I have about 120lbs of buds that failed for Aspergillus. I’ve tried searching how to remediate this material and found that you can remove the Aspergillus with 1 micron filters but the mycotoxins the Aspergillus can make will not be removed. Is there any remediation for mycotoxins such as Aflatoxins or Ochratoxins?
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It was the second hit on my search
Edit: your post was the first. It seems your stuck with it.
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Aspergillosis mycotoxins can’t be remediated to the best of my knowledge. If you’re really lucky somebody’s gonna come along and tell me I’m wrong.
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I know for a fact that just because material failed for molds does not necessarily mean that the mycotoxins are present. My understanding is that the molds need certain “foods” to make those particular mycotoxins and cannabis is generally not good at providing those “foods.”
We’ve tested extracts from multiple failed batches, all of which were ND on the required mycotoxin analysis, which includes aflatoxins and ochratoxins. It has been speculated that the boiling point of the toxins is too high to carry over in wiped film distillation.
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Thank you sir! Aspergillosis is one mold I have not personally tried to clean up.
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We are going to test the flower to see if it has mycotoxins in it. The lab only had a pass/fail for Aspergillus so we need to test again. Our plan is that if it doesn’t have any mycotoxin we will run it like normal with double filtering through 1 micron paper, and if it does have mycotoxin we are looking at consulting/throwing it out.
Thanks for the replies!
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Often - you won’t see the mycotoxins in the flower, even if you might later see it in the concentrated oil. You could instead test at the “crude” stage.
There are methods for mycotoxin removal. You need to know which mycotoxin is present. There is a lot of good work for this on corn oil and other grains. So just search “mycotoxin remediation corn oil” or “soybean oil” and that should get you heading the right direction for the types of enzymes you’ll need to be mixing with your oils.
Even with the presence of aspergillus - mycotoxin production requires a few other things, like the presence of seeds. So it is very possible that you won’t have any at all to be worrying about. Unless you have fully seeded material - that has obvious aspergillus growth around the flowering heads/seed sites.
I’m gonna assume aflatoxin and ochratoxins - and point you to this summary of the science available. It should lead you to some other solutions.
In short - you probably won’t have any mycotoxins. And if you do - there are methods, although none are incredibly simple - that you can use to remove those mycotoxins.
Good luck and let us know what you decide to do.
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Great tips @Cassin and the rest of y’all
Talked to the lab guys, they said it is an extremely unlikely any mycotoxin is produced from Aspergillus in cannabis due to it needing some things in order to do so:
-weed is fully seeded and moldy (like cassin said)
-weed is moldy and very damp for a long time
-some kind of nuts are introduced for the Aspergillus to feed off
We are still going to do a R&D test on some of the buds to see but with all this information we are much more hopeful. I will report back when we get results/run the material.
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Was it Aspergillus Fumigatus? What lab did you test at? We got Long Beach Pharm Labs shut down after a huge fiasco with them and still had to come up with a remediation plan to be approved by the CDPH. I wish I still had the email to copy and paste but tell me if it’s that exact mold and I’ll tell you the remediation plan to email the CDPH and they’ll approve it.
Itll probly work for other “strains” of aspergillus but I’m not sure.
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Post up the procedure @og_extracts please? I’d like to read it.
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There are some neat remediation technologies reported in academically for mycotoxins (including one with supercritical water which seems cool but probably impractical). The one thing I will say though is that if there’s a concern, please test large homogenates of your material; this is not something you want to have a “compliant” result on of it’s not indicative of your whole batch. Look up the LD50s on these toxins and my point will be made
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The test is only a pass/fail for “Aspergillus”. The lab did not give any more information about specific strains. The state doesn’t regulate mycotoxins apparently because the lab doesn’t even test for them. We found some studies about corn extract mycotoxin remediation thanks @Cassin for the tips.
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Interesting. Most Aspergillus doesn’t even create mycotoxins. There’s only a handful of species that do. Maybe they only test for those species. If it isn’t those special ones, there won’t be any mycotoxins and normal micro-filtration (like 0.5 micron) will be enough to pull that stuff out and leave your product closer to sterile.
Aspergillus is a normal mold - so normal methods for killing mold will work. But honestly - I’d just go with filtration. The normal heating of a decarb process will break down any spores, etc. which might make it through the process.
And if you had mycotoxins (which at this point I really doubt…) get yourself some enzymes and go from there. There’s some other LLE techniques in the paper I linked as well.
Good luck!
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I know I have used positively charged nylon filters to remove endotoxins from pharmaceutical grade water. Mycotoxins will certainly have a charge distribution but perhaps with a pH shift on the final oil a charged filter membrane or resin might help, but just taking a guess at this as endotoxins are certainly different.
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I wouldnt worry about mycotoxins much(unless failed of course), you have to really try to get mycotoxins like really try.
As for the remediation method i am listing is to remediate it as bud not oil. Simple filtration will do the latter but lets be real who wants to run quality buds into oil(talking for sale not personal) Like i said we got the lab shut down cause we KNEW our bud was clean, independently tested at 2 other facilities to be sure. both were clean but BS protocol by the state called for a remediation method before it can be accepted(and they still havnt changed legislation.)
Here goes:
Process involved a secondary room/tent. involving a intake and exhaust fan, intake requiring a hepa filter. The Room had suspended hanging nets(the ones you can harvest and stack layers of your bud on when off the stem) - lay your buds all through out - my original SOP used UVA and UVB light but that was the one thing they stepped in on and recommended UVC lights(wanted to avoid cause how quickly they can damage buds) are added to the room, as well as a mister/fogger with 70% alcohol. This would remediate like a mo fucker but too much light shit even a little UVC can do damage, like i said we knew our bud was clean so while we performed some remediation methods our bud was still A1 at the end of said process.
If i were to conduct trials and experiment i would recommend sending in a SOP with the alcohol or UVC alone, see if they approve it if not add the other. Even than R&D and pulling samples would be best as im sure you could remediate with very minimal damage if you were careful. UVC destroys buds fairly quickly but id wager it destroys molds in fractions of that time. Keep in mind you need a FOGGED room not a wet walled one. as in 75% humidity is probly a point you dont want to past. raise humidity let sit for 10 seconds flush out room. test go longer if still failed etc etc.
Or you could go the Cali testing lab route and just heavily remediate “the random sample” the “testing” lab will pick up. When misting you dont want it directly spraying on the buds.
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Don’t you want to remove the mold and its byproducts, not just kill them off? I understand the “get it to pass full panel testing” mentality, but that’s not the whole story, is it?
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There were no byproducts, it was a coa and mycotoxins would’ve popped if so. The part italicized will explain the whole story, the paragraph after is a recommendation for anyone who needs to fully commit to said remediation plan.
Wouldn’t killing them off be removing them? It’s adequate in hospitals- more specifically ICUs (per a CDPH rep who reviewed and responded to my remediation plan) so id assume there was a respectable amount of research proving so.
The testing lab is Pharmlabs if you’ve heard of any of there horror stories. I know a type 6 just had issues with there Coachella Valley division, why the state licensed them after we got there long Beach license revoked is beyond me. They got it revoked but it already did damage of 6 figures to these small buisness owners and I couldn’t imagine who else.
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Very true. I like to live by “fear of the unknown” as a rule of thumb. Not so I can live in fear, but so it’s easy to point out holes in my own thinking process.
The hole in my thinking is that if there is an established program and plenty of research that backs up the “lack of byproduct.”
Had someone asking me about this mold so I came across the thread.
1 micron filtration beneath a silica/bentonite bed did not get the oildown to non-detect (although somehow they have LOD / LOQ for the flower tests but not the oil tests. It’s just pass/fail with no Lower Limit of Detection. Probably different testing labs - which if you’re reading this, that won’t help much unless the same samples go to each lab (given the variance I tend to see between even reputable labs - mostly on solvents, cannabinoids, and terpenes)
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Thats fair I understand i tend to counter argue my own points for similar reasoning.
I see your point most ive read says 2-10 micron is the average size for molds. so you’d think 1 would get the job done. I use to think 1UM was plenty for powders too but have without a doubt seen a decent amount get thru. I wonder the accuracy of micron sizing in a lot of these filters tbh wonder if that could be in play as well.
Maybe you can rig something up with a valve right under a open design sight glass and one above slowly input solute close blast with some UVC lighting, rinse and repeat. If the glass(type) material doesn’t reflect to much. Id think with enough time itd succeed no matter but who knows of the damage. could maybe dump into a collection pot or into a jar right after and do time trials see where/IF it goes. Although if you gotta get a c1d1 version thatd be …$$
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