Thank you so much! That means the world to me 
. Been shitting all over myself for months hitting mid 80s D9.
Every change in the lab is an evolution that comes with a learning curve. Getting my superiors to understand that has been a common theme across several organizations.
This is my first post on here…be kind. I have been running my spd for over a year now with my first pass distillate always coming in upper 80s potency wise. I have a 10L AI turnkey kit. I recently have started pushing my crude volume up towards 3000g as well as I changed my decarbing/degassing tech. Now im coming in at 65% potency off first pass. My bullseye is telling me im stable and my vac levels are the same they have always been. Could the larger amount of crude be an issue? Or should I look at the change in my decarb/devolatile tech? Any help would be appreciated
Unrelated, what do yall consider to be a stable vac. I always dry assemble mine the day before and pull a hard vac to make sure Im stable. Using a digivac to asses. This is a dry assemble, I hit sub 100 micron very easy. Down to like 70microns. It will read stable but I will have the slowest microleak ever…will slooowly leak out to 300 microns over the san of like 20 min. I had one day of training so I have a world of questions and no one in my company can even assemple a short path let alone run one lol
so you lowered the heat rate during your terp cut?
also larger cuts opening and closing? or you took a larger heads and a smaller tails, am I reading that correctly?
how are you regulating your vac levels?
glad you had some success! I run a br, co2 extracted, still having some fucking issues. prior I ran w/ cold etOH and that was money (previous employer)
I’ve always interpreted “crude” to mean cannabis oil with the fats and waxes still present. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean. Could you describe your decarbing/degassing tech?
Do you also have access to the CoA for the distillate you’re producing? The 65% d9-THC seems incredibly low and I’m curious if you’re forming some sort of isomer during the process.
In my region there have been a number of names for primary extraction oil. I’ve always extracted at cryo temps with ethanol to avoid a post extract winterization, but we call the extracted material free of lipids ‘crude’. I’ve also heard people refer to crude as RSO (Rick Simpson Oil) and full spectrum oil.
Welcome to the forums. A lot of great people and information here, some jerks too. Such is life. 
Has your biomass or extraction process changed at all? I’ve not used a 10L setup so my input isn’t going to be as valid as some of the other folks here.
I recently started a new job and moved from a GL connected 5L short path to a full-bore connected 5L. Even using the same type of glass… its had a major impact on my potencies and SOP.
Together we should be able to get it dialed in. =)
That’s funny, it probably depends on each region and company you’re working for! But hopefully everyone can come to a proper terminology for all of these types of oil soon. Here’s how I’ve defined the various names:
RSO/Full Spectrum: Oil extracted directly from the plant material using EtOH, then decarbed at the same time as the solvent is boiled off.
Crude: Pre-winterized CO2 cannabis oil. Decarbing was done before extraction.
Base: Post-winterized cannabis oil with ethanol boiled off and vacuum purged. Can be re-combined with terpenes and put into vape cartridges.
Distillate: Cannabis oil collected from a distillation process.
Thank you for weighing in…I have a lot to learn still. My crude is BHO extracted. Goes into ethanol about 160g crude to 800ml ethanol. In the freezer for 24 hours. Filter. Into the dry ice for 24, filter a second time, then to the short path. My first passes have always been at above 80 until this new material I am running/I changed my decarbing/degassing tech. I used to just heat it to 160F and stir for an hour until it settled but I kept fighting the boil over in the short path when I tried to turn the vacuum on to fast. So I started tossing it the vacuum oven at 150F for another couple hours on a full vac to help settle it for first pass. Everything I have read says that techs fine but suddenly my thc has tanked.
I have been going strong for a year and I changed two things, my degassing to an oven vac and it is a new set of biomass but my three previous runs were material from this grower with no issue.
Just learning the vocabulay of the trade is a trick in this industry. So I am working with base. ethanol boiled off and a vacuum purge. Which the vacum purge is the new tech I added. Prior to that I was doing an ethanol burn off at 160-200F on the hot plate for an hour only…was making the first pull of the vac on the short path a boil over risk into my heads so I added the 2-3hr vac purge at 150F.
No worries, we’ll all still figuring it out and I’m happy to help if I can!
Hmm yeah it sounds like your post-processing and tech is all good and things should be working for you but we’ll see if we can get it dialed in.
You say you’ve increased your batch size to 3000g. How big is your head fraction? In my experience we’ve done 1500g distillations and the first 50 grams or so were what we called “junk”, things like azulene or residual ethanol, then we’d run another 50-80g of “heads” before switching over to collecting the main distillate fraction.
Also are you adding any acid or base? We would do color remediation using activated charcoal and our techs were instructed to add a few drops of 1.5M NaOH to the base oil before distillation to “neutralize” the solution, and I noticed from testing that in doing so we would cause ~5% of our d9-THC to isomerize into d10-THC (the percentage got larger as the reaction went on longer). Idk if the lab you’re using tests for d10, but in the HPLC method we ran it elutes about 0.1 min before CBC so if you’re seeing a really high CBC percentage that could be a potential cause.
Your larger batches are causing isomerization due to long times under heat. You’ll need a system designed to minimize degradation or use less crude per run.
My fraction head is usually 100-150g. I roll my heads and tails to my kitchen so I can be fairly generous with getting into the body and switching out before I start to grab any tails. For that matter right before this unusual issue presented, I homogonized my 1.5Liters of tails and sent them for potency and they came in at 79%. so for my body to tank this hard all the sudden is really mind boggling
My previous run was 3300g and I came in at 85% thc. I plan to lower my batch size for the next just to minimize our loss if it goes south on me again. What are the system designs to minimize degredation?
I dont color remediate and I am not seeing a noticable spike in cbd. My overall well time hasnt increased by much either. I may do a smaller run, 1500g material and see if that reigns things back in.
How do you sample the material?
You can end up with a large difference in potency between start of mains and the end. Is it possible that you’re testing something that is isomerized or contaminated in part and fine in others?
Why not use the spd bf and mantle to do your final purge and decarb, then put the spd glass/vac setup on and do your run? This is part of my sop.
I decarb on a hotplate in a large beaker under stir and a hood at 130-150c for about an hour or until all reaction stops 266f. Comments are welcomed on this, I have been using that method for years and until I changed my bore size on the vac pipes I was getting consistent results (for years).
We also don’t do any colour remediation during or after extraction… Here’s what the 2nd pass looks like.
I’m inclined to respectfully disagree with the duration of heat degrading material. I’ve tried to push heat and time out and see what happened, with the old setup there didn’t seem to be a change in my results. I’m not sure if heat time does as much damage as we think. I’ve also not tried this with the larger bore…
Interesting. Can you be more specific about how hot and how long you’re talking about? What was your old setup like?
