Typically no
I have had an ORELAP lab tell me there was small amt of THCA, which I found hard to believe, especially when I test it on my own HPLC and never saw a THCA peak
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The most potent Iāve ever made came in at 97.06 THC. I made it with a 2l chemglass head. Temp went above 200c on the first pass. I think the secret was it was a small 300g batch. Now I have the same lab telling me I have HHC In the distillate and Iām getting THC in the mid 80. I have no metal catalyst nor is it acidic. the only difference in my cook is the amount I started with. I,m in Nevada so maybe it is CBC or something else but whatever. I,m not convinced it is HHC.
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Hi - I run CO2 as well at pressures greater than 5000 psi and about 65 C. I too have a suspicion that these parameters are removing some compounds from the plant that co-boil with cannabinoids. Any idea what they may be?
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Vacuum is important, but I am not sure how important it is by itself for short path purity. I recently ran a friendās shitty 2L Chinese kit setup with very leaky glass, cannabinoids not coming over until ~215C and it still turned out to be 89% THC.
Iām starting to think that batch size could be a critical factor here based on what I have read. Does anyone here actually hit high THC %'s using these ridiculous 12L kits? Please correct me if I am wrong!
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No 12 liter short paths are useless please read other posts we should not derail this conversation into one of these conversations haha.
Short paths should be used for small scall experimentation never for production
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There is a patent that uses inline silica to separate THC and CBD.
Mueller 2014 Separation of Cannabinoids with CO2 and silica US20140248379A1.pdf (1.1 MB)
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I have a couple ideas, but, no evidence of it. I believe itās some type of fat/lipid or sugar.
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Oh shit! Shots fired!
But I totally agree with you, commercial facilities should not be using short path distillation for production. Yet here we are, all doing it.
But like I said, if anyone is actually hitting high purity with this bigger than 5L kits I would love to see the evidence (data) for that. Iām open minded. My understanding is that BR instruments can do this, but you canāt really compare a BR setup to a shortpath setup (lots of different components and heat zones).
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I will fire shots where they need to be fired, however i am open minded as well and to reinforce my shots fired I have yet to be proven wrong anyome is produce quity cbd distillate on a large scale from a short path.
Spinning bands possibly a different story but overall wiped film is the best option for producers who want to make money.
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Im winterizing bho unknown what the biomass was, it was trim though. I get it still in a muffin state āhas not been decarbed whatsoeverā and carbon scrubbed after fats/lipids removal. First pass was nice and golden, second pass is light yellow. My question is: is anyone else doing this tek and what is your potency like? Im still waiting on test results
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I guess I need to update this thread. Twice now I have gotten 95% and 98% total cannabinoids on shortpath distillation setup with no clays or fancy tricks, just winterization, filtration, and short path distillation. 95% on a 5L and 98% on a 2L chinese piece of crap that was leaky and didnāt hold a good vacuum, with a bad vacuum pump, and heating over 220C on the mantle. The starting material: BHO. Did everything the same that has given me only ~80-85% cannabinoids using CO2 crude. Maybe thatās the problem.
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Did you ever check the pH?
I have hit 90-93% cannabinoids multiple times on 12L systems (both Lab Society and Summit)ā¦Iāve done it with room temp ethanol crude (15 minute agitated extraction, distilled once, winterized, distilled a second time)ā¦Iāve also done it on a single pass from bho, without winterization. I wish I tested every batch back in the dayā¦ I had some batches come out noticeably more potent, stable, and clear without oxidation - but couldnāt afford testing at the time.
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No, I havenāt! I should do this next round of winterization.
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Donāt forget ethanol reads as slightly acidic. 
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Ive never ran a co2 machine, but of all the crude ive ran it yielded the mowest thc% with the exact same sop as bho crude. Bho crude is mostly what i run sometimes rosin, i also eun the already squished rosin patties and achieve about .6 of a gram per gram of patty and regulalarly achieve 90% or better with a 50%+ return
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Was it extracted using supercritical or sub critical CO2? This is a very key difference because supercritical CO2 will pull plant acids, sub critical will not.
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I have no idea, and very little experience with co2 machines. When i started extracting they were 150k and took 18hrs per run. Apex only had 2 models then so it wasnāt realistic.
Iām new here. Could you please give me more detail?