Hi. I have a bag of fresh dried, roughly trimmed bud from our hemp farm. I have found dried mold on the leaf material attached to the bud. I have sent the bud off for testing to see what I’m dealing with. I’m curious if there are any mold remediation techniques that can be done to remove mold from biomass during or after the crude oil making process? I’m trying to determine if my crop is lost or not. Is there any GRAS amounts of mold spores? Can anything be done? Thanks for any input.
I was intending on using ethanol extraction.
You can remove the mold spores by dissolving rhe extract and sending it through a sterile filter.
What kind of mold did you find on the plant material.
0.2 um filter will catch all of the spores typically rendered inactive by the ethanol used for extraction. If you filter your tincture post extraction and pre-distillation of alcohol, it’s easy and shouldn’t slow your filtration times by too much.
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Can I do this with a vacuum pump attached to a Büchner funnel/vacuum flask set up, using a 0.2 micron filter paper?
Can you give me more info on the size and type of sterile filter? Also, waiting on lab results On type of mold.
A solution sent through a .22 um membrane would be sufficiently sterilized.
Removal of toxins produced by the molds that commonly affect cannabis hasn’t really been pinned down yet. Ive read some papers that make me think removal of alfaltoxins is do-able by dissolving the affected extract in a solution of methanol and water then passing this through a column packed with bentonite. The evidence for this is hardly even anecdotal and i havent tested its effectiveness.
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You can use a buchner just make sure your solution actually passes thru the filter paper and not around the edges. Be sure to apply vacuum and wet the filter paper with fresh solvent before you attempt to add the solution to the buchner.
Ethanol to crude, my man.
Do you have recommendations on a 0.2 filter setup? I have a 5 L Büchner and vacuum flask. I have a diaphragm lab pump that does 60L/min (about 2 cfm I think). I’m having a problem locating the right filter papers for the 5L Büchner. Should I just get a small Büchner funnel for my 5L flask? Would I need to get a smaller flask? I have found 1000 ml bottle top disposable 0.22 um vacuum filters on Amazon but I’m unsure if my vacuum would be too strong for the filter membranes. Also, does filtering this small of level remove any cannabinoids?
Pall corporation makes the filter units ive used and they had no issues with vacuum. You should try to talk to them thru email and have them point you to the right filter unit. @Njservices
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like scooby said, you can remove the spores with the filter, however the mycotoxins stuck in the solution is a whole other issue that i have not seen a complete solution for yet.
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I have heard the toxins are a problem as well. I had the product tested for various aflatoxins and other microbiology screening for total yeasts and molds. There were no toxins present, fortunately. My total yeast and molds were elevated though.
Hi new here and first-year hemp farmer. 
I’m reading up on the potential impact of mold on my hemp biomass crop that I just harvested in southern Oregon and wanted to share this informational article I found here in an earlier thread:
It seems most outdoor crops in this area are going to have some sort of mold this year, due to the awful later summer weather this year. I’ll need to figure out how to test 15,000 lbs of dried hemp biomass for mold toxins. Seems impossible.
I’m also curious how come people are using the term “mycotoxin”. Those are toxins produced by fungi, not molds. Are we concerned with those as well? Or is it simply a misnomer?
The term “mold” can be used two ways. There is the generic “mold” that is basically anything you can see growing on anything. Could be fungus, could be bacteria, you don’t know you just know it’s moldy. But, used in a more specific sense, mold refers to fungus. Mycotoxins, more specifically alflatoxins and ochratoxin, are produced by some of those fungi. The usual culprit is Aspergillus flavus, but you can also run into Fusarium and Penicillium species as well.
Aflatoxin you’re stuck with. Ochratoxin can be remedied with decarb. Cryo ethanol extraction seems to limit the amount of carryover of both.
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unless you can find a way to get Flavobacterium aurantiacum to grow in a big ol vat of crude…
Are they water soluble? I feel like brine washing with some pH swing might help things out
Make kief, and wash it all very well in a 25 micron bag, keep putting new ice water through, most spores should drop out. Cant think of any other more efficient first step, also for possible pesticide remediation before extraction, wash that kief, 'n eliminate laced biomass