Distillate potency loss

Good morning folks. I have a little birdy trying to tell me that distillate will lose 5-10% of potency over a year or two of sitting on the shelf. I was thinking maybe 1-2% but 5-10% is hard to believe. Can someone give me anymore insight on this? Thanks so much!

I have 6 months apart results on distillate and it showed little to no degradation, however it was stored vac-sealed in a dark freezer so I don’t think it would be accurate unless storage conditions were the same

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Thanks for the info. The distillate I am speaking of is on a shelf in a temp controlled room, not vac sealed, and has a light on in the room most of the time.

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Fuck little birdies, use real analytics.

If you don’t have pre-storage analytics, i would hazard that the “bird” was trying to get ahead of known low potency by telling you “it must have degraded”.

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Like EAGLES, OR HAWKS OR VULTURES!!!

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Trust me I am with you, we do test before we storage the product. Testing labs are not inflating the % in Colorado anymore which I am happy about but I have med distillate that is 1.5y old with 89% testing and I add 2% terpenes and the new test comes back at 65% so that is why this birdie thinks it has “degraded”. I tried to talk some sense into the situation but she double downed. Anyways Thanks!

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Gotcha.

I’d wager both numbers are off.

“Grade inflation” has been a problem in all markets, with very few labs actually standing their ground as labs around them provide incrementally higher numbers over time.

If CO has “corrected”, then this is certainly part of the problem, comparing historic/inflated numbers to “been on the shelf a long time” will absolutely make any potential degradation look more extensive.

However, as nothing has left the jar, examination via GC should provide some insight (unknown peaks would support “degradation”).

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Curious what CO has done to attempt controlling cannabinoid content inflation.

CA is in process of implementing a standardized canna method that is trash

IMO The MED has come down hard on labs this last 6 months which is promising. A few of the labs shut down completely and lost accreditation.

Wouldn’t it degrade into something else and show the increase in another compound

What does delta 9 degrade into, cbn?

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Correct but this birdie is not thinking scientifically. If it degraded it would turn into a different cannabinoid not just disappear into thin air.

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There’s pretty good science on the degradation of THC when exposed to LIGHT and at normal room temperatures. Additional oxidation, if its just sitting on a shelf in an open container.

You can read about it here. Yes it is real. No it doesn’t have to happen - that’s why you store things in Cool, Dark places - most things actually like it cold and dark… except plants. -shrug-

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Yeah its not like the molecules disappear or evaporate or something.

You usually can see a noticeable color change - especially with a lot of light exposure. And you get some “potency” loss - to different things, mostly CBN.

We did a side by side study with three pans, pan with lid, pan with lid under argon, pan with no lid. And then we did that same study with light exposure in the room. So now - we put a lid on the pan, don’t care about blanketing it, and we put it in a cabinet that is always dark even if the room is bright.

That was 2 years ago. Pretty sure cannabinoids are still behaving the same way…

Going form 89% to 65% doesn’t make a lot of sense… unless you cooked the fuck out of it while you were mixing. Or perhaps if your tek doesn’t know how to use a measuring tool and added way more terpenes than you thought they were going to add. This has happened to me - and it was easy to see in the batch record, because we had around 300 extra carts and we didn’t have any terps left over. -shrug-

There’s usually a more smoking gun hanging around. In any case - you should be able to see more CBN. You should be able to see a color change.

And its possible that whoever took your sample is just complete shit at sampling. If you didn’t stir that stuff in good - and then samples from the top, then sure you potency will be lower up there, cause it has more terps AND potentially more degradants (if I remember correctly THC sinks below CBN over time…because gravity).

There’s so many ways to sort things out with this. If you wanted to do so. Take a top, middle, bottom sample - mix half the samples together and test the other half the samples separately. If there is a difference between them - then you have a homogeneity issue. Stir more! Problem fixed.

If there is not a difference - look for CBN contamination in your test result. The THC has to go somewhere after all.

And if there’s neither of those - weigh your stuff, if you have more than you should, you have probably accidentally added too much of an inactive ingredient. Sadly, not easy to fix this - but at least you know what happened and can fix it for the next time around.

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Thanks for the advice I greatly appreciate it!

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