Their is something else going on tho. Where is the loss in yield going when using salt. Are oils being trapped in the shit sinking to the bottom right after wash? Should something else be done to release the oils? I would like to use the salt if possible but I just can't wrap my head around what's happening. Salt is not increasing yield as stated in the documentation.
I'm an engineer, not a chemist, but my understanding is that salting ISO removes water, which is an undesirable, because it picks up non-targeted water-soluble constituents.
Not picking up the undesirable non-targeted water-soluble constituents will reduce your overall yield, but the purity is higher.
Plant waxes are non-polar and like likes like, so raising or lowering the dielectric constant the solution affects how efficiently it dissolves plant waxes. A Dielectric Constant of 15 is considered the threshold between polar and nonpolar, with ISO having a dielectric constant of 17.5, and water having a DE of 80, so the water will raise the DE of the mixture. Removing the water therefore lowers the DE and makes it more effective extracting plant waxes, so there will be more to fall out during winterizing.
The targeted elements that we covet are not in the plant material itself, they are in the trichomes hanging on the outside. ISO is aggressive enough that long soaks are actually counterproductive in that they extract more of the plant waxes and other not-targeted elements.
For instance, at -18C/0F I use a first soak of about 20 seconds. At -50/70C using dry ice, it takes longer, but still minutes, not hours. I do a similar second soak and keep the two extractions separate. I've never needed a third soak.
