What type of analytical equipment would you suggest? @cyclopath?
A crystaline life form is growing…
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I assume you don’t have any analytical equipment in-house. I highly recommend.
Is this a THC or CBD dominant extract?
Edit: TLC is the cheapest in house solution. I run an SRI GC. Orange Photonics has a portable HPLC/DAD setup for about $15k that looks promising.
I’ve seen massive chunks of crude crystalls falling down the walls of my rotary evaporator flask, as it cools down after degassing at 90-100C
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We have been seeing a similar thing as our rotovap cools, the crystals stick to the side of the glass. Bosses thought they were “fats”. I potency tested it here in house.
Came out to about 57% THCA, 8.6% THC, 2% CBGA
roto crystal 20mg.pdf (347.3 KB)
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may i ask why your flask is so hot?
Because the oil is going to be distilled, so I remove as much of the ethanol as possible before SPD. It begins to decarboxylate at these temperatures, just not very fast
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if you wash them are they pink? they may be sugars
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do they dissolve in water? That would be consistent with sugars. I usually taste those to confirm ID. Do they dissolve in Ethanol? quite likely cannabinoids. check on GC to ID.
I got to the point in my rice-cooker solvent removal/decarb step that I could pull the precipitated sugars out from under the oil if i cooked & cooled it just right. Or stick them to the pan by letting things cool closer to room temp before pouring. I was adding a little MCT as a transfer solvent (it was my eventual target anyway) and had assumed the precipitation of sugars was unique to that method. they weren’t particularly sweet, but the way they formed taffy then hard candy under the oil as I increased decarb times was very telling.
having a GC in house was invaluable at figuring the “WTF is this?” part out.
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@farmerj I just asked Shimadzu for a quote on their cannabis analyser, what do you think of it? is it flexible enough that you can train it on new cannabinoids? How about terpenes? The Orange Photonics hplc-in-a-box seems to have all it’s analytics hardwired. Terpenes are not an option.
Sorry for the late response.
It is a good system. Can certainly be used for any HPLC application, such as detection of new cannabinoids, as long as you have the proper standards and method development. I do not think terpene testing is an option with this machine- we are trying to set up a GC for that application. I’ve not heard of the Orange Photonics system but I will check that out.
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I had a brief run in with one of their systems. Would they come out an train you on it? It seems nice, but was the only HPLC I’ve run so nothing to compare. I feel like it was pretty standard are far as the software goes.
What do you mean new cannabinoids? Like ones that are outside the original 10 or whatever they give you? I think you could, but it may take someone with a good amount of HPLC experience or a chemist to get you the correct parameters. Basically when they train you, they give you a “method” so a certain solvent mixture, a certain time function for the run etc. This allows for the complete separation of the 10 they give you. To find ones outside you may need to fiddle with parameters.
Mod edit: Moved to Testing and Analytics. Let me know if we could use more tags.
We returned our orange phototonics flower testing kit for high cbd % hemp
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I have an Orange Photonics unit. It’s OK.
I’ve found the potency to vary around 10%, but maybe it’s just me. I don’t think I would repeat the purchase for my needs, but it’s good for getting close enough type results. I can test a sample to get an idea of cannabinoid ratios, decarboxylation, or pretty close on potency. It has its place, but if I need accurate results, I send it off to a lab.
Strain: Pootie Tang
Vessel: jar
Temp: RT in extraction room (warm)
Duration: ~4 weeks
Extracted and crystallized in ethanol.
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Cryo extracted? Or color remediation? Or both?
cryoextracted. Zero post-extraction processing, other than solvent removal.
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Is the resulting “sauce” quite dark? Do you remediate the sauce portion?
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EtOH terp sauce inevitably tends to be darker than hydrocarbon extracts. I believe that is due to more anthocyanins and other pigments being present. some of these extra compounds may have additional benefits but I doubt they will vaporize at the temps usually used.
When it is thick it can appear very dark depending on the strain.
when its packaged in a 2:1 thca:sauce ratio its almost always light gold.
The best way to get a light color without CRC is cryo temps with a very short contact time.
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