Cheap Pressure Extractor

[OldMedUser]

I won't even heat up my coffee in a microwave or eat food heated in one. I certainly wouldn't use one to do anything with my meds.

If you are using alcohol, ISO or etoh, and want the resulting oil for smoking as opposed to eating then QWISO is the way to go. For tinctures, RSO, etc then a good long soak at room temp or shorter times with heating will extract everything but the resulting oil will taste pretty crappy for toking. Alcohol absorbs all the water soluble portions too where a pure hydrocarbon like naphtha, butane, etc will not. Very small amounts of water soluble things will be extracted with a hydrocarbon but not much in a quick wash in comparison to alcohol.

 

[BobCajun]

I won't even heat up my coffee in a microwave or eat food heated in one. I certainly wouldn't use one to do anything with my meds.

If you are using alcohol, ISO or etoh, and want the resulting oil for smoking as opposed to eating then QWISO is the way to go. For tinctures, RSO, etc then a good long soak at room temp or shorter times with heating will extract everything but the resulting oil will taste pretty crappy for toking. Alcohol absorbs all the water soluble portions too where a pure hydrocarbon like naphtha, butane, etc will not. Very small amounts of water soluble things will be extracted with a hydrocarbon but not much in a quick wash in comparison to alcohol.

An alternative to microwave is a sonicator. I just found this patent earlier today. It says that 10 minutes in the sonicator at room temperature equals a few hours of refluxing. The patent even has a drawing of a regular jewelry cleaning sonicator that you can buy anywhere, so it's not even special equipment. I don't know how green it would be though.

"Home reflux extractors using 190 proof alcohol solvent are 95%-99% efficient. Home ultrasonic extractors using 190 proof alcohol solvent are 97%-100% efficient."

 

[gwpharms]

An alternative to microwave is a sonicator. I just found this patent earlier today. It says that 10 minutes in the sonicator at room temperature equals a few hours of refluxing. The patent even has a drawing of a regular jewelry cleaning sonicator that you can buy anywhere, so it's not even special equipment. I don't know how green it would be though.

"Home reflux extractors using 190 proof alcohol solvent are 95%-99% efficient. Home ultrasonic extractors using 190 proof alcohol solvent are 97%-100% efficient."

I would like to see some more people use ultrasonic and share their findings. I don't know about cannabis but they are great for other stuff.
Ive seen one negative opinion so far in cannabis forums. Everyone else is loving them

 

[Fadedawg]

Thanks, very nice of you. I'm surprised nobody thought of squeezing the solvent out, maybe they think it would make a dirtier product and maybe it will. Can always clean it up later with carbon though. Who wants to wait around for a big pan of solvent to dry out? Just using a bottle and measuring cup to press the solvent out allowed me to extract 100 g of trim with no more than 200-250 mls of solvent, usually 250 but I put quite a lot on the first squeeze. I've gone back and soaked the used material overnight to see if I could get more but it was only a very small amount and it was dark green and low potency. Three squeezings get probably 95% of the resin, and I use a lot less on the last two squeezes than the first one. I'm sure it could be done with only 200.

We did try recovering more solvent after QWET using a press, but didn't recover much because of evaporation, during the time we transferred it to the press. It seemed like a better idea than it turned out to be. We have already hand pressed the material in a Chinois strainer, while it was still draining.

The material that we seek is on the surface, so pressing ostensibly would be limited to thin films, to keep from simply filling all the plant layer voids with resin.

My best suggestion would be to actually perform the operations that you suggest and report back. Ideas are what drives civilization, but actual experience vets them and carries more weight.

 

[BobCajun]

We did try recovering more solvent after QWET using a press, but didn't recover much because of evaporation, during the time we transferred it to the press. It seemed like a better idea than it turned out to be. We have already hand pressed the material in a Chinois strainer, while it was still draining.

The material that we seek is on the surface, so pressing ostensibly would be limited to thin films, to keep from simply filling all the plant layer voids with resin.

My best suggestion would be to actually perform the operations that you suggest and report back. Ideas are what drives civilization, but actual experience vets them and carries more weight.

Actually I don't get a huge amount more solvent out by pressing with a bottle than just by gravity dripping. It's just my hand pressure though. It's really just the bottle holding the disc of weed in the measuring cup while I tilt it over more than me pressing it, since there's no leverage or anything. I'll try the potato ricer next time though and report back. Just don't have a run scheduled for a while.

 

[BobCajun]

I would like to see some more people use ultrasonic and share their findings. I don't know about cannabis but they are great for other stuff.
Ive seen one negative opinion so far in cannabis forums. Everyone else is loving them
View attachment 3799612 View attachment 3799613

Maybe it bursts the trich heads open. That's got to help. If the material is not ground up then maybe the ultrasound won't extract leaf oil, which is a thin green oil low in potency. It's probably not powerful enough to break up leaf material by itself.

What was the one negative opinion you read, btw? Also I read that the untrasonic "probe" works better than the baths. You just stick it into the top of the container. Here's a pic from.

 

[BobCajun]

I tried the potato ricer out last time I made some oil and turned out to be pretty useless. First I squeezed the solvent out the usual way, by pressing the bottom of a clean bottle into a measuring cup while holding it tilted. After that I wanted to see if I could squeeze more out with the ricer. Didn't get one drop out of it, plus it was close to bending from me squeezing it. Apparently that model isn't very strong.

So anyway the bottle and measuring cup is easy and works. Actually almost all of the solvent comes out just by holding it tilted and not even pressing on the bottle. I just get a few drops more by pressing on it.