"Yellow Dragon" cold alcohol extraction...can you do multiple washes? If so how much?

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
I let it completely dry out. Then reheat the Pyrex dish so it melts a little and then scrape it up. Scraping crystals or watery goo is a PITA.
The past few times, I've evaporated it all the way down then used a teaspoon of alcohol (the same 196p I use for the extraction) to re-liquify it and pour. I think once you get the last of the water out from the extraction process, it works pretty well. I don't have a good silicon vessel to try to evaporate with yet, so until I grab one, this will do I guess.
 

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Boiling point for ethanol is ~160F
Water goes last & takes longest
This is the reason I’ve adapted to silicon as a drying surface.

I’ve never found a satisfactory way of cleaning it all up from glass (even w/ heavy scraping skills) except to rewash & evaporate. Silicon, OTOH, can be simply set aside in a safe place (like an uncooled garage, or even carport (airflow will make up the difference). Once it’s dry (only a matter of time) it’s easily picked off with a probe & transferred to another container, where I find it does well to just sit for a while before using

For me, it’s been the absolute least-effort / best-result solution to the topic.

I realize this is a growers’ board (why I’m here), and I’m speaking to multiple generations, so not everyone will share - or even understand - the waste-not mindset that grew in the scarcity and general unavailability of the 60s. In the beginning, no one had any or knew anyone with a line on some; then some would show up from somewhere, the word would start to pass, and you’d hope you had $10 and got there before the next guy.

Lather, rinse, repeat…. As a result, NOTHING got wasted: bracts, every stem, even seeds.

Pretty sure there’re some long time growers who got started by deciding it was better to try growing them than to pretend they’d get high smoking them. Lotta seed stashes started then, too.

Flash forward 60+ years, and I’ll bet those habits still exist for many of the old ones who still or again *aren’t* able to grow. Conservation of resin in all its forms is an organizing principle for me as long as I don’t have enough to do what I want with & still not run out.

Pardon the sudden outburst of context….

Currently trying a reduction by dry crockpot. Temps are sitting at ~120F which on paper would seem too low, but is indeed pulling fluid from all the jars, whether the ones that are nearly done and have precipitated or not. I just haven't had a chance to find a decent small sized silicon something to do much more yet.
 

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Working from home today and I have a fair amount of unsupervised down time...so I decided to try to crockpot reduce these jars.

IMG_4002.jpg

Leaving the pot uncovered and set to high, the temps are ~150F, and across about 6 hours has reduced these pretty well. One is finished completely, two are nearly there, then three have about an inch or slightly less still to go. Definitely picked up the tempo, doing in hours what normally takes days.
 

DancesWithWeeds

Well-Known Member
You could buy a small still and hotplate for a couple hundred bucks. That would save almost all your Ever Clear. If you are going to make very much it would save a LOT of money and make life a little easier. Ypu could even get away with using a hand pump instead of an expensive lab pump for your sitll. If no leaks it will hold most of the vacumm. and you would only have to pump it two to\wo or three times thru the whole process.
 

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
You could buy a small still and hotplate for a couple hundred bucks. That would save almost all your Ever Clear. If you are going to make very much it would save a LOT of money and make life a little easier. Ypu could even get away with using a hand pump instead of an expensive lab pump for your sitll. If no leaks it will hold most of the vacumm. and you would only have to pump it two to\wo or three times thru the whole process.
If I end up doing more of this down the road, I'll definitely look into something for 'recovery.' I've been buying half-gallon sized bottles of Spirytus @ 35$ which hasn't been unreasonable, but I don't mind running less wastefully.

After gaming out my numbers from the batch of chocolate I made this last week and doing some self-testing, I think I'm at ~7-10mg per square/serving at 96 servings per batch which ends up being a low percent of extraction (likely less than 10%), so I'm going to play around with extraction length. I previously did the cold temps but much longer time (a few days, not minutes), so I may bump up my washes and see how that ends up going. It seems wasteful to leave behind so much potential.
 

DancesWithWeeds

Well-Known Member
If I end up doing more of this down the road, I'll definitely look into something for 'recovery.' I've been buying half-gallon sized bottles of Spirytus @ 35$ which hasn't been unreasonable, but I don't mind running less wastefully.

After gaming out my numbers from the batch of chocolate I made this last week and doing some self-testing, I think I'm at ~7-10mg per square/serving at 96 servings per batch which ends up being a low percent of extraction (likely less than 10%), so I'm going to play around with extraction length. I previously did the cold temps but much longer time (a few days, not minutes), so I may bump up my washes and see how that ends up going. It seems wasteful to leave behind so much potential.
I make quite a bit of RSO. I do an ethonal (EC) quick wash, 60 seconds of frozen bud and EC. I have found that if I do a second wash it picks up green, gets bitter, and cost more EC than I get oil. The second wash is poor quality, and you don't get enough to make it worth while.

At best I loose about 20% of my EC on each run and that much of the RSO in still left in the waste.

This is what I do with my waste. I seal it in plastic jars and save it until winter, then it becomes "Sterno" to heat my workshop.
 
When doing sub-zero extraction, I do only one wash/soak and set that aside. I will then do a second wash at room temp and pull whatever is left. The second wash is saved and used elsewhere.

If only doing one wash, then ensure there is enough solvent to capture all available important cannabinoids with one wash. I typically use 1.5L solvent for every 1oz flower.

Have all components (solvent, flower, and filters) in freezer and down to temp before adding solvent to flower. This includes having flower in a jar already ground and frozen. The finer the flower is broken up, the better the extraction. I will let it soak for hours. Even a day or so.
 
When doing sub-zero extraction, I do only one wash/soak and set that aside. I will then do a second wash at room temp and pull whatever is left. The second wash is saved and used elsewhere.

If only doing one wash, then ensure there is enough solvent to capture all available important cannabinoids with one wash. I typically use 1.5L solvent for every 1oz flower.

Have all components (solvent, flower, and filters) in freezer and down to temp before adding solvent to flower. This includes having flower in a jar already ground and frozen. The finer the flower is broken up, the better the extraction. I will let it soak for hours. Even a day or so.
I cant edit the above post. I made a mistake.

In my above post, I stated I use approx. 1.5L solvent/ounce flower. That is incorrect. That was based on a 2oz bud batch. So typically about 750ml/oz.

This might seem excess and a waste. But I want to have the potential to capture as much goodness as possible with one wash. I recover the solvent so it isnt a total write-off.
 
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