Oakley,
Excellent post. Your knowledge of the fundamental principles behind your work show through loud and clear. I have a couple of questions for you.
1. While you do heat the solvent in the final steps, I wonder if you are making a point to reach the temperature where decarboxylation of THCA occurs (50°C ) without boiling the ISO (82°C) which would also boil off some of the more volatile cannabinoids (CBD in particular). If you don't get it this hot, do you a recommend decarboxylating step prior to freezing the plant material in preparation for extraction?
2. Do you see any advantage to "super chilling" the plant material and ISO to -80°C using dry ice? I know you talked about it before but i wasn't clear on your final verdict on whether this would be beneficial. Further, if it was "super chilled" would that alter the solubility of the cannibinoids in ethanol significantly? I imagine this would alter the exposure time needed for the highest Cannabinoid/Chlorophyll ratio. Would this prolong the exposure time? Would it allow for some mild agitation to increase the number of trichromes that make it past the filter into the next step? I know you are anti-shaking but what if super cooling could allow for that without picking up more chlorophyll? Would the color of the filtrate be a good indicator of when to stop contact between the plant material and the ISO? For example, i would continue to pour some "super chilled" ISO through until it reached the very slightly green color in your original post.
Any thoughts are most appreciated.
Thanks,
TK429