it to 60C, it'll fluctuate a few degrees in both directions as the heating element cycles.
Yes I agree, nature is looking for approximates, however, when I set the device to 63C and pointed my laser termometer to the top (above) of chamber I get almost 72C at the midpoint of the chamber and 63-64C at the ends of the chamber which got me wondering what is going on.
I think I recognize your blue heating plate -- is that the one with magnetic stirring capability? I think I bought that very one several months ago, and returned it (I feel like it was broken, but the seller didn't seem to think so). I found it beyond difficult to get it to do what I needed, and when I did, it didn't do it very well, so I returned it. I'm sure it's fine for this, though -- it only needs to provide a little heat. You don't need the water hot, just above room temperature. The gas is going to be cooling the collection vessel constantly, so the temperature of the plate isn't as important as the temperature of the water. Basically, if the water is frozen, it needs to be warmer. :) The water around the collection keeps the vessel "protected" from rapid temp changes. To increase temperatures, you have to heat all of the water, and that mass' energy doesn't change that quickly.
Yes it is a magnetic hot plate. Working fine so far :). It does a great job holding the water temp between 49-50C.
SOrry for the late reply, been busy. But I received better medicine and will be doing couple of more next week :) I think I will be spending more time on the Terpene extraction, more like 30 mins. Will reduce the THC reversed tube step to 30mins. Will let you know what I decide on. In the mean time, let me know how your extraction went and any new findings.
Cheers
COG
