Hey guys, was hoping to get some clarification on a something.
When filling a cartridge, or buying a liter of distillate it is based of volume, 1 ml, or 1L. When mixing terpenes wouldnt it make sense that if you wanted a 5% ratio you would ad apprx 50ml of terps to a 1L batch?
Why do most terpene companies state to dilute based off the weight of the product? Are they assuming 1ml is equivalent to 1g of weight? Below are examples of well known companies stating dilute by weight, not volume.
Sweeterps:
“We recommend adding 1-5% terpenes by product weight for best results.”
I would like to know if anyone has the answer or has come across similar findings when adding terpenes back to cannabinoid oil when speaking about the cannabinoid concentration.
Background: Using Apeks system- terpene pull, vac out material and decarb, then put back in for cannabinoid pull. (no winterization)
We then dilute our cannabinoid oil with the terpenes at 7-9% of the total cannabinoid weight.
Question #1
cannabinoid oil (164.6g) at 80% (THC/THCA) - when it is diluted with terpenes at 7% (11.51g) , the expected final concentration (THC/THCA) after terpenes are added should be 74.7%, however, it is reported to be 70% (THC/THCA) .
Is there there a biochemical event happening while mixing (60C /1hr) that affects purity?
The funny thing is that with our CBD oil we are finding similar results, BUT, the concentration does not change when a 7% terpene amount is added, it remains the same even though additional weight was added. The initial and final weights were recorded to determine if evaporation was taking place, which it did not. All weights were accounted for.
So for THC cannabinoid oil we are seeing a greater reduction in purity and for the CBD oil we are not seeing a change at all after adding the terpenes back.
We do have a 3% acceptance range for analysis, but I find it strange to seeing the THC concentration being greatly affected and the CBD concentration not at all.
Before diving into our test methods (we know to be accurate) I would like to know if this is commonly seen with terpene/ (unwinterized) cannabinid formulations.
Question regarding that @FloraplexTerpenes mixing calculator found here:
If some can help me understand the math here, I’d appreciate it. So say I have 500g disty that I want to mix with 5% terpenes and 2.5% diluent for a total dilution of 7.5% (by weight). How I would calculate this is as follows:
Now when I plug into the calculator 500g for starting product amount, 2.5% for diluent, and 5% for terpenes, I get out a total weight of 540.54g, 13.51g of diluent, and 27.03g of terpenes. While these values are pretty close to mine, I don’t understand how they got them. Does anyone have any thoughts? Are they accounting for density somehow in that calculator? Doesn’t seem to be a rounding error.
Here is an image of what I get when I plug these values into their calculator
They are working backwards from finished product to inputs.
You are doing it backwards from how they do it. They are still pretty close tho. Maybe you like the way ur mix works better.
Really either way would work just be consistent. Find a mix that works for you and start there. Then you will find different profiles need different mixes. Also sone profiles seem to be better for mixing with other profiles than using on their own
