The cannabis industry is booming in North America, and the, “green rush”, has encouraged people to utilize creative ways to extract cannabinoids from the cannabis plant. The innovation that we have seen in the industry is pretty amazing. JC Younger can help you set up your cannabis extraction facility.
With the green rush taking place across the country, brands are creating new products to serve a wider range of new customers. These consumer brands are using cannabis extraction methods in new and inventive ways that require streamlined chemical extraction processes.
Different products require different cannabinoid compounds. We are seeing more cannabinoids being discovered and becoming popular, i.e. CBG, CBN, and Delta-8.
In this blog, we cover three cannabis extraction methods that are commonly used in the CBD, hemp, and cannabis industry:
1) Ethanol Extraction
This process is known for creating some of the purest and best-tasting concentrates. Ethanol is a very efficient solvent, so extraction can be done at room temperature, super cold conditions, or right at the boiling point.
The ethanol solvent binds with chlorophyll, which can make the product taste bitter. Cannabis extraction method using Ethanol extraction can isolate cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavanoids so your product.
Ethanol Extraction Process:
1. Heat your feed to remove chlorophyll.
2. Boil ethanol and catch the alcohol in a cooled- coil.
3. Drip the alcohol through your plant material until it is soaked through and leaches out the THC, terpenoids, and other goodies.
After this, you have to filter the flower from the liquid. This can be done in the machine that did the first two steps. Often, they will have a rotary system that spins the materials until the plant is completely extracted.
The fun part is separating out the ethanol from the compounds you want. Since ethanol has a low boiling point, this is fairly easy. Your chiller can winterize the product, keeping the temperature very low for a while in a vacuum so that the solvent drops out.
2) Alcohol Tincture Extraction
This is a basic Cannabis extraction method that will leave you with the tarry honey oil. It’s often done by small scale operations or by people at home, but you can scale up if you want.
The process:
1. Treat your feed to decarboxylation, meaning heat your material to around 250 degrees Fahrenheit for a prolonged period of time.
2. Soak your treated feed in the water.
3. Drain it and replace the water with pure, high-proof alcohol
4. Stir this together and then put it through a strainer.
5. Heat the resulting liquid to separate out the alcohol and filter out the plant.
You will wind up with the classic oil you remember from your youth.
3) Carbon Dioxide (Supercritical Fluid Extraction)
Supercritical carbon dioxide (C02) is the gas we all exhale after it has been treated to 73bar (1060psi) at 33.1 degrees Celsius. This turns it into a material that spreads like gas but flows like a liquid.
For cannabis extraction methods for quality products, Supercritical C02 extraction is often considered the gold standard because it will take out all 500 compounds that you could possibly want to utilize in your cannabis extract products.
1. Have your extractor full of CO2 properly calibrated.
2. Feed the plant material into it. The supercritical carbon dioxide will soak the feed and leach out 90 to 95% of all the compounds.
The next step will be to winterize your product. How long you do this will depend on the products you are making. If you do it for a short time, you will wind up with wax in your product and, while it will make shatter just fine, it won’t be good for vape liquids.
As you can see, you have a lot of choices when it comes to cannabis extraction methods for quality products, and many of them require chillers. JC Younger is proud to say that we can customize chillers to your Cannabis extraction method, and we can rent them to your company for anything from weeks to years.
If you are looking to get a chiller for your process, contact us.
