Thought I'd share one of my recent results.
I went back to my home turf over christmas and the new year and picked up some leaf and trim for free off of a buddy. Got back to the wildlands to find that my new large extraction tube had arrived from 'merica. Stuffed in all the leaf and trim (about 70 grams I think) into the extractor and it was juust the right amount, with a good packing compression. Here you can see it alongside my normal extractor tube that I use for whole buds (15g capacity), and this big one will normally be used for a second wash of the bud ground up. But there's nothing better than free trim to christen it with!
Well, I underestimated how much butane it would take to do a run of this size! The first can had expelled and was just stuck in there holding the pressure before any butane had even made its way down to the filter- I was beginning to think that I'd somehow fucked up and packed it too tight and the butane wouldn't get through. Not really a sensible possibility, I think.
Anyway it started coming out t'other end, yellow as morning piss. It still looked to be coming through with some colour as I got through two and a half cans of butane, before I had to give up due to a tired arm (I think I was over exerting to keep the seal, ha!) and hoped it was done. The last wee bit I dripped over a different dish and unfortunately it looks like there is still some oil to be washed out, but a second wash of such a quantity of low quality trim is going to use another can at least just to get through the tube, and so be high in whatever contaminants are associated with butane extraction relative to the quantity of oil yielded. Not sure if it's worth it. Maybe a rainy day stash.
Anyway, I got 4.5 grams. It looks a bit too damned dark in the first pic- it doesn't really do it justice, and I don't understand the relevant camera settings, so I just took a backlit one to try and show it in a more favourable light.
It
is a dark oil, being made from fairly low quality trim, but it's actually surprisingly tasty and as always, surprises me considering the source material. I'm thinking of filling up an Omicron cartridge with this stuff- it seems a good consistency, doesn't harden to shatter at room temperature, and seems fairly stable as its melted with a lighter flame (by which I mean it doesn't bubble too much-should sit nicely in the cart). Only thing that concerns me is that it's slightly darker and so the extra waxes et al might clog the cart sooner. But there doesn't seem to be any significant amount of residue left on the skillet.
So has anyone solved how to stop the filter retaining too much oil? As you can see below I still get a good few drops captured in the filter paper above the elastic band, and the whole filter paper is nice and sticky. I actually just tear it up and stick it into my SSV and get a lot of big hits from it, with no apparent vapors or issues stemming from the filter paper, but nevertheless I'd rather not loose some of my total yield to the filter. I trim the filter to be the minimum required size to reduce that retained, and I have tried wetting the filter above the elastic band with a tiny bit of water- which was a moment of stupidity and foggy thinking- by the time I was outside doing the run the water had migrated throughout the filter paper, and so froze and clogged when the butane hit it. Not a major issue, but had me concerned for a blowout and raised the stress levels. This time I had tried pre wetting the coffee filter with butane, but still not really preventative- I think as the butane evaporates it draws up fresh, oil laden solvent.