Hi all,
I have a 2L Lab Society SPD, and I have been getting out some really high quality product in terms of color and clarity, but I’m not seeing the potency I would expect. My crude is testing between 67-73% THC, and my distillate is testing consistently at only 7-10% higher even though my yield is 60-65%. Anyone else running into this or problem have any suggestions? I have tried it and it is very potent and tastes great. Could it be a stereo isomer perhaps? If so is there anything I can do about it?
Thanks for all you help!
BK
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Your issue is in the rate of removal from heat and your heads separation… is it a wide bore kit or a gl connected system?
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isomers, heads/terps, vacuum depth, and/or pre-processing are all potential issues. how stable is your final distillate in a jar? what methods of extraction and winterizing are you doing?
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Could be winterization step isn’t getting out enough of the waxes
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no. to my knowledge, none of the commonly applied 3rd party analytics can distinguish between enantiomers.
could it be isomeriztion? yes!
Stereoisomers? no.
Note: If you’re asking us to guess what’s in your distillate, posting a chromatogram or two to show it’s not isomerization would be a great start. you’ve paid for multiple tests. How about we look at the results (together)?
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Hi there, I know this is an older thread but I’ve been having issues not dissimilar as the OP. I recently moved to a wide bore 5L kit from a barebones Summit SPD-2 GL connected 5L. My potencies previously were stellar, I was regularly hitting mid 90’s D9 with high 98-99% overall cannabinoid results. Now my results are about 15-20% lower potency then before. My extraction process for the crude hasn’t changed and my yields are all about the same as well from extraction to distillation.
The colour of the distillate is excellent. In fact, the colour from the new 5L seems consistently better. Light yellow, no odours.
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Post images of type of spd. Some struggle to dial in fractions. Also you could probably cut off heads later and tails sooner to fix the potency issue.
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Although a bigger short path can give better separation, if you don’t adjust how you run you will inevitably end up with degradation. If you send a DM I’d be happy to help
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Did you also change testing companies. The only reason for that could be a large heads fraction but if its stable and doesnt smell… then thays not the issue, it should also be faster at lower temp… so the reason for the issue may be with who youre testing with.
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How? Separation depends on the number of theoretical plates so i don’t see how the size of the still would contribute to separation in any meaningful way.
Taller short path heads on a larger flask. Consider the distance between the bottom of a 20L flask and the top of the head vs that distance on a 2L short path.
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The larger the spd the less everything struggles to come out. Load of plates with cannabis distillate isn’t exactly the key to separation with cannabis distillates.
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@anon42519203 @spdking @AlexSiegel Thanks for the responses guys. All of your input is very appreciated.
We did not change analytics companies. Been the same folks for years; I also enquired with them if they changed equipment or methodologies, they have not.
The size of the SP hasn’t changed in terms of capacity. Previous setup was a 5L, this is a new 5L but has a lot more options. In automobile terms our last set up was a manual '89 Ford Escort with no AC, power locks or windows haha. The new G3X has a bunch of cool options we didnt have before.
After our first few runs on the new rig I even picked up the same classic head from Summit because I thought that might be the issue. Sadly was not.
render
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Could it be a leak? If you have a very small leak it might not be noticeable visually but it could wreck havoc on you potency.
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At this moment I’m running a 2nd pass on a run I did yesterday. I took into account what @anon42519203 and @spdking suggested with my heads and tails cut. I reduced my body by about 8% making a larger cut on the heads and tails.
render
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Thank you for the reply. I don’t think its a leak, but that being said, the new glass has a lot more opportunity for leaks as there are many more joints than previous setup.
So update to previous posts…
Taking into account what @spdking and @anon42519203 and others suggested I modified my runs a little. Heres the most recent results… had to screenshot it, please excuse the quality of the image.
Thanks for the advice guys. If I can be of assistance to any of you I’m happy to help.
Render
EDIT:
I’m confident that I can up the D9 counts to the upper mid 90s.
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just to clarify you took a bigger heads fraction, and then you cut to tails earlier as well?
Yes and a few other changes to my old SOP. On 1st pass I hung out in my volatiles fraction longer, took larger heads fraction (5-8% larger than previous runs), and took the entire tails. On 2nd pass made the heads and tails cut a little later (I think this slightly affected the colour but improved the potency). I also have been playing with regulating the vacuum during volatiles and early heads.
I’m very stoked to get back to where I was consistently with the previous employer. I told my boss I could do this. Took 36 runs to get there… =/
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kick ass job either way, every new set of equipment or facility is going to have different challenges, sounds like you took them head on!
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