I have not heard back from Jason at ExtraktLabs so I just went ahead and purchased 100g of CarbonX. I am just not very patient! It should be here next week. In the meantime I dissolved 10g of QWET in 200 ml of 85% ethanol. Winterized it again (just in case). So now I wait .
The sample from ExtraktLab of CarbonX arrived in the post today. It weighed about 7g. I promptly dumped it into the sludge I have mixed up a couple of days ago. The sample may not be large enough for the task but I have more on the way.
I have some preliminary results and they are good. My buchner funnel setup is not working well and I have a new one and grade 2 filters coming. The CarbonX settles out well so you can see the results. This was the worst extracts I had and they were literally tar and were completely black opaque when mixed with 200 ml of ethanol. I want to run it again after I refresh the CarbonX. This was totally unusable and now I think it will be ok. Here is a picture of what we have so far:
In a few days I will have my new filter and 100g of fresh CarbonX. In the meantime I will wash the CarbonX in hot ethanol and then in boiling water to refresh it. I lost a little because I did not handle it well. It is a learning process.
Next week I will do a fresh run of room temperature ethanol and bud to get a maximum extraction and then see how light in color I can get it with first winterizing it then a CarbonX dispersion and final air drying.
You use a buchner vacuum filter with a [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] filter. The one I have right now is worn out and leaks past the filter paper. I have a new one on the way. I am fairly impressed so far since the QWET in my experiment above was made with a room temperature long extraction of left over rosin chips. This stuff was sludge. I didn't even want to use it in cooking. I figure if it can make this usable then it may really work on other better product. I have a lot more testing to do but I like what I see so far.
You can regenerate the CarbonX and reuse it indefinitely. I am working on the process for something safe to do at home. The first wash is with hot ethanol which can be a fire hazard. Then it is washed with boiling water, dried and is then reusable.
I worked out a method for regenerating the CarbonX. Since I need to distill down some vodka (cheapest 40% money can buy), after the second run I used the hot ethanol ~85 % out of the distiller to wash the CarbonX. I filtered this with a [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] filter. Then I washed it with boiling water and again filtered it out with a [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] filter. I placed this in a bowl to air dry and then will put it back into the experiment jar.
The distiller is the safest place around my house to heat and contain the ethanol; after all that is what it is made for!
The Jar of what used to be sludge is looking better and better................. The jar frosted up immediately when I took it out of the freezer so the picture is not representative of the sample. It is getting much better.
I think I got this batch as colorless as possible. I mean after all this was mission impossible. I used some sludge. I was just going to throw it away. It is still going to be darker than I am trying to achieve. I will be doing a freezer extraction later today or tomorrow. This will be a more realistic trial. In the meantime here is what I did today.
The buchner filter I have been using was supposed to be a use once throw away but being so cheap I removed the filter material. I sanded around the edge and I am using 90 mm filter papers in it. It leaks a little around the edges but I can make it work ok.
I ran the QWET with the CarbonX through the filter 4 times to get all of the CarbonX out.
The last filter paper was almost clean.
Here is a picture of the product headed for the drying chamber.
Here is a picture of a box, AC filter and a exhaust fan I turned into a dustless fan to evaporate off the ethanol.
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