So I have an interesting dilemma that is coming soon and more than anything else, this should serve as a though experiment.
I’m currently getting ready for my states legal market as the licenses are only a few months away from rolling out. Many of my processes will adapt easily (probably better) to THC. However, my state is putting some interesting limitations on the market, the one most annoying to me is a potency limit of 60% total THC in solid concentrates. This is very frustrating for me because I was very excited to r&d diamonds!
I figured to get around this, I could just add my terp sauce on top such that it took up 31% by weight (correcting for decarbing). I could also dilute the terps if that number was too high. I don’t really like those options though, since 31% terps is a lot and I don’t like cutting agents.
However, my background is in organic optoelectronics and a project that I spent a lot of time on was a making co-crystal for thin film photovoltaics. The two molecules I used was pyrene and tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ). When these two were dissolved in their solvent (tetrahydrofuran, THF), they were very soluble…until you mixed them! The solutions would go from yellow-ish and green to black and solid would begin to precipitate. These were both planar molecules and they would arrange themselves in an alternating fashion, the color change was caused by a charge transfer, lowering band gap etc.
The point being that in this case, adding the second molecule caused this to crystallize faster, instead of inhibiting it.
My question is, does anyone know of a similar phenomenon going on with other cannabinoids? We all know CBD and THC love to inhibit each other and having as many cannabinoids as possible makes crystal resistant distillate, but CBG or CBGa could do the trick, especially how much CBG/a likes to crystallize. I’d be curious to see what people think.
This may be a dumb or useless idea but because of your interest in diamond R+D and access to sauce, could you try doing a jar tech type scenario whilst adding CBGa from isolate/distillate or for that matter a CBG sauce itself? Not many area doing it great but I’ve often wondered if you added high quality CBG sauce (something like @ashevilleextracts makes) into a jar tech what would possibly occur.
I’m probably talking nonsensicaly, I know nothing compared to most of you on this topic but my mind wanders.
Sorry but who wants to do that to a perfectly good THCA extract ?
Straight up, Your state rules suck, Diamonds are a thing and they will either allow it or watch as the black market serves the demand. I wouldn’t worry tho dude, every state roll out does this & they will catch on eventually, They will amend the limit to suit the product that’s in demand. I wouldn’t change course, your ahead of that curve already.
Find a lab that knows whats up, make friends with them and have them do your testing, you can also distill your sauce to get a THC free terp fraction with a short path and a good cold trap or 2, use it to buff your mix, if your stones are solid they wont dissolve.
Also I suppose you could be like @TheWillBilly & learn how to crystalize terpenes. It’s a thing!
I’m not so sure I would want the CBD, I remember reading an article that claimed small doses of CBD combined with THC can lower the psychoactive effects acting on the CB1 receptor in some people & I am one of them
I know, it really does suck, it’s likely going to stay for the first year to appease the prohibitionists, then get lobbied away the next year. Basically, the cannabis board is trying to stay on schedule with their license rollout and if the legislature wants to contest it, that would cause delays. There’s a lot of regulations that basically treats dispensary employees like junkies who will steal everything and sell it on the black market (all employees are fingerprinted, Id badges, gps trackers in transport vehicles).
I’m actually building out an analytical lab as well since that’s going to be a big bottleneck!
So your half gram diamond is only .435 if it’s pure.
Edit: I don’t think you’re going to successfully co-crystallize 41% terps and other cannabinoids with your thca. Just trying to encourage you to look at how you CAN sell diamonds.
It can be above 60% as long as it’s in a cartridge; we just got our hydrocarbon skid installed so we crash off the diamonds, decarb em and mix them back together. If we want to do dab units that would be the way and we are considering high terp diamond units.
