ethanol oil not burning clean

how clean(dirty) is your dab station

  • looks like the crusty public bathroom at the bus station

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • only completely clogged with what your going to scrape off and "reclaim" ... "eventually"

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • as clean as expeted for weed-rock smoking hippie that sat at home all day getting lit

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • your friends cant hit it without heckling you about it just a little

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • clean as fuck

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • little cleaner than fuck

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • i put my rig in an autoclave

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1

norcalmopar

Active Member
Iv made ISO oils, wax, shatter, etc for years. Stopped because it seemed to be a foreign concept, intimidate, or be too potent for most people I mostly stopped making it except as personal joint lube. Now that dabbing seems to be the fad of the decade, figured might as well throw my hat in the ring with everyone smoking poorly made butane waxes, not to bash, if you know what your doing. my first batch really surprised me, I took my GC and half my GDP rinsed and purged it and it looked good, I was short on time and didn't chill anything so I wasn't expecting anything solid, but it turned out it was a robust and translucent purple with an emerald and gold undertone and looked\tasted fantastic. I never had any oil leave any kind of gnarly residue when dabbed, until now. Temp and only a few minor things where different.. Iv read this is common, but why now? What's going on?

Differences--

I started using 95% self distilled grain alcohol. Could this be stripping too many fats, oils, chlor, lipids? I usually get some milky coloration near the end of the last low heat purge I assume are just fats and lipids and usually ignore as it is never permanent and seems to completely evaporated off(or, does it?) never had ISO pull extra crap in a quick rinse before, ethanol is supposed to be less damaging to the plant matter and the walls of cells which contain chlorophyll right?

I am using 35gal canvas and polyester bubble bags of 160-73-25 micron. The instructions state that you can clean the bags with ISO, so I assumed they would be safe to use, and highly doubt anything from the bags was pulled from the rinses from the color, flavor, overall quality of the oil. 25 micron should be fine especially if most plant particles get caught in the 73. And the 160 is the rinse bad

Other than that, all I can think of is my bud is to good, too many terps and fats? Something used in my hydro set up? Its all organic,

Thanks to all the feedback in advance
 
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lio lacidem

Well-Known Member
How could your bud being to good cause oil not to melt completely. Sounds to me it wasnt filtered properly and some unseen matter got in there. A 25 micron bubble bag isnt enough imho
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
It looks super clear, in the picture you can see the oven rack clearly with no obvious debris or contaminants and I can read standard size 12 font through it. It dabs really clean until this black sooty ash seems to bubble up from nowhere in the middle of the puddle and eventually leaves residue an area slightly less than the entire dab. You wouldn't notice I don't think if your nail was "seasoned" but it is noticeably dirtying on clean quartz.
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
What's a standard coffee filter? id be amazed if it was finer than 25 but you learn something everyday

too good was sarcastic, not the best medium I know.

It melts and turns to vapor just leaves a small slightly sooty blemish. Never had any other batch except this one act this way, I always used big'ol unbleached paper filters, what's best filter people have found?
 

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Iv made ISO oils, wax, shatter, etc for years. Stopped because it seemed to be a foreign concept, intimidate, or be too potent for most people I mostly stopped making it except as personal joint lube. Now that dabbing seems to be the fad of the decade, figured might as well throw my hat in the ring with everyone smoking poorly made butane waxes, not to bash, if you know what your doing. my first batch really surprised me, I took my GC and half my GDP rinsed and purged it and it looked good, I was short on time and didn't chill anything so I wasn't expecting anything solid, but it turned out it was a robust and translucent purple with an emerald and gold undertone and looked\tasted fantastic. I never had any oil leave any kind of gnarly residue when dabbed, until now. Temp and only a few minor things where different.. Iv read this is common, but why now? What's going on?

Differences--

I started using 95% self distilled grain alcohol. Could this be stripping too many fats, oils, chlor, lipids? I usually get some milky coloration near the end of the last low heat purge I assume are just fats and lipids and usually ignore as it is never permanent and seems to completely evaporated off(or, does it?) never had ISO pull extra crap in a quick rinse before, ethanol is supposed to be less damaging to the plant matter and the walls of cells which contain chlorophyll right?

I am using 35gal canvas and polyester bubble bags of 160-73-25 micron. The instructions state that you can clean the bags with ISO, so I assumed they would be safe to use, and highly doubt anything from the bags was pulled from the rinses from the color, flavor, overall quality of the oil. 25 micron should be fine especially if most plant particles get caught in the 73. And the 160 is the rinse bad

Other than that, all I can think of is my bud is to good, too many terps and fats? Something used in my hydro set up? Its all organic,

Thanks to all the feedback in advance
The milky near the end is water and alcohol mixed.

What temperature was the material and alcohol when you did your extraction?

How did you determine the percentage of ethanol when you distilled it?
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
Everything was slightly chilled when rinsed, and I was doing a warm water bath just to save time.

I started with 160 proof and distill the water out. here in Cali its as close as i can vet to 200 proof ever clear. Ethanol will pull %5 water from the air anyways. I guess realistically "I don't know" but its as good as Incan get it right now.
When I was younger I did %70 and %91 ISO runs, I know %70 sucks but is manageable. figured distilled ethanol would be less harsh on my plant material.

I might try winterizing it, isn't ISO polarized differently than alcohol? Would there be any advantage to trying this?
I have had runs get dirty and had to re-dissolve, restrain. Its always been visible or a clearly caused. if that's what's going on here, can a filter catch everything at this point if I used ISO to dissolve? What's fine enough?
 

warble

Well-Known Member
Coffee filters are 5-20microns. Be amazed or look at your 25micron bag and look at a coffee filter to compare. I know its like rocket surgery, but we all catch on eventually.
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
The only thing I can imaging catching microscopic particles is a cloth filter, like 5u or less. I'll invest in this if someone can tell me they why they will work, and why my 25u bag didn't. Most coffee filters seem to be between 20u and 10u which is not so far off from 25u. I doubt quality control on disposable paper filters is top notch. If I filter through a .02u water filter will I lose anything important like terps? If between 5u and 20u works, at what point does less than 5u become too reatrictive
 
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Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Everything was slightly chilled when rinsed, and I was doing a warm water bath just to save time.

If you will freeze the material to 0F as well as the ethanol, you will pick up less water from the plant material.

I started with 160 proof and distill the water out. here in Cali its as close as i can vet to 200 proof ever clear. Ethanol will pull %5 water from the air anyways. I guess realistically "I don't know" but its as good as Incan get it right now.

You might pick up a hydrometer from the local brew store or scientific supply.

When I was younger I did %70 and %91 ISO runs, I know %70 sucks but is manageable. figured distilled ethanol would be less harsh on my plant material.

I might try winterizing it, isn't ISO polarized differently than alcohol? Would there be any advantage to trying this?

You can remove some plant waxes from a QWISO using ethanol or methanol, and from an ethanol using methanol, but alcohol extractions don't extract great amounts of wax in the first place.

I have had runs get dirty and had to re-dissolve, restrain. Its always been visible or a clearly caused. if that's what's going on here, can a filter catch everything at this point if I used ISO to dissolve? What's fine enough?
If you have suspended solids, dissolving in a small amount of ethanol and refiltering, would be a good way to get rid of them.
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
If you have suspended solids, dissolving in a small amount of ethanol and refiltering, would be a good way to get rid of them.
Thanks for the useful insight, I'm now more curious. how fine a filter is too fine? What is the finest filter anybody has used? At this point I should be able to use something below 1u in one stage filter, but on initial quick rinse will a two stage filter of 25u then -1u or progressively work down in more steps from the -5u range work better? Clog less?
 
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Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the useful insight, I'm now more curious. how fine a filter is too fine? What is the finest filter anybody has used? At this point I should be able to use something below 1u in one stage filter, but on initial quick rinse will a two stage filter of 25u then -1u or progressively work down in more steps from the -5u range work better? Clog less?
We start at about 25 microns and work our way down to 0.2 microns if we are going for bragging rights.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
I was just talking to a guy the other day about getting some syringe filters to try filtering a batch.
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
Yeah, getting the goo out, is the hardest part. And even with 100% ethanol to winterize the BHO, it still soaks water from the atmosphere as it evaporates. Highly hydroscopic as they say.

I am considering using a set of Micron graded bags to contain the material in the extractor col. That way I can get maybe 10 micron filtration on the outside bag before any of the solvent enters the bottom chamber of the extractor.
 
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Thundercat

Well-Known Member
I've looked into buying them before, but havn't pulled the trigger. I don't have any issues with melt on my A grade stuff and don't really care as much about the B grade. The guy I talked to the other day was a chemist, and I was trying to get him to score me a few to try out before I bother messing with ordering any.
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
This kind of thing, or some water filters was what I was looking at, seems like they'll be best. The syringes are simply to small to process the quantity I need. I don't want to spend hours trying to filter several gallons.

I'm not having any moisture, consistency, or full melt issues, simply unsatisfied by the residue left on the nail after a dab. Not much, seen worse, but I don't like it. not gonna happen, but I WANT the nail to look shooooooo clean its like I just cleaned it even after 4-5 dabs. Make me feel better about my lungs (like there's any difference, it was in the herb 2 begin with).

In peoples general experience, is there a difference in the effectiveness of filtration with vacuume vs. pressure? Would a pump through .1u water purifier work as well as a good sized vacuumed filter of the same size? Or would finer than a 10u paper pre-filter be needed to pass through the .1u easily even after extraction?

I.E.
I'm thinking, 10u paper filters for extraction, and then again after chilled -0F and the fats/oils have coagulated. I would then progress to a.1u water filter. Or will this clog the .1u?

Thanks for the input in advance...
 

norcalmopar

Active Member
Yeah, getting the goo out, is the hardest part. And even with 100% ethanol to winterize the BHO, it still soaks water from the atmosphere as it evaporates. Highly hydroscopic as they say.

I am considering using a set of Micron graded bags to contain the material in the extractor col. That way I can get maybe 10 micron filtration on the outside bag before any of the solvent enters the bottom chamber of the extractor.
True, but I'm not doing a BHO... I like to use only ingredients I would ingest in whole independently (ethanol+herb). I already like booze, and smoke flowers, that's just my preference. I'm also not a big fan of releasing greenhouse gasses directly into the O-zone from a can...that's what a 426 MAX Wedge is for....

 

Doer

Well-Known Member
True, but I'm not doing a BHO... I like to use only ingredients I would ingest in whole independently (ethanol+herb). I already like booze, and smoke flowers, that's just my preference. I'm also not a big fan of releasing greenhouse gasses directly into the O-zone from a can...that's what a 426 MAX Wedge is for....

Gotta ya. I use full recovery, closed loop.
 
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