Hey all,

Firstly congratulations on a great site here and some very useful information.

I'm amazed at what I've learnt here and I'm preparing for my first extraction.

Thanks to the searches I've got my head around what is required and the steps to take.

However the one item I'm unsure about is the main Jug that will hold the soup etc.

I spent a lot of time scouring the forums and it seems a lot of people use the Plastic Milk Jugs, however I wanted to avoid that due to the risk of the chems breaking down the plastic.

A glass Jar seems a good option but it needs to be sealable so I can roll/shake things around, all I've been able to find is 'Glass Storage Containers' and these arent marked as Diswasher safe so I'm worried about them breaking, and I don't think the seals are watertight.

Mason jars seem too small.

Can someone recommend something? What about a pickle jar?

hello lm2012, welcome to the Nexus.

a litre jar from wilko will do the job nicely.

Hi and thanks for your reply. Do they have sealable tops?

You're going to want to avoid pretty much any lids that have internal rubber/plastic parts for sealing them, as these can be degraded by non-polar solvents and wind up in your end product.

I don't know if you have any "industrial waste" warehouses/resellers around you (you could probably look online as well), but I was able to find Sigma-Aldrich NPS jugs for chromatography solvents, some of which still had their PTFE-lined lids, making them perfect for extraction. Online they look to be rather pricey, but in-store it was like $5.

Thanks for that, they seem difficult to find in the UK though.

Ill be attempting a wine bottle with cork. Hopefully lye won't do me wrong there. Im not certain how this will go but read a single thread with someone reporting multiple extractions using wine bottle and cork with no known issues. I also did some googling and noticed lye is used for ph changes in wine so I'm staying positive.

So thats all I can suggest.

If the jugs are HDPE wouldn't that be fine?

I think it is debatable. Ive read a number of conflicting reports on this. Some say no problems, some say the plastic is noticably degraded after running an extraction which could mean contamination. Glass is definitely preferred if available.

If you want to do a 500g extraction, get a glass demijohn from Wilkinson Plus. It's only £7. I don't know if you drink cider but for a smaller extraction you can also use one of those 2.5L glass cider bottles which you can get, among other places, Asda (can't remember the price). For both of these you'll need a cork bung (it will disintegrate by the time you finish the extraction, so get more than one).

I've used a wine jug with success. Fwiw, lye is not used in the wine bottles/jugs, but the glass should stand up just fine. The reason most glass breaks is due to the heat stress from lye reactions, not the causticity of lye. If you premix your lye solution and let it cool, you can save your extraction vessel from the heat stress.


Phillips, the company that manufactures HDPE says no.


link

Thanks for the clarification Snozzle. I will indeed be premixing and allowing it to cool so things are looking up

I'll be adding lye in a pyrex jug before adding to the main jug - thus reducing the heat on the main jug.

FYI - Dunelm seem to do some right handy little toys. I thought it was all curtains and pillow cases, but they do some lovely little pyrex dishes with lids which will come in handy.

Good info from Phillips thanks for the link.