snowboarder396
Well-Known Member
Not to mention butane changes the molecules on a molecular level. Even if they had it dialed in like you spoke of I'd still probably stick with water extractions. I have yet to see testing done and have argued it in the weed nerd thread. No matter how much you purge your not gonna get all the butane out. Not to mention the possibility of being blown up with all these new people trying to get into doing it at home. Everybody has theeir own favored methods, to me ice water extractions are where it is not only for safety reasons but terpenes, taste. Good info btw.This is interesting regarding CO2 and Butane for extracting volatile terpenes. Since butane is the current industry standard for extracting oils from the plants, we often see a heavy loss in terpenes. Like C02 extraction, butane is often used in the perfume making process through a different process referred to as "Super Critical Fluid Extraction", this is when the solvent/s are purged in a closed loop system under tremendous pressure (ranging from 0-10,000 psi). When using CO2 or Butane solvents all hydrocarbons, fatty acids, lipids, and oils are extracted in this particular process- so you rarely get the perfect mixture of THC and Terpenes devoid of lipids and fatty acids (i.e. filler). The benefit to SFE extraction is you can fine-tune your calibrations to extract ONLY the terpenes from other oils and hydrocarbons present in the plant matter. Currently since OIL is the rage most CO2 SFE extractions are calibrated towards extracting the THC-laden essential oils, and when SFE is calibrated in such a manner we often loose a large amount of terpenes. The reserve can also be true, essential oil SFE extracted solely for volatile terpenes can leave out a large portions of desired THC. Although it is possible to fine-tune the extraction process to include both high concentrations of terpenes and THC, I personally haven't seen it done yet. A dear colleague of mine whom is a chemist from Humboldt State University, says this is definitely possible however this perfect balance would be the holy grail of closed-loop SFE CO2 extraction. But due to the exorbitant cost of the SFE machinery ($25,000-$30,000) and intense technical knowledge and expertise needed to achieve the "perfect-calibrations" we haven't seen much SFE CO2 or Butane oil on the market that can achieve similar results to the taste and aroma of traditional pressed hashish. Friends of mine have executed CO2 extraction with test result in the 94% THC range however it majorly lacked an intense nose and for the most part was devoid of any taste- but it was STTRROOOONNNNGGG.
But it is only a matter of time before a bright mind perfects the method and delivers top quality tasting oils