THE SOURCE TURBO

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Helping people understand why the Source Turbo is special and why what it does is important is one of the most challenging missions ExtractCraft faces as a company. In general terms, the Source Turbo is an appliance that allows anyone to perform home ethanol extraction easily and safely, using botanical materials like lavender, sandalwood, hops, and mushrooms for anything you’d like to use in culinary arts, scenting, smoking, vaping, and medicine making. The Source Turbo produces incredible, high-quality concentrates that will amaze you from the first try.

More specifically, the Source Turbo is an advanced piece of extraction equipment with capabilities normally found only in a lab but designed to feel familiar in the home and fit comfortably on the kitchen counter. It is a combination of internal vacuum generation and heat delivery specifically tuned for low-temperature ethanol evaporation, incorporating an outer containment serving triple duty as a vacuum chamber, cold trap, and collection vessel controlled by a system so technologically advanced that operation requires only the push of a single green button.

The Source Turbo is designed for small-batch countertop extraction. The unit can be loaded with a liquid volume of about 300 ml. Depending on the material, that equates to processing about an ounce of dry material and producing a few grams of concentrate.  It’s perfect for the hobbyist or test kitchen.  It’s a lot of science bundled in a small package.

You can’t forget the app these days. The Source Turbo has a great mobile app to monitor estimated content temperature, vacuum level, current altitude setting, and time remaining until auto-shutoff. Using the app is optional and not required for the unit's operation, so those who don’t want to do so don’t have to.

HOW THE SOURCE TURBO OPERATES

The Source Turbo performs the important operation of evaporating and purging ethanol in the ethanol extraction process. Traditionally, evaporation for at-home extraction has been accomplished by allowing ethanol to evaporate slowly for a couple of days or boiling it in an open atmosphere with high heat. Neither of those options is good because natural evaporation takes far too long, and boiling off ethanol with high heat destroys the most flavorful and aromatic elements of an extraction, thus destroying quality. Most concerning, both options fill the surrounding air with combustible fumes, which is wasteful and dangerous. The Source Turbo is designed to address and eliminate those problems.

The Source Turbo is a self-contained closed-loop system that solves old ethanol evaporation problems without cumbersome, difficult-to-use, expensive lab equipment. Vacuum technology and advanced system controls evaporate ethanol around 100°F. The very low operational temperatures preserve the most delicate attributes of an extraction, creating the most high-quality, potent oil possible. Using a combination of vacuum, heat, and outside ambient temperature, the vacuum chamber becomes a “cold-trap” and collection vessel to reclaim evaporated ethanol for reuse. Reclaiming ethanol for reuse keeps the dangerous fumes from filling the surroundings, saves significant money with every use, and eliminates waste. When the extraction process is completed, the pure oil concentrate remains in the crucible, and the clean reclaimed ethanol is separated in the collector.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SOURCE TURBO AND OTHER DEVICES?

Extraction vs Infusion

A common question is, “What’s the difference between the Source Turbo and other butter makers and infusion devices?” The difference is enormous; to understand this, we must differentiate between “infusion” and “extraction.”  “Infusion” is the act of soaking botanical matter in a large amount of butter or carrier oil (like olive oil) to absorb the botanical oil contained in the plant.  Regardless of claims to the contrary, the butter makers and infusion machines only perform the simple act of infusion, resulting in a large volume of the fat-based carrier with a comparably low potency end product. The exact process can be safely and easily accomplished on the stovetop, in a slow cooker, or any combination of a vessel and heat source. Infusion devices don’t concentrate oil or butter in any way. Instead, they merely steep the plant material like a slow cooker, allowing the added butter or oil to absorb the oils from it, leaving the user with no control over potency.

“Extraction” is entirely different, harvesting only pure oil from botanicals without added carrier oil, butter, or fat. The user extracts only pure botanical oils. Highly potent, pure concentrates result only from extraction, and the Source Turbo is a great tool.  Pure oil from extraction is the base for any form of concentrate: tincture, concentrated tincture, absolute oil, wax, budder, pull-n-snap, shatter, edibles, topicals, and more.  Moreover, using concentrates for cooking provides a substantially cleaner and delicious end product and the ultimate potency control.  A larger amount of concentrate can be combined with a small amount of butter to make it ungodly potent, or less can be added to a larger amount of butter to ease the strength as much as desired. The Source Turbo delivers great versatility to safely make high-quality concentrates from any botanical, in any form or potency, creating a level of freedom and agility infusion devices can only dream of.

Ethanol Extraction Systems: Open vs. Closed Loop vs. Vacuum Assisted Closed Loop

How ethanol is boiled, evaporated, and, in some cases, recaptured for re-use is determined by the type of system being used. An “open” system boils ethanol by applying heat and evaporating the vapor into the open air. Examples of this are old-school methods like using a pot on a hot plate or a rice cooker. Open evaporation causes many obvious safety, quality, and affordability problems. When performing extractions, safety is paramount, and evaporating ethanol into the air of an enclosed area is very dangerous since those fumes are combustible and will easily ignite. Quality is another problem resulting from the high temperature required to boil ethanol under normal ambient pressure. In an open system, ethanol boils at about 173°F, which is too high. It destroys the delicate and beautiful compounds that define a quality concentrate and chemically alters its makeup, limiting post-processing options. Hot plates, pots, and rice cookers are inexpensive, so many people mistakenly consider this the cheapest processing option; however, when all aspects of extraction are considered, an affordability paradox makes this process one of the most costly. The rice cooker may be inexpensive, but ethanol isn’t cheap, and letting it evaporate into the air is an enormous waste of money that adds up quickly. Next, the final product's quality, and hence the value, must be accounted for, and the high-temperature purge used in open systems will produce the lowest quality medication. Low-quality, less potent meds won’t go far, don’t last as long, and require you to use more overall, seriously decreasing value. Additionally, openly boiling ethanol requires constant attention and supervision, wasting valuable time you could spend doing something else important or relaxing. The low cost may make the rice cooker and other open system methods attractive to a home user,  but they’re unsafe, produce low-quality concentrates, and are not the most affordable option.

“Closed loop” systems also evaporate ethanol at open atmosphere temperatures of around 173°F, just like a rice cooker, but can capture and reclaim some of the evaporated ethanol for reuse. The most popular of these devices are simple water distillers. They aren’t actually closed loop because they vent into the open, but they are similar.  These devices partially solve two of the problems associated with completely open systems to a limited degree. Safety is better because a good amount of the alcohol vapor is condensed and collected for reuse. However, most of these devices drain into an open recovery vessel from condensers that get overwhelmed by the volume of hot vapor pushed through them, allowing a lot of vapor to escape into the open air.  This is a little safer but far from perfect. In my experience, the average ethanol reclaim with these is around 60%-70%. A water distiller can be more expensive than a rice cooker, but it’s a little safer and more affordable in the long term because the ethanol is recaptured for reuse.  Now for the bad news. These machines are designed for water distillation, not oil extraction, creating serious quality and operational problems. Extractions made using a distiller or a rice cooker suffer from the same quality limitations. Distillers also work under normal ambient pressure, so the operating temperatures are high, and the extract quality is low. It can also be frustrating because you can’t see inside during the process, and the oil must be removed from a fixed vat.  Using one is cumbersome, difficult to empty, dangerously hot, and wasteful. For an average at-home user, these units are quite large, with substantial surface area in the oil collection area, and are made to run large amounts of water, so if you need to run a small batch, you’ll have difficulties. Distillers are an acceptable choice if you’re only making large batches of oil and willing to sacrifice safety and quality for the production volume, but that’s all they’re capable of.

(Reclaimed ethanol in the collector)

The most advanced systems are “Vacuum Assisted Closed Systems,” and this is where the Source Turbo shines. Adding a vacuum to a closed system keeps all of the vapor activity enclosed within a self-contained unit, allowing virtually nothing to escape, and the low internal pressure allows the Source Turbo to boil and evaporate ethanol at around 100°F. The ability to operate at low temperatures in an enclosed environment solves all the problems the other devices suffer from. It’s safe because everything is reclaimed internally, allowing no dangerous fumes or odors to escape during operation. In addition to vastly improved safety, the quality of the extractions and concentrates is unmatched. Using such low temperatures for the entire process ensures that all the good stuff extracted from the plant is saved, protected, and packed into the concentrate. The quality is so tasty, smooth, and potent that it’s unbelievable, and this high quality is key to great value. Higher quality, more potent medication will go further, last longer, and require you to use less overall, seriously increasing value and savings.

Contrary to many people’s first impression, the Source Turbo is the most affordable option for at-home extraction, even with the higher initial cost. What must be understood about the Source Turbo is that affordability and value are more than just a price tag. Using the Source Turbo provides savings of $10-$20 in ethanol with every use, safe and easy home operation, wildly superior quality concentrates, a processing time of around 2 hours, and loads of fun experimenting with unlimited crafting possibilities.

For more detailed and technical information, please see the Source Turbo User Manual.

click on image to visit the Source Turbo User Manual