Shatter Project

[gateswood]

Random buds. Strain is NYPD 70% sativa. Outdoor grown 2017 until it quit growing and then unceremoniously hung in a barn drying room before eventual storage of branches in coolers. It was untrimmed until I did the trim on the lot. Not skillfully or carefully trimmed but can attest it's very gooey requiring a lot of scissor and finger cleaning. The bud is potent to smoke. I saw the colors of a fire opal in the full, north country moon. It seems to have plenty of trichomes and hope it will make good BHO shatter.

Can I please get an experienced SWAG (Scientific-Wild-Ass-Guess) on what the yield may be from this bud?

 

[aSilvrHaze]

I don't know about the experienced or scientific part, but a good place to start guessing with nug is 20-25% and that last pic looks pretty frosty, so definitely leaning towards 25%

 

[gateswood]

Wow, that would be an awesome yield. All the buds look pretty much like the macro pic on the bottom. All very gooey.

 

[gateswood]

Another question: What major characteristics would bud dried to 50% humidity be showing?

 

[MirrorZen]

These were 2017 outdoor, 15% average return on much better nugs than yours. Do you have a set up yet or is this all hypothetical?

 

[gateswood]

That's nice looking stuff. Do you have any macro pictures of the source material?

The project is real and will begin next week. I have 9 oz of this material to learn with.

 

[aSilvrHaze]

View attachment 806565 View attachment 806568 View attachment 806567
These were 2017 outdoor, 15% average return on much better nugs than yours. Do you have a set up yet or is this all hypothetical?

nice swiss cheese look, care to share the details on that slab? temp and vacuum and length of time in oven?

 

[MirrorZen]

3 different slabs, the bottom 2 slab pics were done at 105 for around 4 days, straight shatter. The 1st slab pic was only 3 days at 99 degrees for more of a terp preservation. Just depends on the material and what I feel like doing. If the terps are unappealing or even strange, I shoot to make terpless shatter. @aSilvrHaze

 

[gateswood]

I did my first extraction today. 14.45 grams of bud, clipped into small pieces with scissors and left to rest in a jar for a few days. I did the extraction in a 90 gram closed column. The half-Z more that halfway filled the column, very loosely packed.

I stored the loaded column and butane in the freezer overnight. I put the first can in under vacuum and soaked 5 minutes before release. Second wash was one more frozen can into normal atmosphere within the column. Again, I let it soak for 5 minutes before releasing.

A couple of things really surprised me about this operation. The herb came out dry and still has a fairly potent smell. One bud no longer stinks up a room but it does smell like there ought to be some goodness left inside. Is this normal?

I do think I got most everything out of it. The bud lost 3.45 grams of weight and a quick and dirty measurement of what's now in the vacuum chamber indicates most of the weight is accounted for but I'm wondering if I should have ground the bud and/or left it to soak longer? I caught no crap at all in my filters. A 150 micron screen over a 50 micron screen on a coffee filter.

Here's what the extracted bud looks like. Is this normal appearance for extracted bud?

 

[gateswood]

Here are my first two pieces of "shatter". From what I've read, the color is probably normal considering the age of the buds. Otherwise it seems nice. I've been holding the temperature to between 90 and 95° F so it has good terpene smell. I vaporized a small taste and it's potent.

It will shatter when it's very cold but at room temperature it's kinda gooey. Push a tool in it and pull a string out of it. What can I do to dry this stuff and harden it?

 

[gateswood]

This is the only other shatter I've ever seen. Somebody sent me a gram and it arrived like this. Completely melted in March.

 

[gateswood]

I winterized 1277 mg of the above pictured material in 15 ml of Everclear 190 proof hoping to dry it out to better solidify it. 2½ days at -6° F then freezer filtered it through a buchner with Whatman #1 paper. This caught 150 mg of lipids.

I let the ethanol evaporate off at 90° F then vacuumed at the same temperature. The only major change is it's even more gooey than it was prior. It used to fracture like glass at refrigerated temperature. Now it merely bends at the same temperature and you have to drop it very quickly to get loose from it.

So what's the trick to making something that's hard and stable at room temperature? I'm thinking maybe my source material wasn't dry enough and/or I boiled off the butane under extreme high humidity conditions. Any validity to these guesses? Another guess is I used too much butane in my closed column. I used two cans both times but the second washes produced produced very little colored fluid. Is one 5-10 minute wash with one can per oz enough when using a closed column?

I'll be running another 1 oz batch next week. (Frozen column and material/cooled butane) The clipped up source material has been drying (very slowly) for days at 45% humidity. There's nothing I can do about the outdoor humidity for the initial butane purge but I wonder if there's some sort of practical upper limit for a successful shatter run. I can't visualize the humidity dropping much below 80% any time soon.

Thanks for any advice offered.

 

[gateswood]

My pseudoshatter may be miserable to work with as is but it does make some nice eliquid. This has a lot of added CBD crystal isolate and will be used as a daytime puff by my brother with cancer. Something to relieve pain in the daytime that won't buzz him out.

So what does it take for a new member who is new at extractions to get some tech advice around here? I need to make something that isn't so horribly gooey.

 

[Dbear180]

Being real with you man, do a lot more research, the info is all out there. I wouldn't touch that stuff you made with a ten ft stick.

 

[MirrorZen]

Check out the concentrates sub forum..

 

[dabarino]

I don't know about the experienced or scientific part, but a good place to start guessing with nug is 20-25% and that last pic looks pretty frosty, so definitely leaning towards 25%

those numbers are very generous best yeild ive ever gotten was 26%

 

[dabarino]

I winterized 1277 mg of the above pictured material in 15 ml of Everclear 190 proof hoping to dry it out to better solidify it. 2½ days at -6° F then freezer filtered it through a buchner with Whatman #1 paper. This caught 150 mg of lipids.

I let the ethanol evaporate off at 90° F then vacuumed at the same temperature. The only major change is it's even more gooey than it was prior. It used to fracture like glass at refrigerated temperature. Now it merely bends at the same temperature and you have to drop it very quickly to get loose from it.

So what's the trick to making something that's hard and stable at room temperature? I'm thinking maybe my source material wasn't dry enough and/or I boiled off the butane under extreme high humidity conditions. Any validity to these guesses? Another guess is I used too much butane in my closed column. I used two cans both times but the second washes produced produced very little colored fluid. Is one 5-10 minute wash with one can per oz enough when using a closed column?

I'll be running another 1 oz batch next week. (Frozen column and material/cooled butane) The clipped up source material has been drying (very slowly) for days at 45% humidity. There's nothing I can do about the outdoor humidity for the initial butane purge but I wonder if there's some sort of practical upper limit for a successful shatter run. I can't visualize the humidity dropping much below 80% any time soon.

Thanks for any advice offered.

my guess is to much solvent left in it

 

[gateswood]

Check out the concentrates sub forum..

I thought this was the only concentrates sub forum.

I've read theory and hypotheses that initial boiling off of butane under high ambient humidity conditions as well as too much moisture left in the source material will cause failure to harden as well as darkening in color. I was simply hoping for some concurrence based on actual practical experience.

 

[EArts]

These are some that I made.

 

[EArts]

I winterized 1277 mg of the above pictured material in 15 ml of Everclear 190 proof hoping to dry it out to better solidify it. 2½ days at -6° F then freezer filtered it through a buchner with Whatman #1 paper. This caught 150 mg of lipids.

I let the ethanol evaporate off at 90° F then vacuumed at the same temperature. The only major change is it's even more gooey than it was prior. It used to fracture like glass at refrigerated temperature. Now it merely bends at the same temperature and you have to drop it very quickly to get loose from it.

So what's the trick to making something that's hard and stable at room temperature? I'm thinking maybe my source material wasn't dry enough and/or I boiled off the butane under extreme high humidity conditions. Any validity to these guesses? Another guess is I used too much butane in my closed column. I used two cans both times but the second washes produced produced very little colored fluid. Is one 5-10 minute wash with one can per oz enough when using a closed column?

I'll be running another 1 oz batch next week. (Frozen column and material/cooled butane) The clipped up source material has been drying (very slowly) for days at 45% humidity. There's nothing I can do about the outdoor humidity for the initial butane purge but I wonder if there's some sort of practical upper limit for a successful shatter run. I can't visualize the humidity dropping much below 80% any time soon.

Thanks for any advice offered.

Don’t winterize without a rotovap ever in my advice. And shatter is strain dependent, I promise you this. It depends on a lot of things mostly terpene profile. Are they hydrophobic or hydrophilic terpenes? Some terpenes allow for the stable state of shatter, which is thca, terpenes, and minor cannabinoids all locked into a very stable state. If you have a closed loop and are dewaxing properly and still not getting shatter, and you’re purging correctly at low enough temps. Its because the terps, terpenes are Hydrocarbons! Aren’t the ones you need! I know for a fact the indoor ATF hydro I grow will shatter everytime. But my GG4 tested out at 95% and wouldn’t shatter if my life depended on it. Most people don’t know that.