Hello all im thinking about getting one of these to do alchohol wash what are your thoughts.
“Online Store — ExtractCraft” Ethanol Recovery Systems | Ethanol Extraction Equipment
1 Like
I love mine but sometimes wish it was a rosin press, mainly due to the time/effort involved in completing a run (prep, run, cleanup).
It was definitely a good investment though there’s a good handful of “extra things” you’ll want to get along with it in order to use it.
What do you want to make with it?
2 Likes
Well mostly for dabs, I want to utilize all my trim for the wash. And keep my flower for smoking. Im not big into edibles. Maybe a rosin press would be better but not sure of i could use my trim for that.
I got mine for the exact same reasons:
- not usually into edibles
- was planning to process trim as well as flower, which rosin press isn’t as good at
Today I started my day with a dab of Jack Herer shatter that I extracted a couple months back, from trim taken from a recent grobo grow! I had totally forgotten about it until seeing this post here. 
Take a look at this post, although don’t let (the final color of) it detract from your decision – I made mistakes during this run which affected the outcome: https://www.allgrowers.com/t/cannabis-honey-oil/478/11?u=vegetato
I’ve had runs that look much better, and some that looked worse. That stuff tasted great and was quite strong regardless.
Some of the extras you’d want to pick up are:
- Büchner funnel(s) and filtering flask(s) - at least one of each, multiple flasks helps to process more at once
- several grades of filter paper; coffee filters will do the trick but proper filter paper creates a superior product with less impurities (waxes, crumbs, etc)
- a LOT of mason jars
- a fair amount of ethanol (2-4L+), which in Canada can be a touch expensive to acquire in small quantities
- vacuum chamber to purge with
- vacuum pump to use with chamber (can get expensive, I use a mityvac hand pump personally but wouldn’t recommend it for everyone)
- a mini medical freezer if your own freezer doesn’t at least hit -20°C or lower, OR plan to use dry ice during every run (this is the best way/better than freezer)
- quality silicone baking mats - I say “quality” here with some emphasis, as many of the ones I’ve found (inexpensively) on amazon are not as good as they claim to be (to put it nicely) and will bleed dyes (from the pattern that was printed on the mat, even the ones with “just an orange border” are printed) when exposed to alcohol. I’ve found that using the rear (non-printed) side helps to avoid the bleeding, but after seeing that I started only purchasing the more expensive name-brand mats that don’t do that as the silicone is actually colored as opposed to it being a pattern printed on. I can’t stress this one enough, safety first! Be careful when following others’ extraction processes you might find as well, as not everyone thinks about these things or even notices.
- possibly some filter medium (celite, silicate, activated charcoal, diatomaceous earth, etc) if you decide to clarify your solutions (if they end up dark/gross/etc). I haven’t had to go this route since going down to 2.5μm (#5) instead of 10μm (#1) for my slow filter.
- a LOT of isopropyl alcohol to clean with, or use ethanol if you’re in US and it’s inexpensive to
You’ll spend lots of time to spend practicing and honing your craft; pressing rosin is much more forgiving in that regard as it’s a much simpler process. Although, learning to extract with ethanol has other advantages (like re-running a batch to “try again”, that’s possible), which is why I prefer to use it – it can actually be more forgiving (overall) once fully understood and practiced. It also takes longer to produce a final “usable” product which makes rosin an easier choice for people wanting a ready-to-use product immediately (or shortly) after extraction.
If you’re interested I can dig up some more pics of my runs, although I can think of better examples from other people to show you, lol 
. There’s a facebook group (similar to this forum) with a community of extracters who are quite helpful in getting up and running. I’d suggest you email the company and ask to be invited to the group to get a look at the posts there first if you’re thinking about purchasing one.
PS @KeefGreenLeef, I noticed you might also be a Sourcerer; saw the sticker on your grobo in a pic. Do you use yours?
3 Likes
Wow thanks for all the information. That helped alot going go start looking for get all of that.
Just to be clear – that is a list of things to give you an idea of what you’ll probably want to go along with it, not so much what is required.
About half of that list is actually needed: silicone mat, funnel, flask, mason jars, and ethanol. The rest is semi-optional, or depends on how you choose to process it (ex. coffee filters vs lab filter paper, what quality you’re aiming for). The vacuum chamber is a luxury (for example), before I had one my method was just to flatten it as thin as possible and put that in a closed cardboard box and leave it to purge naturally at room temp for a couple of weeks. If anything, it illustrates more of the addons you’ll be tempted to buy if you get “into it”.
2 Likes
I was wondering about this device myself. I have a Levo 2 and ardent. They make very weak tinctures and oils. I then started using ethanol and it came out a lot stronger. So what does the source turbo actually extract? It sounds like distills the ethanol out of a tincture, but i thought that was what a tincture was anyway.
It also sounds like a lot of what you listed is for winterization. Is that right? Does the source turbo winterize? Thanks for the info.
The device gives you your ethanol back to do another run with. Simply put - It’s a safe way to boil off the alcohol. It does distillation under vacuum which separates the alcohol and leaves the oil/wax behind in the crucible.
Winterization is a step during your prep process, it’s not done by the device itself. It’s basically just putting your jar of “wash” (the ethanol that’s been run through the flowers) in the freezer and letting the fats/lipids/sediment settle to the bottom. It thickens up and is easier to filter out when cold.
3 Likes