Tips and Tools

Troubleshooting Tips and Tools

Introduction

This page will serve as the Index for the shop manual as well as other pages scattered through the website.  

Setup

Tip: Use Oven Bags when decarbing. if you live in a “No Skunk Zone”, then Oven bags will help contain the smell. Vent the bags outdoors after the jars cool down. This works well but isn’t perfect. Some odors typically leak.

Wash

Tip: Isopropyl only needs 20 seconds to strip the plant surface of lipids. No need for hour long soaks. Room temp Isopropyl does the work in under 30 seconds QWISO soaks slow down. Wash for 3 minutes with Isopropyl under 4c/32f.

Silting

Tip: Best using 99% Isopropyl as 91% has water that will interfere with the extraction. A layer of phospholipids appears between the top Isopropyl layer and the bottom water layer. 

Fix: 91% works with Water Degumming but needs additional salt to compensate for the additional water content.

Tip: Use anti-caking free, non-iodine salt. Anti-caking material may be the source of the Snow Globe effect. Pickling and Kosher salts are available with out  anti-caking.  

Distill

Fix: Oils disappear turning into black sand and sink to the bottom. Add 30g/1oz salt to the boiler then reboil and the oils will float to the surface. A window of salinity between Salting-In and Salting-Out causes oils to lose cohesiveness, ball up and sink as tar balls. Higher concentration of salt and temperature will cause the oils to resurface.

Tip: Use cold and heat to manipulate the oil. Ice cold temps solidify the oil, heat allows it to run. Heating the oil with hot water allows it to release any retainedsalt and water. Water and oil don’t mix so separation is easy.

Tip: Use a damp paper towel to absorb water droplets. After dumping the rinse water, dab away any water droplets with a damp paper towel. Wet a paper towel, wring it dry. Water makes it polar so the oils don’t stick. Polarity working in our favor. A damp paper towel absorbs water, not oil.

Winterize

Tip: Rapid Winterization works when the oil is higher in concentration than ethanol. Don’t over dilute the oils with a lot of Ethanol. Use only enough ethanol to dissolve the oils. Add just enough to move from syrupy to watery.

Reduce

Tip: Avoid additional water. The only water introduced here should be the water content in the ethanol.

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