Learn the ins and outs of decarboxylation from Greg Arias, co-founder of Concentrated Science. Greg and Jason discuss what is actually happening on a molecular level when decarbing your material, as well as specific SOPs for a streamlined and efficient decarb process.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Jason Showard - 00:00:10 
Hello and welcome to episode six of The Modern Extractor. This podcast focuses on the processes, equipment, and science found inside a cannabis extraction laboratory. I'm your host Jason Showard, and I work professionally in the cannabis extraction field. Here in season one, we're focusing on ethanol extraction and post-processing, with each episode digging deep into a particular stage in that process. The shows are released in an order that follows the workflow through a lab, as material makes its way from Cultivar to concentrate. 
 
Jason Showard - 00:00:39 
Last week on the show, we had Ray Van Lenten, founder and CEO of TruSteel on to help us break down falling film evaporation. Ray hooked us up with some amazing tips and tricks to get the most out of a falling film. He also broke down his decarb SOPs for use on their DR 10 decarboxylation unit. That's the same unit that I use and I absolutely love it. Moving on to this week's show, let's catch back up with our material on its way through the lab. 
 
Jason Showard - 00:01:06 
We've performed a cold ethanol extraction in a centrifuge and cold filtered it through a lenticular filter. Last week we took the resulting miscella and ran it through a Falling film evaporator to separate the oil we're after from the ethanol that we used to extract it. We were left with ethanol that's going to be sent back and used for future extractions and crude oil, which we're going to decarboxylate today. We heard Ray's decarb tech last week. But mine's a bit different. Let's get into it. 
 
Jason Showard - 00:01:33 
Now, I'd agree with Ray that a nitrogen sparge to push the air out of your decarb unit is ideal, but I've gotten pretty good results without doing it. Since, unlike Ray, I remove the solvent under vacuum. First off, fire up your cold trap chiller to protect your vacuum system. The condenser will catch any solvents removed from the crude. I like to bring my crude oil in and hold it at eighty degrees Celsius under vacuum of about -30 inches of mercury. 
 
Jason Showard - 00:01:57 
While it boils the remaining solvent off. It's important not to overfill the unit while doing this, or you can get some bumping of product into your condenser. This is a mess and it sucks to deal with, so don't overdo it. If you end up too full, you can lower your vacuum level a little bit. I bought the fourth ever DR 10 from TruSteel, so mine doesn't have an internal thermocouple to read the process temperature. I usually wait about fifteen minutes at 80C, then kick it up to 90 for about another ten minutes just to ensure all the solvent's gone. 
 
Jason Showard - 00:02:25 
Once I'm sure all the residual solvents are gone, I set my heater to 110C and start a timer for 40 minutes. Keep in mind that my process temp is 90 when I set that timer. Since I don't have an internal thermocouple, I don't have the ability to check the process temperature. So we just had to send out some lab tests along the way to make sure our decarb was going correctly. The oil makes it to 110 in, I would guess about ten minutes after I set it there, then spends another 30 at 110. 
 
Jason Showard - 00:02:54 
Then I immediately set the temperature on the heater back down to 70. Again, I'm using an older DR 10, so I don't have the ability to cool my process down like the fancy new ones do. Once my heater reads an incoming temperature of 70, I'll drain the decarbed crude out of the system and send it on to the next...