I was told that hydrocarbons dont extract mold to the finished product. Im not sure what to believe i was under the impression that you have filter out pm down to 2um and most ppl say 0.2. And that you cant filter out bud rot.
Depends on the mold. Better off steering clear.
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Its suppose to kill it feom what I remember and filtering down to .2 micron is suppose to keep back the spores but who knows there’s alot of different molds. I just aboid it and compost it like all spent material
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I was told mold, doesn’t matter what kind
Mold sure, mycotoxins probably not.
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I’ve heard the same thing. I don’t know if it’s an urban legend or not.
I only run what I’ve grown so if it had an issue like that it will hit the trash can long before the closed loop. But that’s just personal preference and ethics I picked up making extracts for medical patients, some with compromised immune systems.
I am under the same impression that mold would have to be aggressively filtered to remove mycotoxins. I personally don’t bother hydrocarbon extracting any type of moldy material, even if it was fire. A moldy smell will accompany the final product if only filtered down to 25 micron. Decided never to try it again, not even with better filtration. Bulk filtering down to 0.2 micron seems like a nightmare for the average extractor.
i personally would stay away. I think the .2 is an almost urban myth. I think this was all conceived with Grey Wolf using a .2 syringe filter back in the day to remove mold spores. While i do think this would work for the majority of mold spores. I also think some spores are under .2 micron which would leave our oil inundated with mold.
That should leave us with another question?? what do we do with moldy material? what is it safe for if any?
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If you are trying to extract terps moldy material sucks…
If you want to make distillate it’s easy.
You can flood ozone gas into a vacuum chamber to kill off most. You’ll need to pressurize it.
You can also bake the mold while decarbing in a oven.
Then use iso instead of ethyl. Ethyl can attach and carry water solluables. Iso does less of that.
Also you can use pentane to push it out for the most part in a wash.
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Somebody told me along the way that state of Michigan approved of distilling of moldy material due to the nature of the process containing such low and high heat variables that the mold spores should be rendered inert at both ends of the temperature spectrum… That being said I still would shy away from taking on working with moldy material just due to the personal health hazards that you would be putting upon yourself and/or your team mates
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imo, its compost after it molds.
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Tell that to the rec growers in Washington state…
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Oh, I’ve told all kinds of growers and broke major hearts! I have also rejected a bunch of material that was pesticide ridden. When you get trash material reject it, saves you the headache and extra work to deal with someone mistake.
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Can you specify what tests you do and which testing labs you prefer - thx
I suspect we’re deep in the season of dogshit material flooding the market. be good to start a thread on how best to identify and weed it out
Hi,
To start testing a small amount of the biomass needs to be extracted, once you have extracted the sample you can submit it to your testing facility. Pesticides that were at a non- detectable level in the biomass will be readily apparent once concentrated via extraction.
We like to test for:
pesticides, molds, and heavy metals.
The test for molds will use a small sample of the biomass, the other tests will use a sample of the extract.
As for labs to test the material, it never hurts to use 2 or 3 to compare there results.
we have used these guys before:
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I was having a discussion with an extractor that has smart ppl paper so i was semi convinced that they could be rite about hydrocarbons not extracting molds. But not conpletely convinced cause it goes again what i thought i knew. So that what im asking the smarter than me ppl here. Ty for the feed back. I still not convinced either way at this point
Hi,
mold means a few different things, you have the mycelia that the mold is made from, spores and endospores, and the compounds that the mold made during its lifesycle like mycotoxins.
typically the tissue (mycelia) stays with the biomass, some of the spores and mycotoxins come for the ride with your solvent. You can filter spores and endospores, but the actuall compounds that the mold produced can nit be filtered out. Now not all molds are the same, some are less harmful than others. If you wanted to remediate moldy material you’d better be sure about what microorganisms are in there. Otherwise it is a wild guess.
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I heard rumors that Steep Hill was in a bunch of legal disputes regarding falsifying testing reports. I have no idea if there’s any truth to those claims, maybe someone knows better
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That is why you always use 2-3 labs on the same sample, you can see if they are actually doing their job. I hate to say it, but it is still the wild west out there.
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This is a very interesting topic with Powdery Mildew being such an unfortunately common and prevalent issue.
I also have been advised on both sides of the coin…
Who can clarify on whether or not PM can produce mycotoxins is the important point???
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