@Fadeddawg,
I was planning on using a fractionating distiller with vacuum and if need, also molecular sieve 3A to extract the water but leave the ethanol.
I do have concerns about using a “pot” still so while the modified BHO generator is cool, this would be a problem legally.
Lab-ware on the other hand sort of falls into a legal gray area.
As far as the heads and tails, I was thinking of just tossing the first 15%-20% of distillate and then doing a bulk distilling of about half the expected volume at which point I would then distill the remaining amount into various containers and place them in order to later be “analyzed” by smell.
Then the distillate that smells most like the initial bulk distillate will be retained and the remaining distillate will be saved for use as a cleaner/disinfector.
Thanks for the suggestion on the use of yeast, but I have done some research on bakers yeast and I believe it will work for my purposes.
10% washes will suit me just fine and I have no problem adding a few days to the ferment so the bakers yeast can get up to 8%-10%.
I would prefer to stay in the azeotrope range, because the alcohol will just revert back to this anyway, so why fight it…
As long as the cannabinoids dissolve in it, that’s all I can ask for, anything more would be just making life harder for no reason.
The idea I proposed isn’t mine, it was taken from a patent application.
US 2016/0228787 A1
It used to be that a patent application that sat for as long as this one would be considered DOA, but I have recently seen patents being granted on applications that are like 6 years old, so this could still be granted and then the patent would be in effect until 2035.
Seems like they are banking on it being granted because they have built an entire business around this idea, despite it’s “patent pending status” for the past 3.5+ years that the application has been sitting.
Here is their website:
https://www.escetllc.com/
There was a video on YouTube that went over the basics of the process but I cannot find it now.
Let me look around, I will find it.
I tried the technique with some olive oil dissolved in 99% iso alcohol.
Then I went through their general process.
The yield back was about 80% of the oil.
This was due to the fact that the sample was so small and the olive oil didn't really freeze, but turned into a paste.
I was trying to mimic my usual yield.
I assume if this were done in a continuous cycle with pounds of cannabis, the loss would be less and certainly less than what is lost due to current industry practices.
The only downside I found was that the amount of water needed to dilute the 99% iso so that the alcohol:water mixture would freeze was quite a bit of water. I suppose the amount of water doesn’t really matter because iso still boils at the same temperature no matter what volume of water it is in, except now it will be an azeotrope, which has a slightly different boiling point.
The beauty of this process is that the majority of it is entirely safe and it may be able to allow commercial cannabis extraction with a reduction regulations due to how safe the process is.
The only dangerous part is the alcohol extraction, which happens once, and is done in a closed loop, so there is nothing lost to the ambient air.
If a fire were to break out from this method, it could be extinguished quite easily.
I will look for the video and post a link when I find it.
Thanks for your input.