So this is my first attempt at short path distilling THC. I’ve come to find many people in this industry want to safeguard techniques as hey think it’s their own pattented method so feel free to correct anything you see as it’s just a product of misinformation. I can’t geow if you don’t correct me. Right now I am looking at washing BHO with Ethel alcohol/ oleat as my starting crude oil to take my first passes out of. I’ve been told you can simply wash full decarbed flower with ethyl to start from scratch but extracting the THC from a bho mixture should prevent having to deal with the odorous stage and all/most of the dumping involved before getting to the main body of THC. Really just need more information on getting the crude ready before I can do a trial run. Any feed back is appreciated.
I believe short path distillation is described in Gold's Cannabis Alchemy. I have done it using a still. You can get crude from just ethanol. Nothing else. When you get just the oil, can leave some ethanol in it, it goes to the 'other' short path still That one has to be set up with a heavy vacuum pump, proper glassware, heaters, condenser. Its best to get a tank of nitrogen to bubble through the oil as you are heating under pressure. First the alcohol, then the weird shit (clear smells like hay?) and then the oil... keep it 300? little lower, like 290? I can't remember, depends on pressure and all, just don't burn it! That's why the nitrogen helps. mmm.... missing that frac of oil lately.
So ethyl is good to go on making the crude? What ratio should I use? I have been reading 4 parts ethyl to 1 part bho (4ml to 1ml). Seems correct but unsure. Working with a 500ml mantle so plenty of room to grow just don’t want to waste a bunch of product to start. I make my own bho so just curious, is it easier to just ethyl wash the flower and distill from there? I’ve just head washing bho and ethyl makes for an easy distillation. Don’t burn it seems to always be the general consensus! Lol
What ratio should I use? Something I never paid attention to. If you already have the crude, you just want enough solvent to solubilize the material. As soon as you are short pathing, its going to come off, so if you add more, you will have to cook that off first. So the ethyl is just there to transfer. If you are cooking the crude, then I wouldn't bother cooking it right down, I would leave it in solution and move on to the next phase, short path. So its in the short path, cook it at 85C until its just crude, then crank up the heat to I think ~130C and drop your pressure some, and let that clear layer come off, some heavy terps are probably in there, not sure. Then you max out the vacuum to 10mm mercury, or as low as it will go. You need to use an industrial pump for this, not some diaphragm pump. Now the final crack I can't remember, but just grab your refined oil. This is still not 'refined' to perfection, and was known as cherry oil back in the day. For enhanced refinement, you would use chromatography, or possible achieve better fractionation using thin film evaporation technology. Nevertheless, cherry oil should be golden with a red hue when in mass. I find that its golden. It is not a sticky oil at this stage, not at all like honey oil. Now if your collection is darker than any of that, its burned, and back in the day that was called 'coca cola oil'. To avoid this problem, slow down everything. Slow down heating the apparatus, and let it stabilize at the desired temperature. Here, page 55.
So am I correct in saying I just ethyl wash my bho to make a “crude oil”? Crude I’ve worked with this far is thick, high in a few cannabinoids and terps but also high in fats, lipids and plant waxes.
yes. Yes. Its darker and thicker when methanol is used as solvent, its lighter when you use isopropyl. Refined red is not sticky like crude. Its more like motor oil.
Would it behoove me to wash in iso then opposed to ethyl? Have heard it’s harder to get all the iso out of final product but iso is on hand, ethyl I just order.