@Jozikins I've been doing this awhile and read everything I can and apply it and can't get it to look like yours. Any tips you could hand out? Also, what method/equipment are you using?
This is one of the best "slabs" I have achieved thus far, not near what I want but not awful either. Kind of meh.
Info: created w closed column under vac and then put in vacuum for 5 days, digital heat mat was set at 105, flipped a few times.
Open to any and all intelligent critizicims.
Pay attention here, this is where very slight differences in technique make a huge difference...
Place 12lbs+ of dry ice per measuring cup into an appropriately sized ice chest (if you have one measuring cup, the ice chest should only have the capacity to hold exactly 1 measuring cup + 12lbs of dry ice. If you are using 2 measuring cups, it should only have enough room to fit the 2 measuring cups and 24lbs of dry ice, and so on). How you place the dry ice into the ice chest has everything with how effective it will dewax. YOU MUST PLACE THE DRY ICE DOWN FIRST AND CREATE A NEW FLOOR IN THE ICE CHEST OF THICK DRY ICE BRICKS, NOT PELLETS! Lay you measuring cups, covered with a lid, DIRECTLY ON TOP OF A THICK SLAB OF DRY ICE. Once you place your covered measuring cups directly on the dry ice, it is time to take a thick towel folded at least in half to be layed down on top to further insulate, do not skip this necessary step. It is not necessary to have dry ice built up on the side but it certainly helps, the more contact the better.
The fresher the product, the less time it needs to be dewaxed. Dewaxing takes 12 to 36 hours, very fresh very clean product can dewax in 12 hours and sometimes not even need dry ice and the natural cold temp of the butane pool will freeze out solids (always do your first run with dry ice, don't attempt to skip dry ice unless you visually see this happening after trying it once with dry ice!). Older or imperfectly cleaned product needs 24 hours. Old bullshit you shouldn't be running in the first place takes 36 hours, and good luck it was probably a bad decision lol.
Alright now you need another large measuring cup sitting in a pan of luke warm water, with your 5" or 6" strainer in it with a regular unbleached coffee filter in it. CAREFULLY open your ice chest. CAREFULLY remove the measuring cup with a gloved hand and CAREFULLY remove the lid. If your hand shakes too much, your dewax will release from the bottom of the pan and fuck you for another 4 hours of dry ice time, you'll see a milky fatty substance spreading around, disgusting, don't even try to pour if this happens right of the back. You'll notice the bottom of your measuring cup has a thick dark layer of buttery looking wax frozen to the bottom of it, and everything that's suspended in the butane solution is remarkably more clear than it was when you were blasting it, this means the winterizing was a success and everyone who uses ethanol to do it is silly as fuck. Carefully and quickly pour the butane solution through the coffee filter and into your warm measuring cup. Slow and steady, but fast enough to keep the filter relatively full, you want head pressure to push through your solution. You'll notice as you get near the bottom that big fatty patty of de-wax is trying to slip, just be careful not to include it with your pour! Usually now that you are almost done pouring it through a large cloud of milky fats releases from the bottom of that fatty patty, this is a good time to stop pouring and place the cup on dry ice again to let it settle. In the mean time just patiently wait for your butane to filter through, you may want to tilt or agitate that filter to assist when you get near the bottom. While your measuring cup is settling on dry ice again, it's a good time to let your filtered butane solution in your double bath evaporate in luke warm water (NO HOT PLATES, GET WARM WATER FROM YOUR SINK DONT BE LAZY AND FUCK UP!) You can go ahead and filter another measuring cup if you have room after some evaporating (use a new filter everytime!)
So now you got these fatty patties sitting on dry ice. Before you finish them make sure you have some parchment paper boats folded up to fit your oven shelves or the bottom of your chamber. Now go ahead and carefully pour the remaining butane solution through some new filters into your evaporating hashy solution. Do that seriously so fucking carefully. You'll notice a honeycomb looking cluster of fat sticking to your filter, don't try and push this through, let the remaining butane in the filter evaporate if it doesn't want to go through at this point, it's pretty minimal waste and you don't want that shit in your final product, just leave that filter alone until it's done.
Okay almost done! Set aside your measuring cups to warm up so you can pour up that fatty frozen stuff separately, focus on evaporating your good stuff in the mean time. Once they are partially thawed, wipe off the condensation and pour up your fatty patties of dewax all together on a single parchment boat and set aside for later, if you have really clean product you could whip this dewax into crumble later, you could even leave it to shatter if it's excellent, or if its dirty you can dissolve it into ethanol and have a friend with a rotary evaporator turn it into Clear for you when you have enough. You can make your own Clear without a roto vape, but I'm not going to give that secret up yet.
Now, your good shit has been evaporating for a while now in your large measuring cup that's partially submerged in another pan of warm tap water. At this point it should be a thick syrup, and should have few bubbles coming up. If you have no bubbles you waited to long, but that's not a big deal. Time to towel off the outside of your measuring cup and pour a thick slab! Thicker slabs are easier to purge, easier to flip, and a much more efficient use of space!!! I'll pour a 2 or 3 oz slab on my little 0.9cuft oven trays every time! Go ahead and let it spread out, it's important to not touch it and not to agitate it to avoid buddering!
Now you have a decent amount of product stuck to the inside of your measuring cup, it may not seem like much but it's between 3 and 7 grams, you better reclaim it! The key is to scrape while it's still super fresh, don't let it sit for more than 20 minutes or you'll regret it! Scrape the shit out of that measuring cup with a razor blade and put it on a separate piece of parchment paper making sure it is all in one pile. As long as you did this quick and clean you should not have a buddering issue on this personal patty of yours.
Purge one patty at a time. My initial temp for purging is higher than what I use after the first 12 hours, I know that is the opposite of what a lot of people say, but fuck them, my shit wins cups and they don't. My initial purge temp (cross reference your thermostat with a infrared thermometer) is about 110 to 105, and even 115 if I'm using old crappy material. Watch very very closely after you bass 25 inches of mercury, once your muffin (which looks a lot different when properly dewaxed) is about to touch the walls, burp your chamber and get the muffin down, do this again and again and again until you can pull 30 inches of mercury without touch the sides or spilling over your parchment boat. If you have a oven with shelves, at this point you can add your personal scrape patty. Do not fuck with your dewax fatty patty until you are done playing with your good stuff.
Keep your chamber at 110 to 105 for 12 hours and keep the vacuum running. Just do it, Harbor Freight vacuum pumps are cheap, just run through them like paper towels. After 12 hours you are ready for your first flip! Get a fresh sheet of parchment paper, and fold the edges to keep it from curling. Place a large heavy cookie sheet in the freezer as a cooling element. You can cool your patty in the freezer but I just don't like it. It's not mobile and it adds moisture in seconds. Once your cookie sheet is frozen pull it out and place your slab and parchment on it until it solidifies (if your product is stable enough to flip with a gloved hand at room temperature, just do that!) and flip it. Make sure you do this quickly as the cold pan will condensate and introduce moisture. If you cannot easily flip the patty use the pan, if it's not working give it more time, do not agitate the slab by jerking on your parchment paper trying get it off, it could budder! Now that you've flipped you are ready to throw it back in the oven for 12 hours, and you can flip again, and repeat for 3 days. It takes a minimum of 3 flips to safe, but give it 6 because you're too legit to be sketching with 36 hour purges.
You'll notice on lower quality trim that every additional hour of dewax helps the clarity, so be patient and plan ahead!
With high quality trim you will even get dewax waste patties that shatter into clear product that people will beg you for! It's amazing how proper dewaxing increases the stability in both the final product and the waste product!
I hope this makes sense because I broke my glasses last night and I can't see shit until I get some contacts tomorrow. So typing has been a strain, but you can't fail with this tech! It has won more cups than I can count on my fingers and toes. I probably forgot some important info here so check back for any edits I might add! I hope this helps, if you can understand what I'm saying and do exactly as I'm doing you are going to be very successful very quick if you have a good trim hook up.
