Thank you sir for your quick reply. What the temp and pressure parameters you use? In essence what I’m asking is are these the steps to achieve the result?
1. Grind the trim
2. Dehumidify the trim
3. Decarboxylate the trim
4. Load extractor with trim
5. Extract the oil
Thank you again.
You're very welcome! I can't share with you my parameter settings, sorry. But I can discuss these steps.
1. Make sure your starting material is dry and cured properly. Water can actually oxidize your material because it's essentially two thirds oxygen. And it also makes it harder for the oils to separate in the extraction vessel being that water is a weak polar solvent, so it gets dissolved with the CO2 because it's polar too. So it takes away from the CO2 dissolving the oils instead (Essentially it takes longer to extract your material because water gets in the way, while also lowering quality) A great way to dry the material while still preserving the
terpenes is to have a freezer dryer with a vacuum pump.
You also should make sure the plants have been flushed properly. Pesticides are known to dissolve in the CO2 and can contaminate your concentrates.
2. Don't decaroxylate your starting material, you can always do that to the extract after it's been processed. Decarboxylation diminishes the
terpenes so you won't get nearly as much in your concentrates. Only reason I'd decarb my material is for vape cartridges or edibles.
3. I prefer to blend my starting material to make sure most of the plant cells are exposed. A good size reference is to the point of coffee ground size and consistency. If you don't grind your material you're more than likely going to have a lower yield. And don't worry about chlorophyll getting inside your extract. Higher than normal pressures and temperatures will dissolve them so you should be fine if you avoid those parameters.
4. When I load my vessel I LIGHTLY pack the starting material in there and fill it all the way to the top. If you pack your material too hard in the vessel you can create CO2 flow channels that flow around the over-packed areas. So you end up wasting material and get a lower yield.
5. As for extracting my oil, I like to set my parameters to subcritical on my runs. Subcritical preserves the
terpenes and has less fats and waxes because of the low pressure and temperature, but takes longer to process. For every pound at sub you should run your system for about 3 hours. Don't over-run your material either though because you will have the chance of breaking it down more and there's nothing else for the CO2 to dissolve so it can start pulling out chlorophyll from the plant cells.
Some people prefer to run supercritical because it gets a higher yield and takes way less time to process. But the cons of doing that is you'll pull out more fats and waxes, while also diminishing the
terpenes because the high temperature and pressure. Thus you'll have bland low cannabinoid testing extracts. Supercritical runs usually take about an hour per pound to process too.
Subcritical is a sub-cooled liquid and acts as a solvent by passing around the material and dissolves the essential oils.
Supercritical acts as a gas and a liquid so it takes on the properties of gas by passing straight through the plant material while also taking on the properties of liquid by dissolving the essential oils. That's why it takes a shorter amount of time to process your extracts.
Hope that helps you, and anyone else that gets a chance to view this!
