New Grower Megabuds, Rosin and Tinctures OH my!

[Frenjamin Banklin]

It will be better with pictures but none right now. Distillation can be done with any fluid to reduce into it’s separate components. In our case we want to remove water and ethanol from our mixture to get a pure essential oil.

I have lab ware setup up in the form of a mini still like you would see on Moonshiners. And it’s designed to operate under vacuum to reduce the temperature needed for distillation to occur.

 

[Greengoonerauto]

Hello AFN

So here are some pictures of the stars of our little hike in the woods, Megabuds Beast Mode autos. These are under my cob rail and it has 3k/4K Cree Cobs so my camera on my chest phone never knows how to correct. Sorry for the orange hue.

14 days today

Here is one just before I clip the top two fully develop fans. I do this rather than FIM or too. I find in my environment it allows them to bush out better with slowing them down View attachment 1106019
And just after. Megabuds day they will be strong feeders and will want to grow tall so I’ll be doing my best to feed them and stay in top of them to control height. View attachment 1106020
And then another in the temporary 5 gallon. When these girls get big enough to start some tying down in a week or two, then I’ll give them some numbers. But for now only one looks really different View attachment 1106021

And that is our mutant Beast mode
This lopsided little lass has got a few mutant nodes so far and doesn’t seem to know what she’s supposed to do. Healthy mutant so it gets a chance.View attachment 1106022

Another of the 5 gallon temporary buckets View attachment 1106023


So far the plants don’t have any alarming issues. They each have a twisted leave or two and the odd deformed edge. Happy with the health so far.

And then for now the BD clones after a couples days of 12/12. Stretching, fed them after this picture. They are hungry. Just threw 2 tsp of Megacrop in the buckets, and 3ml each of some silica. View attachment 1106024
Four in five gallons under single cob rail running about 130 now. Will push it to 100w per plant in full flower. Hoping this second run will be better than the first. Temps are much better now as we head into fall View attachment 1106025


And as far as the shenanigans goes we still need to get some dried flower first. Another day or two away and then I need to jar and wait till I have time to dry sift.

Did a run through the distillation setup with just plain grain to see how it’s running and clean it out. I was able to start evaporating off the grain around 140 degrees F, as opposed to 175. So the water should evaporate of at around 180. Which will be much lower temperatures than I had been using before. Using a cheap $50 vacuum pump so not sure I’m going to get more vacuum then that. Was hoping for a bit lower. Have some tweaks that might help when it’s time.

And that’s all for now.

FB

Plants looking great, like the use of the word shenanigans, another great Irish word

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

So I’m having trouble with the new format

Can’t for the life of me see any page numbers once in thread. No matter the format I choose.

Now I can’t get the attach files pop up to close so I can see text box and type text along with my pictures.

Can’t scroll down to select settings in drop down, not even sure what I could change if I could.

And just bold ( although now bolder) for unread threads still doesn’t seem to be clear enough at a glance. Maybe they need flags

Could just be my really old IPhone and Safari browser.

Anyway enjoy the pictures.

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

Going to try to type text and then add pictures.

Here are the @MegaBuds Beast Mode autos at day 21. They are staying short so far with some defoliation of the main stem. This should allow 5 dominant cola to fight for light. They are nearly ready to start pulling open and LST. They are currently 10-12 inches around and about 6-8 inches high. All have similar structures except the mutant.

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

@Mcdee
@Son of Hobbes
I have seen the extract craft turbo unit and it’s very nice for what it does. It was the unit that gave me the inspiration to try a vacuum distillation setup. Everything I have purchased here is less that half the price of the extract craft and solves a few issues people have with the extract craft. I am able to run a much larger source of ice water to constantly maintain the perfect temperature in the condenser. And without having to constantly change our ice and have it everywhere. I can start with 1000 ml of liquid giving me much higher volume of final product if needed. And as a bonus the hot plate is a stirrer to keep product uniformly heated. With this setup you can also see what is going on at all times.

I’m going to make several small posts. As I’m still working through the new format and my fat fingers in my little phone have screwed up enough.

First picture is just an accessory. Buchner filter and flask. I use this with Buchner filter discs and coffee filter as a backup. I’ll journal this in a week or two but essentially for Those that aren’t aware. A Buchner filter allows you to filter your QWET or any other liquid that may contain sediment more quickly and efficiently. If you have ever filtered and been standing around waiting for the liquid to drain through then you know what I mean. When using frozen QWET you want to pull it through fast before the fats and lipids melt. Impossible without the Buchner filter.

And this is the overview of the
Hot plate
Vacuum distillation setup
Pump

Of course the lines are not hooked up and the water source for the condenser is not shown but I’ll explain in the next post.

For those following along in the thread this is a small break from our hike and jumping ahead a bit. I was hoping to dry sift all of my recent harvest today but it was still so sticky that I just couldn’t do it. Soon though. But since I know some were interested to see this setup and it came up in another thread it seemed like a good time.

Several more posts to come.

FB

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

Meat and potatoes
The first picture shows you vessel for your QWET or whatever other liquid you have been bet you would like to distill. This unit can be run under Vacuum or without. Vacuum allows much lower boiling temperature of liquids for those that want to convert less compounds. This setup can be used to distill any lower proof ethanol into very high proof also. For those that don’t have access to ever clear or other high proof liquid.

The starting vessel here is a 500 or 1000ml flask with a 24/40 lab fitting on top. I have several sizes of starting vessels so that I can drop down in size as I reduce the liquid. More efficient and in the end I want my oil in the smallest vessel to reduce loss through transfer.

On top of the flask is a joint designed to connect to any additional apparatus that is 24/40. This fitting has an additional small port at the top that you can fit a gauge into or a thermometer. I have a red cap to seal vacuum. To the right of this fitting and next along the vapors path is the condenser.

So the whole objective of distillation is to remove one component from the other by taking advantage of different boiling points. Here we want to remove Ethanol first and then water. But we don’t want to let that ethanol go to waste. This next part is the condenser and it lower the temperature of the vapor so that it turns back into a liquid. This glass condenser has an inner tube where the vapor travels through and an outer sleeve that will contain a water circulation.

You can see two nipples where hoses attach. The lower nipple will receive a supply from a cheap $7 pump placed in a five gallon bucket of ice water. And the top nipple will get a hose that returns the water to the bucket. I fill the bucket half way with water and have frozen block I make in freezer bags that I drop in. This will last through the biggest runs.

High grade ethanol drips out the right side and into a collection flask. Without vacuum you will get your ethanol at 175 degrees Fahrenheit. Obviously then water at 212 depending on location. I’m at sea level.

Next post coming up.

FB

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

After the condenser there is another fitting. This fitting is also 24/40 and allows you put a vacuum on the entire closed system. It’s is double wall and allows the liquid to drip down into final collection flask without being pulled out into the atmosphere. You can see a nipple on the right that will get the vacuum hose attached.

And you can see the cheap pump I am using. Also to the left a small 100ml that will be the final vessel to go on hot plate during reduction.

And here is the hot plate. Nothing fancy and you will not cook in it. It can boil off water in smaller vessels without vacuum. But it’s not that’s strong, it certainly won’t cook your pasta. But it works great for this setup. And it might have been $39 ?

So that’s the setup that accomplishes the same tasks as the extraction equipment you can buy online. Of course I don’t use it to infuse butters or create tinctures butctge components can be setup in many configurations. You could use the hot plate/ stirrer for infusion if you really wanted.

All of this equipment gets stored with all my brewing and distillation equipment. You can use it for many different essential oil extractions. Many of the components here are also used to create yeast starters for beer brewing.

Getting ready to watch some football and have an elevated afternoon. I’ll be doing a lot more in depth discussion when I get to this point in the thread but if anyone has thoughts now I’ll try to respond.

Disclaimer. You can get hurt with, vacuum, glass, heat, ethanol and just plain carelessness. If you are not able to manage a safe work environment with PPE and responsible operation of adult tools then you should not use any of this equipment. This equipment can be used to make very pure essential oils but can also be used for other purposes that are not legal in many places. I will be making essential oils for my own personal use when journaling this setup. I will not promote, advocate or otherwise advise those that may be going into other directions.

FB

 

[FullAuto245]

Awesome stuff and very informative!

 

[baked in the bluegrass]

@Mcdee
@Son of Hobbes
I have seen the extract craft turbo unit and it’s very nice for what it does. It was the unit that gave me the inspiration to try a vacuum distillation setup. Everything I have purchased here is less that half the price of the extract craft and solves a few issues people have with the extract craft. I am able to run a much larger source of ice water to constantly maintain the perfect temperature in the condenser. And without having to constantly change our ice and have it everywhere. I can start with 1000 ml of liquid giving me much higher volume of final product if needed. And as a bonus the hot plate is a stirrer to keep product uniformly heated. With this setup you can also see what is going on at all times.

I’m going to make several small posts. As I’m still working through the new format and my fat fingers in my little phone have screwed up enough.

First picture is just an accessory. Buchner filter and flask. I use this with Buchner filter discs and coffee filter as a backup. I’ll journal this in a week or two but essentially for Those that aren’t aware. A Buchner filter allows you to filter your QWET or any other liquid that may contain sediment more quickly and efficiently. If you have ever filtered and been standing around waiting for the liquid to drain through then you know what I mean. When using frozen QWET you want to pull it through fast before the fats and lipids melt. Impossible without the Buchner filter.

View attachment 1108923

And this is the overview of the
Hot plate
Vacuum distillation setup
Pump

Of course the lines are not hooked up and the water source for the condenser is not shown but I’ll explain in the next post.
View attachment 1108924

For those following along in the thread this is a small break from our hike and jumping ahead a bit. I was hoping to dry sift all of my recent harvest today but it was still so sticky that I just couldn’t do it. Soon though. But since I know some were interested to see this setup and it came up in another thread it seemed like a good time.

Several more posts to come.

FB

this is amazing!
hey, what do you sift with?