Extraction Alcohol Saturation in QWET

[Bekay]

I wonder how much ethanol is needed to extract a high portion or cannabinoids from bud? If I take an oz of bud and portion it into four mason jars and wash&drain the first jar and use it to wash the next jars progressively repeating (topping off to cover the bud in each jar as needed since I do a quick metal seive free drip drain) will I get more medicine into that alcohol? It takes less ethanol than covering an oz of material in one jar. I don't know if it is saturated or not; maybe the second or third jar of fresh material didn't contribute anything due to saturation of the solvent. What do you think?

 

[GoeRilla]

What I have read is that one liter of alcohol can saturate about 15 grams of oil so if there is 10% yield from the buds it means 150 grams of bud to one liter alcohol.
From my own experience it´s not necessary to use more alcohol.

Rilla.

 

[budelee]

I will give this a try tonight( since I was gonna run anyway) ,my plan tho ,is to dump thru the mesh strainer and thru the coffee filter so that the cf can catch the fines/moondust..I think without this step the filters would clog to the point of "shutdown"...does anybody else get the waxes/lipids in the coffee filter ???

 

[Bekay]

@budelee I found that after the three shakes in three minutes (of frozen decarbed bud&trim with freezer chilled Everclear) I just dump the jar contents into a fine mesh strainer, which drains very quickly. Then use the runoff once chilled again to do the next jar of material and repeat as necessary. After the last jar is processed then I filter it through a coffee filter (actually I now use a vacuum filter with #1 filter paper).
Last run I discovered a convenient way to get more free running drained alcohol from the mesh strained material. I collected it all and put it in a Standard Mouth Ball Jar. Use a couple layers of alcohol moistened cheese cloth over the mouth of the jar secured by a threaded lid rid. This will fit inside a Wide Mouth Ball jar so invert into one and put the stacked pair back in the freezer. I took a couple days but I got 4 or 5 fluid ounces of additional ethanol from gravity draining. It is green, not amber like my quick wash. No pressing or wringing necessary. The material was dry at that point.
Good luck Mate.

 

[budelee]

@budelee I found that after the three shakes in three minutes (of frozen decarbed bud&trim with freezer chilled Everclear) I just dump the jar contents into a fine mesh strainer, which drains very quickly. Then use the runoff once chilled again to do the next jar of material and repeat as necessary. After the last jar is processed then I filter it through a coffee filter (actually I now use a vacuum filter with #1 filter paper).
Last run I discovered a convenient way to get more free running drained alcohol from the mesh strained material. I collected it all and put it in a Standard Mouth Ball Jar. Use a couple layers of alcohol moistened cheese cloth over the mouth of the jar secured by a threaded lid rid. This will fit inside a Wide Mouth Ball jar so invert into one and put the stacked pair back in the freezer. I took a couple days but I got 4 or 5 fluid ounces of additional ethanol from gravity draining. It is green, not amber like my quick wash. No pressing or wringing necessary. The material was dry at that point.
Good luck Mate.

So you used the eth do do two washes?? Or did you push it to the 150 gram limit?? I didn't get to run last night but it is priority tonight,,I also use a mesh quick drain strainer,then into the coffee filters,I use the mallita 4 non bleached,the coffee filters catch all the fines waxes and lipids( which also get you smashed when smoked) ...I'm ramblin,but I do plan to rinse fresh material at least three times with the same Everclear and top off as necessary...I hope what I'm sayin makes sense..I'll update this evening with some pics to show my process....

 

[budelee]

@Bekay ,,do you get the waxes in the final filter??

 

[budelee]

Here's all the starting materials ,the bud wasn't weighed so I can't give validity to the saturation point...

the filters I use and the mesh strainer

first run,normally I have more jars set up but since I was using the eth multiple times I needed less jars

i ran all the bud which was all four jars filled half way,three separate times,this is the amount I finished with from the full liter,it does look green and not the normal golden color but the surprise is at the end...

this is 12 filters and all the bud after it was washed once ,I never double run with eth...

this is after the "purge" with a nice golden color..

a pile of "almost" dry sift in the bowl

after it was scraped from the Pyrex it was lightly heated to lay it smooth..

here's the "leftovers from the bud bowl and yes this did pull a lot of chlorophyll from sitting(about 1hour)

here is the finished wax with a nice golden finish( not weighed)

this is a close up of the already ran bud/material and you can see there is still goodies in there,I usually save this till I have an elbo or so then gumby run it
In summary since I didn't weigh anything the saturation thing was a moot point..however I can say that I did use less eth to get this amount..sorry for the long post and not weighing the material ..but I have as much fun extracting and trying different things as smoking the finished product ....Peace

 

[budelee]

Here's the next batch ready for a decarb/dry ,then to the freezer and another extract by Sunday ,Peace...

 

[Bekay]

@Bekay ,,do you get the waxes in the final filter??

I don't think there is anything I would call "wax" but there are some tan to brown fine textured stuff that the metal sieve let through. I have read somewhere that this is husks of trichomes. Wouldn't know. BTW like your pictures.

 

[budelee]

I don't think there is anything I would call "wax" but there are some tan to brown fine textured stuff that the metal sieve let through. I have read somewhere that this is husks of trichomes. Wouldn't know. BTW like your pictures.

Thanks @Bekay ,I did what I could with what I had and although I didn't give or collect and useful data,I did see an improvement in yield compared to the amount of eth,I will use this method from now on,next time I will only do two washed tho and track and record all data...on the "fines" ,I posted a vid from YouTube and the guy is calling it "waxes and lipids" but gives it the name "moondust",I save it and it wil get ya high,it just has a different taste..I plan on cooking it in some coconut oil to see if I can make some super potent capsules someday..I have a large mason jar of it now from all the times I've extracted over the last year..don't know if your interested but I post regularly in the "where's all the eth extractors" thread .peace bro,I'll post more here soon