By Troy Ivan
ibc@ichibancrafter.com

WHAT IS YIELD?

In extraction language, the word “yield” refers to a weight comparison of how much starting material and final product was produced in percentage terms. The final product of extraction is often referred to as “oil.” The essential oils of all botanicals are what we target with extraction, whether it’s lavender oil from steam distillation, olive oil from cold pressing, full-spectrum CBD oil from hemp, or cannabis oil from different extraction methods. In the case of cannabis, the primary extracted oil is the starting point for all concentrates from shatter to topicals, so this base oil yield is what I will focus on.

The concept of yield is straightforward, but I see a steady flow of misuse and misunderstanding of the concept by beginners and self-professed experts alike, so I hope to clarify the topic as I understand it with this post.

WHY IS YIELD IMPORTANT?

Simple yield is an essential measure of value extraction performance in relation to the final product output achieved by your efforts. Generally, getting a ton of oil from a small amount of plant material is excellent value, while a small amount of oil from a large volume of plant material may be a waste of time and resources. The most basic idea is that the more oil you get from a given amount of plant material, the better.  Unfortunately, it’s just not that easy. To understand all the valuable feedback we get, we must understand all the considerations involved in the complex balance between the extraction process and the resulting yield. Understanding the balance and the yield numbers is crucial for accurately valuing the extraction output value.

HOW TO CALCULATE YIELD

A simple example would be using 100 g of cannabis to make 20 g of extracted oil, yielding 20%. You find this by dividing the weight of the final product by the weight of the starting product:
20 g/100 g = .20 = 20%

Notice the calculation does not include any indication of quality, potency, or how efficient the process was. It only shows the volume of output versus the volume of starting material.

NOT ALL YIELD IS COMPARABLY EQUAL

How we interpret yield numbers is vital to understanding the bigger picture of the extraction process and the resulting oil. For example, which is better: a 10% yield or a 30% yield? Most people would automatically jump to say that the higher yield is better; however, there is no single answer to this question, and more information is required to determine which is better for any individual case. 

Efficiency:  Efficiency regarding yield refers to how successful an extraction was at collecting the oil from the starting material. For example, if you’re working with trim and had a 10% yield, you can be pretty confident that you had pretty good efficiency, unlike if you were working with flower that’s rich with oil but ends up with only a 10% yield. Both extractions had the exact simple yield of 10%, which you’d be happy with from trim but not flower. The low number for flower would be troubling because you can be pretty sure there was a good deal of collectible oil left behind. Good efficiency means you got as much oil as possible out of the starting material, and poor efficiency means you left some behind, so while the yield numbers are equal, the value of the extraction can be drastically different.

Potency:  While efficiency focuses more on the value of the extraction process itself, potency focuses on the value of the actual oil output. In most cases, potency focuses on THC and CBD, with reasonable consideration also given to terpenes. The higher the potency per unit of measure, the more valuable the oil is. Back to our example question, the 10% yield could be a very high potency, clean, and beautiful concentrate made from sugar leaf or weak trim, whereas the 30% could be a low potency heavy, black, and plant matter-laden FECO. Is one better than the other? Maybe, and maybe not. The extract with higher potency would be more valuable in monetary terms, but what’s “better” depends on an individual’s desired outcome and what works best for their personal needs. So, when you hear people throwing around blind yield numbers or just throwing out the question, “What’s your yield?” understand that any answer is pretty useless without a deeper understanding and conversation about all the inputs, components, and processes involved.

INPUTS, COMPONENTS, AND PROCESSES

Understanding the Implications of Different Inputs

The primary input in extraction is the starting plant material. Many aspects of the material influence the resulting yield you may or may not get from the extraction process. Flower is the richest material that should produce the most oil, with the production numbers varying depending on different strains, genetics, and grow conditions. Trim produces substantially less output because there’s less oil in the material. I’ve heard of people running fan leaves and stems with around a 5% yield, but I haven’t tried it, and I probably won’t bother. People will automatically conclude that you should definitely only run flower, but that’s a hasty and possibly costly error. The considerations should be how much oil you get from the material, how much it costs, and what it will be used for. If the price for the flower and trim were equal, the choice would easily favor the flower. However, if trim is substantially cheaper, it can be perfect for making topicals or edibles. At that point, it would become a question of which material is cheaper to run the extraction with for the volume of oil that will be produced.

Material preparation will affect yield drastically, so it must also be considered. Trim doesn’t really matter because it’s usually pretty broken down already, but ground-up or milled flower will produce more oil than flower left as nugs. We know that working with ground-up flower and ethanol extraction can lead to green leak even at very cold temps in commercial applications, so the extra yield picked up with grinding may be given up on the back end when it has to be cleaned up. It’s all a balancing act. 

Understanding Desirable Component Value

The value of the yield requires careful consideration of the final product components. When we perform extractions, we target the oils of a plant; for cannabis and hemp, we are after the cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids, which I will refer to as “desirables.” There are also “undesirables” like chlorophyll, lipids, waxes, cellulose, and other contaminants that make up a part of the final product. Desirables are a valuable part of yield, while the undesirables are non-performing components that lower quality and potency. Think of the desirables as gold nuggets in a bag and undesirables as sand added to the bag to make it heavier. The cornerstone of a meaningful yield discussion centers around accurately comparing apples to apples, or in our case, desirables to desirables. Yield discussions get confused when concentrates with high desirables content get compared to other samples with higher undesirables content.  This is where the critical concept of potency clears the air by reporting the percentage of cannabinoids contained in any sample, allowing us to better compare the desirable content of different samples. When we know the potency and the components included in different samples, we can compare apples to apples, desirables to desirables, and know the real value of the end product and, thus, the real value of the yield number.

Understanding Different Process

Butane:  Many people blasting butane at home come out with massive yields, often bragging about how great the process is. By now, we know anyone open blasting isn’t very smart to begin with, and we also know that they’re pulling tons of undesirables that artificially inflate yield. Good butane closed-loop systems (CLS) with dewaxing columns are usually much better, but cheaper systems or improper operation can still lead to some undesirable content. On the other hand, Live Resin, made with fresh material and proper butane (butane/propane) process, is an excellent example of a very high desirables content end product with meager yields. The heavy wet weight of the fresh material makes the yield numbers very low, often into the low single digits.  

Rosin:  Rosin produces some of the most aromatic concentrates due to the extra terpenes attached to its undesirable content. Fats and waxes are present in both the plant material and trichomes of the cannabis and hemp plants. The heat and pressure application used in the rosin process makes it very efficient at picking up undesirables that are a large portion of the yield. Rosin guys often claim these big yields, then wonder why their banger is charred, and the flavor is harsh. Squishing some form of kief rosin can eliminate the fats and waxes of the plant material itself, but it will still have fat and wax content from the trichomes. The extra fat and wax content holds onto the extra terpenes that would otherwise be lost if cleaned up to the point of a quality live resin. I’m sure many rosin guys will get upset with this section, but anyone can test the validity of my points two ways. First, take some rosin you made and dissolve it in ethanol in a 15:1 ratio, and you will probably see the fats and lipids begin to precipitate out even at room temperature. To see the full extent of the undesirable content, put that 15:1 mixture in a freezer for 48 hours without touching it and filter out all the coagulated fats and wax to get a very clean, smoother, and higher potency end product. Second, simply test what’s left behind in the chips, pucks, and bags after they’ve been pressed, and it’ll be clear how much was missed in the initial processing. The high yields claimed by many making rosin at home are simply not comparable to clean extracts.

Old School/RSO/FECO Ethanol Extraction:  I’m a steadfast believer in working with cannabis in whatever way anyone deems best for their needs, and however they enjoy because everyone’s interaction with cannabis is very personal and unique. However, you’ll run into all kinds of confusing misinformation on extraction topics, with people saying, “I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I know you have to soak the material in alcohol for days to get the medicinal value” which is complete nonsense in terms our current understanding of plant science. The trichomes contain the vast majority of desirables, and very little exists elsewhere in the plant except for the roots. The longer cannabis soaks, especially at room temp, the more fats, waxes, and chlorophyll get collected, and they don’t contribute positively to the medicine in any way; all they do is reduce the potency of the medicine and make it taste like a swamp-ass. Some will argue that chlorophyll is good for you, which is true in general but pointless in extraction because there are only two kinds of chlorophyll on earth in all plants and algae, and the chlorophyll in cannabis is not unique. Instead of polluting your concentrate, get the healthy chlorophyll from a better source like spinach, kale, and microgreens. Some will argue that the long soak is better because more is obviously better, but it’s not true. Another source of terrible information comes from people using ‘butter machines’ who have been terribly misled into believing they need the machine to chop the plant and have it pulverized in warm alcohol for many hours for reasons that make no sense.  Those machines are designed for making soy and almond milk, not for cannabis and hemp extraction. Nothing indicates extended soaks are more medicinal than shorter, cleaner soaks, but they are more efficient for obvious reasons. Long soaks will be more efficient in collecting desirables, but that comes at the cost of lower potency from picking up loads of undesirables, horrible flavor, and possible gastric distress. This kind of extraction is where the yield will be very high, but desirable content and potency will be very low. 

*I anticipate some hate comments about this, but I’m up for the debate.

Quick Wash Ethanol (QWET):  ):  The entire point of doing QWET is to avoid as many of the undesirables as possible to achieve the cleanest full spectrum oil possible to make shatter, wax, crumble, vape carts, and really clean edibles or topicals.  This is the opposite of the old school/RSO/FECO ethanol extraction methods because it targets the desirables for inclusion and the undesirables for exclusion.  Subzero temperatures are used in QWET to inhibit the ethanol’s ability to attach to chlorophyll, fats, and waxes. It should have a very low undesirable content and high potency when performed correctly.  The main problem that people wrestle with in producing QWET is balancing the clean nature of the oil and the efficiency of the process.  To make the most pristine product, you must work at temperatures of around -40°F and some work down to about -70°F.  The colder the temp, the harder it is for the ethanol to collect undesirables, but it’s also harder to collect desirables, making it challenging to maximize efficiency.  The exposure time can be extended significantly to compensate for the lower efficiency of low temperatures. However, only so much can be done at such low temperatures, so the results typically have high potency and average yields.

Cleanup and Recover Lost Yield in Rosin and QWET:  Rosin and clean QWET sacrifice efficiency and yield to achieve their desired end products, but the beauty of the tradeoff is that the oil that was sacrificed can be recovered.  Processed rosin chips, pucks, and bags and the material used in the first pass of QWET can be soaked in ethanol to process a second time more aggressively to pick up the desirables left behind and realize the full value of the starting material.  This cleanup process may have a higher content of undesirables, but you will increase the combined total desirables pickup efficiency from the starting material by processing twice. 

DO MACHINES MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YIELD?

In many cases, equipment affects yield, and in others, it’s not.  This equipment can mostly be split between those that load plant material into it and those that don’t.  Rosin presses have several components that influence the range of achievable yields, like plate material, plate size, heat, pressure, etc.  Closed-loop hydrocarbon extraction and C02 systems yield expectations can vary by the equipment quality but are more dependent on the experience of the person running it.  Conversely, the DIY vacuum still and rotovaps are solvent recovery systems that simply process whatever’s loaded into them and have virtually no effect on yield. What you put in is what you get out.

PULLING TOGETHER WHAT THIS ALL MEANS

To make sense of any yield conversation, you must know all the factors involved for the number to have any real meaning.  The balance of the efficiency of pickup, potency, and overall yield provides us with the big picture and terms that allow helpful comparison of different products and processes.  There’s no “bad, good, better, or worse” in this balance of efficiency, potency, and yield; only what’s right for any person’s individual needs.  Hopefully, with what I have shared here, you will be armed with the knowledge to make sound and informed decisions on what’s best for you.

I HOPE THIS HELPS UNDERSTAND THE IDEA OF YIELD. STAY LIFTED MY FRIENDS !!!!!

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