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Monday update, where we meander through some of this weekend's activities.
Let's talk about ethanol for a minute. We can't buy 190 proof alcohol in CA, so I bought a gallon of 120 proof Everclear for around $110, with the intent on running it through the distiller to get it as close to 190 as I could:
Here is the distiller setup:
The process begins:
I played with the temperature a bit since it's an inexact science when dealing with lower proof alcohol, and in the end I was up around 190ºF. This is what was left in the distiller after the first pass:
The second pass I ran a bit cooler as the boiling point lowers as the proof goes up. Here is what was left after the second pass:
Then it was time to check the proof of my alcohol, having been run two times:
~170 proof, which is much better but not where I wanted it to be. (It was hard to find a vessel tall and narrow enough to fit the 12" hydrometer in, and a narrow-necked vase was all we had!)
So this morning I decided to run it one more time through the distiller while I was at work to see if I could get it closer to 190. Remember folks, don't plug in your distiller before you have run the extension cord, or this might happen:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I tripped over the cord and pulled the distiller off the bench, and out went almost all the alcohol. This is what I was left with:
Fat oof as my son would say!
Okay, so now I'm back to square one and out $110 dollars
. And guess what...I could have bought 200 proof Extractohol (for the same price FFS) and never even gone through this whole triple distilling process or had to spend money on a hydrometer. I am such a fool, a clumsy clumsy fool.
So now I've ordered a gallon of Extractohol and we wait for that to arrive before we can move on with the QWET-to-cart process.
Speaking of the process, I had a long conversation with MadDab yesterday, and he suggested a Buchner funnel and 2 micron filter paper to get the winterized QWET as clean as possible before evaporation, so I'm looking into that. But now that I have no alcohol, there's no longer a rush!
Another thing I did this weekend was trim the non-GA3 Candidas (the three possible pollen recipients and the mother). And while I was trimming, I got under the winter two and plucked off some more larf that has grown since the thinning:
And in other plant news (because I know that whole distilling thing was a letdown), this is what the tent looked like this morning:
You may notice in the dark bottom left is the larger of the Candidas set to receive possible pollen, as it is flip day 1. Here is what it looks like in the sun:
So where are the Candidas that got sprayed with the GA3? In the isolation box in the garage at night:
They'll come out during the day until I think that pollen is in the offing and then they'll stay in the box 24/7 with the flowering Candida.
And what of the winter two? Colombian Gold 2:
Durban Poison:
Are we good? Good!
Let's talk about ethanol for a minute. We can't buy 190 proof alcohol in CA, so I bought a gallon of 120 proof Everclear for around $110, with the intent on running it through the distiller to get it as close to 190 as I could:
Here is the distiller setup:
The process begins:
I played with the temperature a bit since it's an inexact science when dealing with lower proof alcohol, and in the end I was up around 190ºF. This is what was left in the distiller after the first pass:
The second pass I ran a bit cooler as the boiling point lowers as the proof goes up. Here is what was left after the second pass:
Then it was time to check the proof of my alcohol, having been run two times:
~170 proof, which is much better but not where I wanted it to be. (It was hard to find a vessel tall and narrow enough to fit the 12" hydrometer in, and a narrow-necked vase was all we had!)
So this morning I decided to run it one more time through the distiller while I was at work to see if I could get it closer to 190. Remember folks, don't plug in your distiller before you have run the extension cord, or this might happen:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I tripped over the cord and pulled the distiller off the bench, and out went almost all the alcohol. This is what I was left with:
Fat oof as my son would say!
Okay, so now I'm back to square one and out $110 dollars
. And guess what...I could have bought 200 proof Extractohol (for the same price FFS) and never even gone through this whole triple distilling process or had to spend money on a hydrometer. I am such a fool, a clumsy clumsy fool.So now I've ordered a gallon of Extractohol and we wait for that to arrive before we can move on with the QWET-to-cart process.
Speaking of the process, I had a long conversation with MadDab yesterday, and he suggested a Buchner funnel and 2 micron filter paper to get the winterized QWET as clean as possible before evaporation, so I'm looking into that. But now that I have no alcohol, there's no longer a rush!
Another thing I did this weekend was trim the non-GA3 Candidas (the three possible pollen recipients and the mother). And while I was trimming, I got under the winter two and plucked off some more larf that has grown since the thinning:
And in other plant news (because I know that whole distilling thing was a letdown), this is what the tent looked like this morning:
You may notice in the dark bottom left is the larger of the Candidas set to receive possible pollen, as it is flip day 1. Here is what it looks like in the sun:
So where are the Candidas that got sprayed with the GA3? In the isolation box in the garage at night:
They'll come out during the day until I think that pollen is in the offing and then they'll stay in the box 24/7 with the flowering Candida.
And what of the winter two? Colombian Gold 2:
Durban Poison:
Are we good? Good!
Easy come, easy go, right? (Too soon?)
Do you think that’s maybe why you got all clumsy and tripped over the cord? Just discombobulated by the inexact science you had to cope with!
.
At least I got to work safely...
carcass! I already ordered from Extractohol this morning (not sure if they're still a sponsor or not), but I have bookmarked your link for when their original gallon runs out. There was a $25 hazardous waste fee on top of the cost, which worked out to almost an additional 33%!
to my grow journal! The Extractohol should be delivered today so I'll be back on track soon.