Column of Frozen Buds Removed Chlorophyll

After a prior frozen extraction I thought there might be some residual resin in it so I left the column of frozen buds, column meaning a 1 gallon spring water bottle with the bottom cut off, in the freezer for like 6 weeks with plastic over the top held on with an elastic, the plan being to pour some alcohol through it and use that alcohol for the next extraction. When I poured it through it came out green though, apparently it will extract chlorophyll if left in there for several weeks, especially if you turn the coldness knob down from max to medium like I did, so it wasn't really all that solid. I figured it would still be cold enough but maybe that had something to do with the chlorophyll coming out.

But here's the interesting thing, after I did the next extraction I poured that green alcohol through after the first alcohol had all dripped out overnight, because I figured all there would still be left in the column was a little bit of residual anyway so might as well combine it. Thing is, it came out clear, not green at all. The column of frozen bud had acted like a chromatography column and degreened it. I stuff the bud in there quite firmly, so it really is sort of like a column of chromatography medium, maybe that's why my extract comes out almost pure THCA. I noticed that when I poured the cold green alcohol in the column that it had kind of a thick consistency so there was probably some water content in it, don't know if that made a difference or not. I don't know how much actual resin is in the extract yet because I just did the dripping part, I'm still leaving it longer to fully drip out. I just found it interesting that it removed the chlorophyll like that and thought I would share it. Maybe it's a good way to clean up green extract without buying any lab type stuff, just pour it through a column of leached frozen bud that would have been thrown out otherwise.

So when that first drip got done and I took a good look at it there was still some slight green but very little. Then I tried pouring it through again and it came out green again, so apparently doing it more than once isn't a good idea. Anyway, so much for the bud column chromatography, it kind of works but not completely.

All I got out of that green extract was 2 grams, only good for making black hash. No point putting more than three 500 ml bottles of 99% iso through a gallon column of bud, apparently, that gets virtually all of it. That's close to a pound of bud if dried, but I only let it hang for 48 hours before freezing it in the column for about 24 hours. I don't want it to reach the point of being crumbly or it would break up when packed into the column. Here's a pic of what the good extract looks like drying out after being spread around inside the 2 liter measuring cup. It was just made at that point, needs a full 24 hours to dry yet. That's half the batch, there's another cup like that one. Pretty smelly sitting out drying, lots of terps in it.

Getting drier now, but still too stinky for my liking, I may leave it another day to dry those terps off, they irritate my lungs just in the room air so how bad would it be to purposely inhale them? Plenty, that's how. It's like oil paint, takes a while to dry the turpentine out. I scraped some off the sides with the spoon so it will dry better.

Here it is after 2 days of drying, that got rid of the offensive more volatile terps. I don't want that crap in there, might as well smoke turpentine. It still has nice aroma, just not lung irritating vapors. I combined both cups of scrapings together to show the full amount. This is quite possibly the primoest resin chips ever, good batch.

Drying it out for 2 days didn't work out that great, because it was very resistant to melting. I guess it needs some moisture in it for the microwave to melt it well. I put it in there for 9 minutes total, and it still was only partially melted so I said screw it and just pressed the chunks together in the parchment with my hands while it was toffee-like. I made it kind of square this time, so it's not really a cookie like usual, more a slab, chunky style. Got 43 grams, it's always right about that much. It's lower yield than other processes, I guess because there's no water soluble stuff in it. It weighs less because it's probably about 95% THCA instead of about 70 like iso extract or about 58 like pressed rosin, gotta be at least 90%. I can notice a vertical line pressed into it, must be from where the parchment was folded to wrap it up so I could squeeze it together, or maybe from the freezer rack when I sat it in there to cool it down to peel the paper off. I also noticed a piece of hair in the upper right corner and removed it. The picture came in handy, I didn't notice it in person, the picture made it larger so I could notice it.