Post-Processing Rosin - Your wish, after the squish

[FlyingLow]

I stopped reading after your second sentence, "trapped air does not cause a build up of pressure."
That is exactly how a super soaker water gun works






I've been pressing [fire] ice cream at 181* and having great results.

This is totally chunky right off the press, then completely stabilizes into a spreadable butter within 24-36 hours at room temps.

My last squish pushed out some beautiful, white THCA. Is there anything I can do to maximize THCA during the press? Does adding more pressure help? Does dropping temps help instigate THCA?

 

[scy123]

I stopped reading after your second sentence, "trapped air does not cause a build up of pressure."
That is exactly how a super soaker water gun works

I can see how trapping air in a liquid can compress it enough to create pressure if the liquid was thick enough, but you gotta remember this is a terp fraction after removing 40% of the initial weight in solid thca. The fraction is more runny than it would be with regular rosin. I would say it is around the same constancy as chocolate syrup.

When have you ever stirred something up and noticed it bubbling up like this?

https://imgur.com/niDGwiY

 

[arb]

I can see how trapping air in a liquid can compress it enough to create pressure if the liquid was thick enough, but you gotta remember this is a terp fraction after removing 40% of the initial weight in solid thca. The fraction is more runny than it would be with regular rosin. I would say it is around the same constancy as chocolate syrup.

When have you ever stirred something up and noticed it bubbling up like this?

https://imgur.com/niDGwiY

I have when I stir rosin or conversly when I overstuff a glass jar.........with rosin.

Sorry dude I couldn't keep my smart assery to myself.

 

[scy123]

I have when I stir rosin or conversly when I overstuff a glass jar.........with rosin.

Sorry dude I couldn't keep my smart assery to myself.

Notice your reply only referrers to rosin, if I stirred up anything else I would never expect it to create pressure inside the jar or puff up the contents of the jar and expand enough over a few days to overfill the jar.

Your reply to me saying rosin reacts this way cause of a unique process that happens to specifically rosin is to say rosin reacts this way?

 

[Thick Vape]

I more an more believe it is all farts

 

[scy123]

My point is the rosin must be creating and releasing gas somehow, so I guess you can't rule out farts.

 

[arb]

Notice your reply only referrers to rosin, if I stirred up anything else I would never expect it to create pressure inside the jar or puff up the contents of the jar and expand enough over a few days to overfill the jar.

Your reply to me saying rosin reacts this way cause of a unique process that happens to specifically rosin is to say rosin reacts this way?

When I over stuff a glass jar trapping air under the glob of goo it will indeed rise up and push the lid off with stiff rosin.
Looser rosin when I overstuffed the jar tends to look like your bubbly batch if I jar it warm and it cools/thickens trapping das air bubblage.

 

[scy123]

When I over stuff a glass jar trapping air under the glob of goo it will indeed rise up and push the lid off with stiff rosin.
Looser rosin when I overstuffed the jar tends to look like your bubbly batch if I jar it warm and it cools/thickens trapping das air bubblage.

This bubbling eventually goes away as the rosin ages though. My first batch would bubble considerably and the amount of which it did so went away over time (it took a little over 2 weeks). Yes, I know the bubbles will settle over time, but this one I stirred constantly every time I noticed it bubbling. And eventually stopped bubbling at all over time. Even after stirring, and yes, I did stir it up quite a bit after the bubbling problem went away.

If bubbles is the result of stirring this behavior would not happen.

Edit: here is a pic I took at the near end of the bubbling problem. Eventually the main section never showed any bubbles and it would just start foaming the top.

https://imgur.com/iQENRTd

Edit: sorry I have to make myself more clear, I used that jar in the pic above for quite a long while as you can imagine, and stirred it up a few times, it never bubbled up again after that 2ish week period.

Edit: been giving it some thought. I kinda now think when you press the rosin you boil the most volatile terpenes which creates pressure inside the rosin that releases over time. That would make more sense to me really, but I would have thought the terpenes would condense back to solution once it cools..... maybe not?

 

[invertedisdead]

Posted this rosin cartridge in another thread recently. Just finished it, It was pretty great, might explore this concept further with some of the processing I’ve been thinking about over the years. But moral of the story, undiluted rosin in a cartridge can be done!

 

[MegaMan2k]

Posted this rosin cartridge in another thread recently. Just finished it, It was pretty great, might explore this concept further with some of the processing I’ve been thinking about over the years. But moral of the story, undiluted rosin in a cartridge can be done!

Did you post the method anywhere?

 

[invertedisdead]

Did you post the method anywhere?

I haven’t laid out any SOP’s yet but I admit I’m now wanting to get a few toys to play with! Was up all night thinking about winning the science fair

There’s honestly not a lot to it other than using great hash rosin, achieving a good decarb, and using good hardware. That alone will get a working unit.

I think there’s a number of areas I could further improve on, but I think those are the basic working principals. The main thing is it needs to be great quality rosin that cleans up very minimally when dabbed. If it takes more than 1 q-tip it might not be clean enough. The reality is the most desirable grades are really needed to pull this off. But it’s worth it (to me) for that much flavor in your pocket.

 

[florduh]

There’s honestly not a lot to it other than using great hash rosin, achieving a good decarb, and using good hardware. That alone will get a working unit.

My two concerns with decarbing for inhalation are losing too many terps, or converting THC to CBN. The latter would be a concern for cart use since I don't want to get too sleepy when out and about. It sounds like you're only decarbing at maybe 200°F for a short time, so CBN shouldn't really be a concern. And hash rosin has a lot of terps, so losing a little isn't the end of the world. I bet the high terp content is why this works so well. You don't need to add any terps to make the cart, cuz the terps are already there.

I've wondered about decarbing material inside a sealed syringe, with a mug warmer water bath. The decarb will release some Co2, but I'm guessing the pressure would push the plunger out a bit, rather than causing the glass syringe to explode. This would theoretically help retain some terps.

I did see a video explaining a similar process...

 

[invertedisdead]

My two concerns with decarbing for inhalation are losing too many terps, or converting THC to CBN. The latter would be a concern for cart use since I don't want to get too sleepy when out and about. It sounds like you're only decarbing at maybe 200°F for a short time, so CBN shouldn't really be a concern. And hash rosin has a lot of terps, so losing a little isn't the end of the world. I bet the high terp content is why this works so well. You don't need to add any terps to make the cart, cuz the terps are already there.

I've wondered about decarbing material inside a sealed syringe, with a mug warmer water bath. The decarb will release some Co2, but I'm guessing the pressure would push the plunger out a bit, rather than causing the glass syringe to explode. This would theoretically help retain some terps.

I did see a video explaining a similar process...

That’s a pretty good video!
here’s a few comments based on playing around:

Ideally you want your material to not leave a bunch of headspace in the jar, so matching material amount to jar size would help reduce oxidation. You could do some more complex stuff for that too, but that’s the easiest.

And IMO you really do want a full decarb - I had a thought recently that perhaps a lot of the bubbles that appear in cartridges is from an incomplete decarb.

But yeah I don’t think there’s really much to it, it’s mostly just about having good rosin. As long as your lid is on properly low temp terpenes should vaporize and are-condense so you shouldn’t see much losses. But you want a low decarb temp to minimize degradation. Mine still tasted awesome but I think it could be better with a more controlled decarb. Sous vide would probably work well and not create a bunch of heat. I think CBN is much harder to create, I think you need to be closer to THC vaporization temps to oxidize down to CBN.

I think a challenge for the home user is having enough rosin to justify the process. Harder to do it for one cartridge, though it’s mostly hands off work and really not too complicated. I’m gonna try some more experiments soon, waiting on some fresh full ceramic hardware to fill, I believe they are using a silicon carbide wick in these.

 

[MegaMan2k]

"Blueriverterps" Posted this on Instagram few hours ago, im gonna share it here since its relevant to this subject.

blueriverterps What makes Blue River Live Rosin Sauce Carts different than any other Solventless Cart or Pod?

We get this question all the time, and we felt the only way to explain it is to show it.

A majority of the Rosin Carts and/or Pods currently in the market use low-temp decarboxylation methods that involves heating Live Rosin, or Dry Sift Rosin in a glass jar between 120-140f for several days until the Rosin extract turns into a liquid state. While their solventless oil may look the part, it doesn’t change the properties of the oil for functionality, flavor, effectiveness, or optimize health standards around vaporization.

Why?

Lipids, fats, and waxes are inherently a part of Live Rosin. If you do not remove them, they unfortunately will end up in your lungs!

In our previous post, we showed you Live THCa & Live Rosin Sauce mechanically derived from Live Rosin using Blue River AMST. What we didn’t show you was the lipids, fats, and waxes we remove in that process.

The bottom left image is a concentrated jar of the lipids, waxes, and fats we mechanically remove from the Garlic Cookies Live Rosin (Top Left), and Live Rosin Sauce (Top Right). The final product is seen in the Live Rosin Sauce Cart (Bottom Right). You’re welcome

What we know is lipids, fats, and waxes do not contribute to the therapeutic effects of rosin. In trying to vaporize them as part of “research”, we concluded that the impact of vaporizing them for inhalation is probably a bad thing. We are confident that research years from now will ultimately prove we were right. In our opinion, we conclude that lipids, waxes, and fats are considered “containments”, and a safer approach is to limit them altogether in our extracts.





By mechanically reducing the lipids, waxes, and fats, we are able to double terpene concentration, double the concentration of minor cannabinoids, lower the vaporization point, maximize flavor retention, and increase functionality of the oil throughout the life of the cart. On average, Blue River Live Rosin Sauce & Jelly Sauce Carts will provide 50 / 10 second draws when using a AVD Stick, Seed, or Alpha battery.

Sounds like they make Thc-A and then reintroduce the terps? Just seems like they have a different tech to seperate the thc-a than most people?

 

[btka]

"Blueriverterps" Posted this on Instagram few hours ago, im gonna share it here since its relevant to this subject.

blueriverterps What makes Blue River Live Rosin Sauce Carts different than any other Solventless Cart or Pod?

We get this question all the time, and we felt the only way to explain it is to show it.

A majority of the Rosin Carts and/or Pods currently in the market use low-temp decarboxylation methods that involves heating Live Rosin, or Dry Sift Rosin in a glass jar between 120-140f for several days until the Rosin extract turns into a liquid state. While their solventless oil may look the part, it doesn’t change the properties of the oil for functionality, flavor, effectiveness, or optimize health standards around vaporization.

Why?

Lipids, fats, and waxes are inherently a part of Live Rosin. If you do not remove them, they unfortunately will end up in your lungs!

In our previous post, we showed you Live THCa & Live Rosin Sauce mechanically derived from Live Rosin using Blue River AMST. What we didn’t show you was the lipids, fats, and waxes we remove in that process.

The bottom left image is a concentrated jar of the lipids, waxes, and fats we mechanically remove from the Garlic Cookies Live Rosin (Top Left), and Live Rosin Sauce (Top Right). The final product is seen in the Live Rosin Sauce Cart (Bottom Right). You’re welcome

What we know is lipids, fats, and waxes do not contribute to the therapeutic effects of rosin. In trying to vaporize them as part of “research”, we concluded that the impact of vaporizing them for inhalation is probably a bad thing. We are confident that research years from now will ultimately prove we were right. In our opinion, we conclude that lipids, waxes, and fats are considered “containments”, and a safer approach is to limit them altogether in our extracts.





By mechanically reducing the lipids, waxes, and fats, we are able to double terpene concentration, double the concentration of minor cannabinoids, lower the vaporization point, maximize flavor retention, and increase functionality of the oil throughout the life of the cart. On average, Blue River Live Rosin Sauce & Jelly Sauce Carts will provide 50 / 10 second draws when using a AVD Stick, Seed, or Alpha battery.

Sounds like they make Thc-A and then reintroduce the terps? Just seems like they have a different tech to seperate the thc-a than most people?

I think they seperate terps sauce and thca (with cold cure and mecahnical seperation)... I saw analyses of thca with the rosin press methode where it showed 99% cannabioids so I think this they do not further refine... most fats, lipids and waxes have a low melting point I am sure it is lower then the one of thca... so most of the remaining lipids must be in the terp sauce... so next process must be refining the terp sauce to seperate lipids and so on... I can Imagine if terp sauce is runny enough you can maybe filter it further trough a filter like syringe filter... but I never had terp sauce in my hands so I am not sure about its viscosity and if it is runny enough to push it trough syringe filter...

I haven’t laid out any SOP’s yet but I admit I’m now wanting to get a few toys to play with! Was up all night thinking about winning the science fair

There’s honestly not a lot to it other than using great hash rosin, achieving a good decarb, and using good hardware. That alone will get a working unit.

I think there’s a number of areas I could further improve on, but I think those are the basic working principals. The main thing is it needs to be great quality rosin that cleans up very minimally when dabbed. If it takes more than 1 q-tip it might not be clean enough. The reality is the most desirable grades are really needed to pull this off. But it’s worth it (to me) for that much flavor in your pocket.

did you use hash rosin for your cart? was it live hash rosin? looks good your cart!

 

[invertedisdead]

Lipids, fats, and waxes are inherently a part of Live Rosin. If you do not remove them, they unfortunately will end up in your lungs!

Im surprised to see someone as reputable as Blue River spouting that one.

But yeah it’s well known that Blue River is big on THCA isolation and reintroduction.

TBH that’s kind of a funny post, I’ve had blue river products and they are awesome (at $80 for one half of a gram...) but I can confirm that the easy method still makes awesome cartridges.

IMO the issue with doing a re-press is the entire resin mass needs to be decarbed so I don’t see the big benefit of isolating the THCA and decarbing when all of the THCA in the sauce still needs to be decarbed or it will inhibit flow and could cause crystallization. Remember that Blue River started out selling pure isolated terpenes so they are probably doing something else to bypass decarbing the terpenes. It’s been rumored that they’re actually distilled.... then you can claim you just use heat + pressure. Perhaps you could centrifuge the pure terps out of the mechanically separated fraction. It’s also been rumored that they use the refined terpenes themselves as a solvent to precipitate out the lipids. The challenge is having enough rosin and lab equipment to do these experiments and come up with a fresh protocol.

I can Imagine if terp sauce is runny enough you can maybe filter it further trough a filter like syringe filter... but I never had terp sauce in my hands so I am not sure about its viscosity and if it is runny enough to push it trough syringe filter...

Yeah hash rosin for sure, it’s essential. I didn’t use live but it’s preferred for higher terpene content which helps the viscosity. I was thinking of pushing my warm decarbed oil through a 5 micron filter while the viscosity is altered.

I think a lot of people try and go too small, jumping straight into a .45 micron filter. the rosin works as is, but a little residual processing could go a long way I think since the filtration that’s occurs at the rosin bag itself isn’t “absolute.”
The BHO CRC scene is all about filtration, I’m pretty sure if a few of those techniques were applied one could get really close. The takeaway from CRC is you definitely don’t want to over filter or you’ll suck all the good flavor right out of the extract.

 

[MegaMan2k]

Hah yea ive been suspecting they use some type of centrifuge, but i dunno im just a small personal producer

Blueriver does push alot on that stuff with the lipids ends up in the lungs etc
Do you think this could be a serious concern for someone who for example only smokes flower rosin? And all day and nothing else?

 

[florduh]

So wait. When I buy dabbable Blue River rosin, I'm inhaling dangerous lipids? The only safe rosin is their carts? Come on, man.

This has been beat to death, but every inhalation route involves some lipids. Isn't THC a lipid/fatty acid?

 

[btka]

Hah yea ive been suspecting they use some type of centrifuge, but i dunno im just a small personal producer

instead of filtersyringe that could be possible.... same principle at the end...

 

[invertedisdead]

Do you think this could be a serious concern for someone who for example only smokes flower rosin? And all day and nothing else?

In my opinion - no. The boiling point of nonacosane is ~700F. I know too many people that have been smoking fat joints for 50 years to think the wax fraction that we aren't even boiling is the issue. Now if you're using hydrocarbon extracts you're playing with chemistry and that could be different... mixed reports on that one.

Now you could potentially be inhaling fumes from degraded lipid byproducts as they cook on a nail, but nobody has been able to explain a mechanism of how they would actually end up in your lungs. Flower rosin does have the most waxes though.

I’d be more concerned with long term effects of inhaling high amounts of concentrated terpenes than the plant fats. We have thousands of years of people smoking cannabis lipids, what is new is all the terpene preservation.

 

[MegaMan2k]

In my opinion - no. The boiling point of nonacosane is ~700F. I know too many people that have been smoking fat joints for 50 years to think the wax fraction that we aren't even boiling is the issue. Now if you're using hydrocarbon extracts you're playing with chemistry and that could be different... mixed reports on that one.

Now you could potentially be inhaling fumes from degraded lipid byproducts as they cook on a nail, but nobody has been able to explain a mechanism of how they would actually end up in your lungs. Flower rosin does have the most waxes though.

I’d be more concerned with long term effects of inhaling high amounts of concentrated terpenes than the plant fats. We have thousands of years of people smoking cannabis lipids, what is new is all the terpene preservation.

appreciate your view on this, makes me feel alittle bit more calm for dabbing so much flower-rosin these past years, haha
and very good point with the terpenes indeed.

 

[btka]

Posted this rosin cartridge in another thread recently. Just finished it, It was pretty great, might explore this concept further with some of the processing I’ve been thinking about over the years. But moral of the story, undiluted rosin in a cartridge can be done!

what is the shelf life of such a rosin cart... How do you store it... can you put it in fridge for storage and it will get liquid again when you take out... what is with terpenes and taste does it degrade with time? does the consistancy change with time... if you would plan to make more carts would you recommend filling direct to cart or in a syringe and fill the cart when you need it?

 

[florduh]

what is the shelf life of such a rosin cart... How do you store it... can you put it in fridge for storage and it will get liquid again when you take out... what is with terpenes and taste does it degrade with time? does the consistancy change with time... if you would plan to make more carts would you recommend filling direct to cart or in a syringe and fill the cart when you need it?

I haven't tried @invertedisdead's method yet, because I'm too much of a pussy to decarb one of my $85 grams of FL live rosin. But I do have commercially produced rosin carts. I have kept them in the fridge before without issues. If you don't keep them in the fridge, you'll lose some terps. But they still taste great even months later. The terps are so high in this stuff, that I don't mind a little loss.

If you are going to keep them in the fridge, I assume you're going through the carts slowly. In that case, I'd highly recommend using all glass or all ceramic carts. I also found these syringes:

The Ceramic DabDart - Logistics Farm: Cartridge Solutions for All

The Ceramic DabDart is a glass bodied cart syringe with ceramic plunger with viton seals for long term volatile concentrate storage.

cart.farm

All ceramic, glass, and viton. Silicone gaskets don't play well with terps over long periods of time. Depending on how runny your oil is, this might be a good solution for load as you go wax pens too.

 

[invertedisdead]

what is the shelf life of such a rosin cart... How do you store it... can you put it in fridge for storage and it will get liquid again when you take out... what is with terpenes and taste does it degrade with time? does the consistancy change with time... if you would plan to make more carts would you recommend filling direct to cart or in a syringe and fill the cart when you need it?

Shelf life is kind of hard to define, IMHO the optimal shelf life of "live rosin" is fairly short, even storing in the fridge I typically see a change in consistency after a few days or a few thermal cycles taking it out of the fridge for a dab. That said, it's hard for good hash rosin to really turn "bad" either, the flavor will lose some intensity but its still going to remain a pretty good experience. It will never turn stale like flower can, one benefit to concentrates for sure.

I would just fill the cartridges, if you've got extras it might be worth storing them in a cold environment. I just keep mine in a dark drawer.

A few years ago I made the realization that regarding shelf life, distilled terpenes are actually the most thermo-stable. Cartridge terpenes are possibly more stable than jarred concentrates as they are more locked into the resin and won't be able to offgas. If you've ever had tasty concentrates that didn't give off much smell this is one reason why. It doesn't mean there is no terps, they can just be more "locked in." If you think how a temple ball works, the resin mass itself acts as the preservative.

I haven't tried @invertedisdead's method yet, because I'm too much of a pussy to decarb one of my $85 grams of FL live rosin. But I do have commercially produced rosin carts. I have kept them in the fridge before without issues. If you don't keep them in the fridge, you'll lose some terps. But they still taste great even months later. The terps are so high in this stuff, that I don't mind a little loss.

If you are going to keep them in the fridge, I assume you're going through the carts slowly. In that case, I'd highly recommend using all glass or all ceramic carts. I also found these syringes:

Shit I'd be cautious to try it with pricey rosin myself, but my buddy kicked me down that grammer so it was an easy experiment to sacrifice to the cause!

Hoping to grab some bulk rosin and spin up a few new flavors to try out. The one good thing is hash rosin has really taken off in popularity in SoCal, and there's lots of good homegrown and craft farmed resin going around now.

 

[florduh]

Hoping to grab some bulk rosin and spin up a few new flavors to try out.

Nice. I had a thought. Maybe you can tell me if it's crazy. Could you do a low, slow decarb in one of those ceramic syringes to retain terps? I was envisioning just having it submerged in a mug on a hot plate. My thought was, any CO2 pressure during decarb would push on the plunger. I can't imagine a gram or 2 would cause enough pressure to break the syringe glass. But even if it did, I'd just lose the gram. It wouldn't be a pressure bomb or anything, since it's submerged in water.

Is that crazy?

The one good thing is hash rosin has really taken off in popularity in SoCal, and there's lots of good homegrown and craft farmed resin going around now.

That sounds awesome. I got into a mood where I want to go concentrate only for a while. Unfortunately the Free State of Florida is making that difficult for me. When I said $85 for a gram, that's after discounts! And I can maybe swallow that price. I take tiny dabs, so a gram lasts forever. But I can't deal with the strain selection. Only two growers do HR right. One sells out immediately, and the other has limited selection.

I'm picky about strain effects, and like having a variety to keep tolerance at bay. It's just hard to do here. Like, there's often only one sativa leaning hybrid strain hash rosin available in the State in a given month. If that strain doesn't meet your daytime medicine needs, oh well!

They're starting to offer BHO, but I guarantee commercial producers down here are CRCing it to shit. At that point, I may as well just buy distillate and put it into a cart. Sure, the "live resin" terps are tasty. But the effects are very bland.

Oh well. I should just count my blessings that I can buy any high quality concentrates here without facing a felony charge.