Eesh… machine trimming is the worst. Good luck!
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Is there a particular reason the terpenes would carry over the pesticides while alkanes wouldnt?
I am not certain of the circumstances under which you were told that would be true. Mostly, it depends on the pesticide(s) in question as to whether or not it would be true. In fresh cannabis resin, terpenes coexist with and act as solvents for the cannabinoids. Their capacity to hang onto pesticides is generally greater than that of cannabinoids, so a lot of pesticides go with the terpenes during extraction, distillation, liquid/liquid partitioning, etc. I wouldn’t say it is a question of alkanes vs. terpenes.
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Is remediation of 'sauce" really out of the question, then? It should be a distillate to facilitate effective remediation of pesticides, correct?
I have a acquaintance who is saying they can clean dirty sauce, and leave it as sauce, which I think is BS. 
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Correct. As of now, I don’t know of a way to remove pesticides from resin containing terpenes. I’m sure it depends on which pesticide(s) may be present as to whether or not the resin can be cleaned, but in general, terpenes seem to hang on to many pesticides so much that the pesticide numbers do not even decrease in a statistically significant way when normal resin is put through the removal processes.
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I should also include that we have found that some pesticides are practically insoluble in alkanes, and that usually these are pesticides that are quite soluble in water and alcohols. Some terpenes are alcohols called terpenols, aptly enough. By the same token, some terpenes have affinities that alkanes do not, so they may very well hold onto pesticides that alkanes would not.
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A couple questions from a novice, hope they don’t sound too silly, just looking for some clarification on measuring and adjusting pH.
I am seeking to measure the pH of a dissolved solution of oleoresin in ethanol. The solution is pretty dark pre-scrub and still has that golden amber color post-scrub. Does the color of the solution not affect the ability to read pH on paper? I was thinking of using a probe for this but if litmus paper works I would prefer the low tech solution.
Second, why use magnesium oxide to titrate and not say, sodium bicarbonate.
Thanks!
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The solution color does not affect the paper color enough to give you a bad reading.
If you are trying to neutralize something, you should know what it is and what the products will be.
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Ah I see so the reason is because of the relative inertness of the magnesium citrate salt formed by magnesium oxide and citric acid, which will have little effect on the end product.
So in my case I don’t know what exactly the acid is that is lowering the pH of my ethanol. I vaguely remember reading about CO2 dissolving in ethanol and forming carbonic acid but I can’t find anything from a basic google search. How could one go about determining the acid present?
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Ethanol water azeotrope is naturally a little acidic.
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Getting readings around 4.0, seems a little low eh? What originally sent me down this rabbit hole was high delta 8 content in my distillate.
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Did you scrub or anything like that? Are you measuring with Hydrion paper or a meter? Ethanol and meters do not mix well.
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Water saturated with CO2 and carbonic acid is a little over pH 4. Distilled water left in atmosphere will actually absorb some CO2 and drop in pH. Try it.
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For a while our SOP was to scrub with AC 10% by volume at 60 C for 30 mins and then filter through grade 1(11 micrometer pore size) without any filter aides. I am now realizing the errors of our ways and have started filtering through celite 545 as well. Might also switch it up to C Bleach. By now I have used both a meter and litmus paper to measure the pH of our solutions and I feel fairly confident in the readings. I used this meter and these papers from a friend. But I have ordered Hydrion paper.
Our fast filtering T5 neutral bentonite clay is a great alternative to Celite 545. DM for details.
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Hmmm. This seems to be in line with my experience as well using EtOH as a solvent. What have you done, have you stopped using reclaimed solvent or attempted to neutralize it?
It would be too expensive to just dump it. We have experimented with nutralizing it, but ac just restores it. Better to pH the resin.
Cool. I just don’t want the ethanol to ruin your wet bulb. Need to thoroughly remove resin with fresh ethanol, then tap water rinse well, then immediately back into neutral buffer. Ethanol can dehydrate the glass, which can cause issues later that you may not notice are electrode issues. The paper strips you are using are likely fine.
Now, the question is: Have you measured the pH of just the (fresh, as in freshly distilled if you predistill) ethanol, and then resin-laden ethanol, before and after scrubbing/filtering?
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