making shatter and need some advice
- Thread starter Diablo3585
- Start date
Diablo3585
Member
yes it's an excellent reference point. so a lot of tutorial videos on youtube say one should purge on a griddle. i didn't see anything in your guide mentioning that. is it necessary to have heat while vacuum purging?
Again, thanks for all the answers guys I wish we could have a stickey for all this stuff
SnapsProvolone
Well-Known Member
Just enough heat to keep your errl fluid enough to allow for butane bubbles to escape.yes it's an excellent reference point. so a lot of tutorial videos on youtube say one should purge on a griddle. i didn't see anything in your guide mentioning that. is it necessary to have heat while vacuum purging?
Again, thanks for all the answers guys I wish we could have a stickey for all this stuff
Flipping your patty helps.
Diablo3585
Member
and that's why you should keep the heat below 110f, correct?
Native Humboldt
Well-Known Member
I'll try and copy a link or look at grass city Forum advanced BHO making its really good and basic method for the processYea he was mentioned earlier in this thread but I've yet to find his method
Diablo3585
Member
thanks mate i would appreciate that.
Native Humboldt
Well-Known Member
The only problem I found with making good shatter is that the flowers that I once loved to smoke taste like crap. The flavor of the shatter is so tasty and the high is leveling. I just blasted a fresh batch of super silver this morning it's in the vac right now so clear looks like broken glass. I usually keep it under vac at 95 deg until the reaction stops flipping the slab every 5 hrs or so. I use a pan of sand to stablIze the temp swing of the hot plateI'm in the process of putting together a closed loop system which should make the process safer and more efficient.
BluJayz
Well-Known Member
Your right I did not mention heat in depth but skimmed it during the vacuum pressure charts..... (The charts were for you to determine how much heat you would use) but Snaps has it....
Some heat is required to keep the top layer molten to allow butane molecules to escape. Cold vac will bring them to the surface but trap them underneath its skin. This is the best diagram I have seen explaining it.
I don't use hotplate/sand method I use a PID controller and a Silicone heating mat made for this type of job. No plug but bestvaluevac offers a kit like this for $90 to fit your chamber size.
Typically I stay below 115F for shatter and under 100F for crumble.
Thus some people with longer purge time and lower heat and higher heat with short purge times.
Some heat is required to keep the top layer molten to allow butane molecules to escape. Cold vac will bring them to the surface but trap them underneath its skin. This is the best diagram I have seen explaining it.
I don't use hotplate/sand method I use a PID controller and a Silicone heating mat made for this type of job. No plug but bestvaluevac offers a kit like this for $90 to fit your chamber size.
Typically I stay below 115F for shatter and under 100F for crumble.
There are hundreds of components to Cannabis extract, each one (terps,cb's,thc's) has its own boiling points. Boiling points are raised under vacuum. Basically you want just enough heat to release the solvant but preserve as many of those "components" as you can.
Thus some people with longer purge time and lower heat and higher heat with short purge times.
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Diablo3585
Member
Man such good info.. I was very nervous before but after reading all of this I feel much better. Going to buy my vac pump tomorrow and going to order my vac chamber on monday. I'll post a new thread with pics once i get my first batch done 
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
Most strains that we tested liquified enough to readily release the bubbles between 110 and 115F.
Diablo3585
Member
I was waiting for you to post haha. Thanks I have all of these numbers written down in my notes. Hopefully I'll be able to make a decent batch my first time
nobody important
Active Member
shatter 101. blast into a pyrex dish sitting in warm water. This is to help rid the bubbling butane faster. No warm water will attract humidity to your mixture as it takes forever to rid of the liquid butane. once the butane has almost completely evaporated (while mixture is still bubbling) quickly transfer over to your vacuum setup by scraping it off onto parchment paper. This most be done while the mixture is slightly reacting still( soft and gooey ). then immediately vacuum with NO heat. room temperature is preferable (77-85 degrees) if you did it fast enough the mixture will expand and begin to release the volatile compounds without the need of heat. I like to vacuum for at least 24 hour straight or 12 hours with small personal batches. NEVER stop the vacuum process once you turn it on. If you stop the purge and close of a valve under vacuum the gasses can not escape. If you follow these directions you will always end up with shatter and it will be virtually fully purged of butane. Also by never introducing heat you salvage the terpenes and will have the best flavor. Heat is only needed if your oil is no longer reacting. If its not reacting it will not expand and the volatile compounds will be trapped. the only pro of heat is a much more concentrated bho, but taste much worse and burnt. colder temps will create some cotton candy consistency. the end result is always controlled by temps. the hotter the temps the runnier the bho and harder to work with. Most people use heat because they are unable to get the mixture to expand and release the compounds due them waiting for the hash to be solid before placing it in vacuum
nobody important
Active Member
stay away from youtube. 99% of those do it wrong. The other 1% do not really show you the step by step details. also strain and whatever else they claim that supposively controls texture is a myth. However non resinous product will make it harder to make a stable shatter
Native Humboldt
Well-Known Member
Very well said almost exactly step by step the process I use. After the first few trial runs everything comes out glass almost clear. I'm going to try and winterize an oz this weekend so the nearly clear shatter will be cristal. I would think the purer the better when it comes to my lungs.
Diablo3585
Member
thanks for the input friend. im glad u posted this because i did not have the money to buy a griddle and a lot of people on youtube will put their vacuum chamber on the griddle during the purge process but i also know that heat acts as a catalyst in purging the butane but more often than not it turns your oil into wax if I'm not mistaken.
either way i will definitely do a trial run using this method along with all of the info mentioned in the thread when i get my vacuum chamber in. thanks guiz
Native Humboldt
Well-Known Member
The room I use to vac usually stays between 80 and 90 deg with all the hoods venting into it. It takes a little longer to boil out the butane but the taste and knock you down power works for me. I don't make it to sell only for myself and a group of friends, kind of a hobby. I have a four tube rack that holds around 350 grams of dehydrated flowers and trim mixed. The last time I ended up with almost 3 ozs of finished. I plan on dewaxing an oz and comparing the final products. The guy that taught me the process swears by it. Stay safe and don't light up one the first purge!
Diablo3585
Member
haha yea I'll definitely be blasting outdoors. But yea I've read that the slower you purge the less likely you'll lose terpenes. The draw for using heat is it speeds the process but you also lose potency, right?
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
We use enough heat to lower the surface tension to the point that the bubbles readily escape.
Our analysis using a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer on our oven exhaust, shows that the solvents and terpenes come off at different rates, because the solvent is above its boiling point, and the terpenes are below theirs. They are not boiling but sublimating off.
We get our best aromatics, but removing the solvent at the minimum temperature where it can readily escape, under -29.5" Hg vacuum. Usually between 110 and 115F for most strains.
nobody important
Active Member
if you can transition product from your blasting chamber to your vacuum chamber while still reacting, heat will not be necessary. the higher the temps the easier the terpenes escape. Colder temps equals more flavors but less potent (5-10% more potency can equal a much nastier tasting product. sure it may taste good to you, but it will not compare to BHO purged at room temps if done properly)
nobody important
Active Member
I dont understand how one can purge slower. Unless if you mean less time. Crank that vacuum up as high as it goes. Even at slightly higher than room temperature cannabinoids under full vacuum begin to escape. However this only happens to the cannabinoids on the surface of the mixture. (think of this as using your fingers to scrape all the thc crystals off the surface of the bud, or another example would be the loss of surface resin when you use a trimmer to trim your buds). As your mixture begins to settle a bit it makes it almost impossible for the cannibinoids to escape. Heat can speed up the process. But you dont want this. This is a horrible short cut and will mess up the terpene content of your final product. People think only cannibinoids have medical properties, but they couldnt be more wrong. Terpenes have been proven to be just as useful in fighting many diseases and infections. While I dont remember the name of the terpene that produces the pine scent, this terpene has been used by native americans (by eating of certain plants) to treat cold, flu and sore throat symptoms for thousands of years. Heat will actually make your product more potent due to all the other compounds of the mixture purging off much easier (concentrates your BHO). Being that BHO is already potent, the question to ask yourself is whether you want something more potent (which you will not be able to tell the difference most of the time) or something that tastes much better (this you will definitely notice a difference). Also by using an oil bath and just boiling at around 250F degrees, you not just purge everything off but decarboxylation takes place and you know have a fully activated mixture good for topical use (creams for hair, bodywash, hell even cancer spots anywhere on the body)