FarmerPalmersNT Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 So - in my pursuit of live rosin I have made up a (very basic) freeze dryer. I stress at this point, although I have a science background, I'm neither a physicist or an engineer of any description. My attempts at this may therefore be ill advised, dangerous, ineffective or otherwise shit. So copy me at your risk. Anyway - I've given it a trial run and although its fiddly and far from a one button solution, it does work and it does make phenomenal live resin from flower. I know many dry ice extract trichs and do it that way, but this should produce the same type of product and seems to so far. The theory is that under very low pressure, instead of going from ice -> water -> water vapour in the normal fashion, the ice sublimes (ie goes from solid straight to gas/vapour, no liquid phase). This happens at very low temperatures, hence almost total terpene preservation. If you allow the bud to thaw it forms a liquid and does not properly freeze dry, if you don't raise it to a bit below its melting point (-5c, just below the eutectic point) it stays as a solid and does not sublime quickly enough. What you want is to be at the point bottom left of this graph: https://goo.gl/images/4CxfR3 - First the bud is frozen immediately from fresh. I cut the stems and pulled apart the nugs so as to make relatively thin sections for rapid freezing to minimise crystals. Freezer is on 'super' and gets to about -18c. - Then it goes into a vac chamber that is heavily insulated and kept at -5c, ice packs added at the bottom, pierced to allow vac to be pulled. - The vac chamber is linked to another chamber kept in the freezer at -18c. I use the recovery chamber from my closed loop. This acts as a cold trap. Theoretically stopping the water vapour and turning it back to ice - This in turn is linked to my vac pump from my purger. - The vac is pulled right down to max. Then I turn off the ball valve from the cold trap to the pump and it is held for as long as the temp remains <-2c in the bud chamber. If it rises, into the freezer with the whole chamber. - Every hour I close the valve between the bud chamber and cold trap, then release the vacuum in the cold trap. Then I open it and remove any ice and water that results. Then setup again with a fresh vacuum. Repeat 5 times. So far this has worked. I've only done one run. 5 hours seemed to dry a small amount to about the right level for pressing. By isolating the cold trap and removing the water I'm hoping it will prevent water getting into the pump oil and knackering it! Here's the setup - vac chamber top right, pump top left, cold trap in freezer bottom right. I did override the thermostat in the freezer but it didn't seem to make more than a couple of degrees difference and I was worrying about burning it out so stopped that sillyness. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerPalmersNT Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 Did have the cold trap in an ice jacket, but was a ballache and no colder so got rid. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerPalmersNT Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 Also worth noting - you need to be getting a theoretical vacuum of about 6.1 mBar or less. So a decent vac pump is required. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirk-Diggler Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 @FarmerPalmersNT are you still doing this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ccs141 Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 some science right there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerPalmersNT Posted November 26, 2020 Author Share Posted November 26, 2020 15 hours ago, Dirk-Diggler said: @FarmerPalmersNT are you still doing this? Fuck no It was a huge ballache and whilst it worked, it was easy to fuck up. I only did it to see if I could if I'm honest. The freezer inevitably shit itself, as I'd bypassed the shut off again as it started to fail. I definitely don't recommend following this thread. It's stupid... I do have a bench top freeze dryer now. Works better but really not something I use often. To be honest if you are going to get into live extracts in any meaningful way it's an inescapable fact that you need a) a LOT of high quality raw material, ie decent bubble hash b) a proper freeze dryer - harvestright or similar c) a LOT of time. You need to chop, trim, freeze - a day's work. Then turn the lot into bubble hash, another day. Then freeze dry, 2 days waiting. Then press it, another day. When you factor in losses at each stage and the expense and time, you start to understand why live rosin is so expensive. I make literally a few g for myself and only when I am feeling very energetic. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirk-Diggler Posted November 26, 2020 Share Posted November 26, 2020 Thanks @FarmerPalmersNT that is a shame would have been nice to try and build one on the cheap. Also the one you can buy have way to much capacity for what I would need. I looked at one of those Harvest Right freeze dryers but to be honest I couldn't justify the price for the amount I would use it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moppy Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 On 11/26/2020 at 0:55 PM, Dirk-Diggler said: Thanks @FarmerPalmersNT that is a shame would have been nice to try and build one on the cheap. Also the one you can buy have way to much capacity for what I would need. I looked at one of those Harvest Right freeze dryers but to be honest I couldn't justify the price for the amount I would use it. Did you ever fond anything cheaper than Harvest Right, but still man enough for the job? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirk-Diggler Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 @Moppy No I gave up, banging it straight in the freezer then to bubble works fine for me Would love to get one though just have to stop getting kit at some point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moppy Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 22 hours ago, Dirk-Diggler said: @Moppy No I gave up, banging it straight in the freezer then to bubble works fine for me Would love to get one though just have to stop getting kit at some point! OK, well do let us know how it works out if you do get one mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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