10. De/re-mystifying the process of processing
(Oil from our lab in 2016, Port Townsend, WA.)
"This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and the chemist of the medicine.
The idea of changing the nature or essence of something goes back to the beginnings of ancient human knowledge. From the alchemists of old, who unsuccessfully attempted to pull off ‘transmutation’ of lead into gold, one of the world’s first get rich quick schemes; to today’s best scientists who are hard at work figuring out how to make men’s erections less crooked and last longer; humans have been endlessly searching for ways to induce changes to our world.
In cannabis processing, the main goal is also to induce changes to the chemical and physical arrangement of your product, so that you can isolate and capture the desirable components while screening or removing the undesirable parts.
There are many different ways to extract or separate the cannabinoids and terpenes, or the desired plant compounds, from the undesirable plant material, such as chlorophyll, waxes, fats, and lipids.
Processors extract cannabis with many different methods ranging from the use of light and heavy force, extreme temperatures and pressures, chemical solvents, and even the power of sound waves.
While some processes require an organic or chemical solvent, like butter or ethanol, others, like those made with a Rosin-press, are totally solvent-free, and instead rely on relatively gentle pressure and temperature variance in order to force a physical separation of the desired molecules.
Many types of extraction can be used to salvage cannabis that is unsalable as flowers. For instance, a CO2 or BHO (butane hash oil) extractor will destroy mold and other biological contaminants in crops that have failed analytical testing.
Other reasons that flowers might be unsalable without further processing, could be poor quality, due to low terpenes (low flavor) or low THC (low potency).
Being able to extract your product if things go wrong is a great safety net for a cultivator to have. All things considered, it’s a much better back up plan if things go wrong than signing up for food stamps, selling your blood, or boiling your shoe-leather for meat.
The ability to extract value out of the otherwise unusable material and waste by-products is an important component of the cannabis economy.
On the flip side of this though, some pesticides that have been used in the production of the flowers or trim can stay in the extract, being amplified many times over, as the oil is further concentrated and refined.
Taking a fractional approach with CO2, and through other equipment, even pesticides can be successfully mitigated. Troy was able to verify this personally through 3rd party lab testing, though the extraction process took 5 to 10 times longer, depending on the level of pesticide-drift contamination.
Processes and Equipment
(In 2012, TetraLabs expanded our operations to Washington, and moved a set of extraction, distillation and refinement equipment to a new lab in a U-haul truck, to produce products locally.)
(In 2014-2015, PDT Technologies took over the lab from TetraLabs for recreational cannabis, installing commerical CO2 extractors and other equipment. We additionally added cameras, a security system, a caged inventory area, and took other measures to be in compliance with the new state law.)
(In 2016, PDT updated our site plan and got approved to install additional equipment.)
The universe is transformation: life is opinion.
The equipment required for processing is dependent on the extraction method you mean to employ, and ultimately the type of product that you intend to make. The desired end-product should control your process. Everything else is a level of art based on science, available tech, and imagination.
In the end, it all ‘distills’ down to determining what’s right for you.
If your end goal is to fill vaporizer cartridges, do you want to make a full spectrum botanical oil; a clear, high-potency distillate; or something in between?
If you are just looking to make distilled oil, then don’t bother with a CO2 or BHO extractor, get a system based on ethanol. If you are only targeting cannabinoids, this is probably the best stop along the path to vacuum distillation or even better, a thin film evaporator, or preparative liquid chromatography.
If you are looking for an extract that can be used for distillate, but which will also produce a high-quality, terpene-rich botanical oil, there are many great options.
CO2 and especially BHO are also common choices on the West Coast for those whose goal it is to make cannabis wax or a similar end-product, while on the East Coast and in new markets, the greater focus is on other methods including bubble hash, rosin, and alcohol for larger-scale extractions.
If I’m already losing most of my audience with this explanation, that is to be expected. Keep reading and then circle back to this section. If it still doesn’t make sense by then, please feel free to add to our quickly growing hate-mail folder.
Decarboxylation
Cascade Botanical Vacuum Oven, a use tool for managing your decarb process and queue.
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One of the most common mistakes in extraction is an overuse of decarboxylation. While many online self-help guides recommend decarboxylating your ‘feedstock’, or processing material, by heating it prior to extraction, this only makes sense if you plan on making distillate or isolate as your end product. Otherwise, this is a terrible idea, because it will degrade the living bejesus out of your terpenes.
While it’s true that decarboxylation is an important step in making a cannabis product psychoactive, it really only ends up applying for the production of consumable products like edibles or tinctures.
This is because when you smoke or vaporize cannabis, it is instantly decarboxylated on the spot. This makes it completely inane to destroy your flavor in the so-called service of psycho-activity, when it’s not necessary most of the time.
You do want to decarb though if your goal is a distillate oil for edibles.
Sometimes you have to burn yourself to the ground before you can rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Non-Solvent Extraction Methods
The reason we're so dangerous is because we're totally harmless.
One of the oldest, and simplest methods of concentrating cannabis; pressed hash, involves the physical separation of the trichomes from other types of plant material. This is usually achieved through the use of varying size screens, that will filter out larger particulates of plant material. The desirable material gets finer and finer until the end product is a clean, consistent looking, sandy powder known as, ‘kief’.
The kief is then pressed into blocks that are later cut up into salable units.
While this is one of the easiest and most basic concentrates to make, it is one of the least potent and least desirable in the legal marketplace.
Bubble Hash
I can't decide if I'm a hippie or elegant older woman, a farmer's wife, a crazy person.
Making Bubble hash is similar to pressed hash in that you are trying to induce a physical separation of the trichomes, from the larger, undesirable plant material, by breaking them off and filtering the smaller trichomes through progressively decreasing screens or sieves.
While bubble hash makers, like those making kief for pressed hash, employ force or agitation, what ultimately defines the bubble hash method, is the use of extreme cold temperatures as an additional separating catalyst.
Typically, the material- cannabis flowers, trim, or even kief, will be placed into sieve-bags that contain multiple layers of different sized screens. The bags are then submerged into ice water, and periodically agitated.
Some bubble hash makers use a washing machine to shake the trichomes loose with centrifugal force, which leads some people to say that making bubble hash is as easy as, ‘doing your laundry.’
I would say that’s a bit of an exaggeration though, as over the years, I’ve personally experienced a sharp learning curve and have struggled a lot with bleeding colors and shrinking wool garments.
The difficulty with any hash production queue in a commercial business is the drying time. It takes a long time to air dry any bubble hash and it is strongly suggested you do not use an oven. To make it more difficult, this lengthy drying time gives more opportunity for contaminants, whether molds or foreign substances, to enter your artisanal product while it slowly air dries over weeks.
One new solution to avoid this potential gluepot of a trap is employing freeze-dryers. Freeze-dryers have been scaled and there are units to meet the needs of most sized operations. If you want to do an artisanal product and have a fast-to-market production life, freeze-drying will reduce the drying time of bubble hash from weeks to a mere day, at most.
Rosin
(A jar of raw wax from our lab in PT, 2016.)
The future rewards those who press on.
Considered a high end, connoisseur product, Rosin wax or oil is extracted through a combination of high pressure and light heat from a Rosin press. A Rosin press is essentially a hydraulic ram with a heated metal plate. The main difference between a Rosin press and other types of presses, i.e.- a jeweler’s press, is that a Rosin press is packaged for the cannabis industry and marked up at 3x the price.
Rosin as a process is thought to retain high levels of terpenes, but as usual, there is a variance depending on the amount of pressure and heat you apply. As such, you can still degrade your terpenes when making Rosin, all the same.
Also, no matter what your craft approach may be, a full spectrum botanical extract will only be as good as the starting material you use to make it. If you are starting with old trim with degraded terpenes and cannabinoids, then no amount of artisan pressure will ‘polish your turd’ and turn it into a high-end connoisseur product. This applies to all extracting techniques in which the end product is full-spectrum and doesn’t go through a chemical process that removes the target chemicals from everything else.
Processing can be a lot to process.
We’re here to help.
Live Resin
(In 2016-2018, PDT Technologies went to market with new Live-Resin and other cartridge formulations under the Alta Nova and Chong’s Choice brands.)
I call architecture frozen music.
Live Resin is an extract that comes from flowers that are frozen immediately after harvest to preserve the terpenes in the best and most immaculate possible condition. The frozen flowers are later extracted using solvent or non-solvent based methods, in which further care should be taken to keep the flavor profile intact.
While many products on the market claim to be made from Live-Resin, true LR requires flash-freezing, and/or cryogenic temperatures. Most of the so called Live-Resin on the market is produced from flowers that were frozen in commercial freezers, that don’t adequately prevent moisture degradation to the terpenes and plant materials.
Organic Solvents
(In 2010 in Los Angeles, Counter Catering, which became Canna Catering, launched a new line of drinks and other creative products, all based on organic solvents.)
I'm putting that organic feeling back in the game.
There are many simple extracts made from organic solvents like butter, plant, animal, and vegetable oils, to vegetable glycerin and honey. These can be good options for DIY cannabis cooking, but usually don’t work quite as well for a cannabis business, excepting for consumer end products produced in licensed commercial kitchens.
For one thing, these solvents are not particularly efficient and tend to yield a low amount of extracted THC and other cannabinoids, while unfortunately carrying a lot of pigments and flavors.
It is much more cost-effective to use smaller doses of clear, neutral-flavored, distillate oil, with a much higher potency, to infuse a consumable product. Or to put it another way, do you want your cookie to be green, or your gummy to have the flavor of a fresh leaf? If not, use distillate!
An exception to this could be an organic solvent that is a retail end product, in and of itself, like a jar of an infused honey or a coconut oil sex lubricant.
Avoid perishable organic solvents, like a vegetable oil or similar, as the perishable consumables you can make with them are probably prohibited in your state, and even if they’re not, it’s still probably a terrible idea and would create additional hoops, red tape, and an uncomfortable gain in product and general liabilities.
While homemade medicated cheese nachos sound like a blast to serve to your friends at Sunday football, if you are considering this approach for a cannabis business then, just… please… no.
Key Chapter Takeaways
The Do’s and Don’ts of the Dope Industry
- Do– Pick the right process and equipment to meet your product goals.
- Do– Remember not to decarb away all of your terps!
- Do– Consider some connoisseur classics, and not-solvent extraction based products.
- Don’t– Forget about Live-Resin or Rosin, or Live-Rosin!
- Don’t– Overlook organic solvents.
- Don’t– Don’t take to market weird, gross or perishable cannabis foods!