Reading test results

Before the first pass we winterize and carbon scrub with activated charcoal. Not using cbleach.

How are you filtering that carbon out? I suggest you use a mix of carbon and bleaching clays fyi

Filtered out the carbon using Büchner funnels with lab nerd filters. Used some of the material to make some shatter as well and that came out fire. They didn’t test it though. What bleaching/clay agent should I be using with the activated charcoal?

Theres a chance that the acid activated carbon is making it to your boiling flask, which would cause isomerization and read as lower potency

To prevent this in the future, should I use silicate as a filter medium?

Yes

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I have recently run into this same issue of lower potency yields and have had some lengthy discussions with both the test lab and others with more experience in the field than myself. At first I thought perhaps my winterization efforts weren’t thorough enough because I had been hitting 80s earlier this year no problem. However, rewinterizing proved futile and provided no further benefit after distilling and testing again. I am now suspicious of my pre-processing so I thought I would bring it up here to get everyone’s thoughts on the subject. Here’s the process we’ve been using lately:

  1. Grind
  2. Decarb/dry in a forced air oven.
  3. Extract via CO2 supercritical.
  4. Winterize crude.
  5. Filter (no scrubbing, just fast filtering, rewinterize and slow filter)
  6. Roto
  7. Distill via a BR rig.

The only thing we’re doing different than previously is decarbing in the oven so I’m thinking that perhaps that may be affecting the outcome either directly or perhaps indirectly by impacting the carbonic acid content. Then again I might not know what the heck I’m talking about. Also, we aren’t seeing any crazy big peaks next to the delta-9 that would indicate delta-10 although we did have some delta-8 that I attribute to running the heat rate too slow on the front end before hitting the head fraction causing it to sit too long before reacting. Any ideas?

1k word substitute for the win…

@nomadgt the provided info is great (and necessary), but in order to have any hope of evaluating what’s going on, we also need the chromatogram (1k word substitute). “no crazy big peaks” just isn’t descriptive enough…

ie: if you’re getting 75% delta 9, a mystery peak only has to be 10% of that size to push you over 80% cannabiniods.

does a peak 1/3 of the delta 9 peak count as crazy big? 'cause that would put you at 100% cannabinoids…

It would also be useful to know how/if your crude yields or potency have changed. Which is one reason for having in house analytics.

Most folks give extraction yields in terms of grams extract per 100g Biomass (% by wt yield), which is worthless if you’re trying to figure out what’s going on. Grams cannibinoids (or cannabinoid of choice) per 100g Biomass is more useful. % cannabinoid extraction efficiency (grams cannabinoid out / 100 grams cannabinoids in) is really the number you want.

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@Fuckepilepsy you got pictures for us?

Here you go, this particular batch came in at 76% delta-9.

&^#@*

it matches your description…not sure it adds a lot in the way of data.

having some numbers to go with the smaller peaks might be useful… as would seeing a flat line for several min after the thc peak.

Yeah now you understand my frustration at analyzing this. It would of course be useful if test labs were able to test for other things like triglycerides, etc. I will probably pursue some R&D with scrubbing to look for further improvements. BTW, the peak to the far right is delta-8 according to the lab. Again, I am attributing that and the CBN to too slow of a heat rate on the front end and it just stewed too long before hitting the main body. I have corrected that faux pas already so that will help as well I think. The unfortunate part about delta-8 is that the State of CO doesn’t recognize it as a part of official total THC results. Hopefully someday they’ll hire someone that knows better.

that is why I run an SRI GC in house. I also recommend knowing your 3rd party lab director personally.

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Here’s another low potency batch we had recently. The lab didn’t know what the peak to the right of delta9/8 was but I’m suspecting delta-10. What do you think?

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Pic is there now.

couldn’t tell you what it was, wish they’ed put a retention time on it. @QGA is correct about the requirements for actually IDing the compound. best current informed guess is the delta-10 isomer. I’m not an analytical chemist so I’m just quoting a video I saw on the internet…

this chromatogram is certainly more like I expected to see the first time.

mystery “peak” doesn’t look like a single species to me.

Running three grams of that compound through a DCVC cycle using a set up like mine (small personal size) would reveal likely the different compounds evolving. It is unlikely you can find anyone that does this but I have found DCVC to be quite revealing in cases like this on a micro scale. I can envision the Q&A staff of larger companies adopting DCVC as a very fast tool for quality assurance.

If you ran this style shown in the link but instead just a few grams it is possible that the resolution and separation is even better than TLC.

I wish we could do that, Hexane is a no-no here for licensed businesses in Colorado.

You would not believe the number of chromatograms I have analyzed over the years. It was double duty running the dual column dual ECD’s for halogenated herbicides, pesticides and pcb’s.

@haloscorp yeah me too. because we could actually get DDT to put on our cannabis? OR or WA?