It’s a difference of mean free path for the molecules. The closer you get to perfect vacuum, the MFP increases as a function of natural log, e.
What you speak to here is anecdotal evidence from others that really only reports SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guesses) lolz. I appreciate your logic and reasoning and respect your input. Economic aside, which I tend to agree with you, I do think it is important to present the flip side to chooisng distillate over another source.
There is overwhelming and decades long medical experience in my part of the country logging pine trees that repeated exposure to pinene at high concentrations as is found in processing plants very easily overwhelms the body’s defenses and for lack of a medical term I will say folks become “allergic” very quickly to it upon chronic exposure. From rashes to respiratory irritation there is no question that at least pinene in the way it is vaporized will indeed impact many in a negative way. Of course pinene is the grand daddy of terps insofar as lots and lots and LOTS of it is produced in every sort of crop and nearly all is removed by mankind as a contaminate. It is this terp in particular that is reduced or eliminated by distillation.
I am a wordy SOB so I will skip the other examples of compounds known to carry from minor to major health risks depending on dosage and frequency that are contained in marijuanna extractions. Compared to drinking alcohol the risk of extract use is nearly zero whereas the hang over will tell you clearly you should stop drinking alcohol or face grave peril…
So then let me get down to brass tacks in the matter…
The general idea I infer from this thread is that high temps can and will cause a reaction which has been named isomerization here. I absolutely agree this is the case and all evidence points to it. However, mankind has been smoking this stuff using temperatures far exceeding anything ever seen in a boiling flask and it was only until a computer could plot a thin line on a graph and then went another step and concluded myriad assumptions based on that thin line that concern in a vague way the efficacy and safety? Try running a sample of the last fast food meal you ate through that computer that plots thin lines and the computer will probably fail with a heart attack. No mystery peaks there…
Now try to take a guess how many mystery peaks would be noticed on a plot of typical extract cooked on a dab nail then inhaled at dabbing rig temps produces…
So respectfully there are reasons good and bad to choose products for consumption but this honestly begins to look more and more like a red herring to me.
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I actually prefer my distillate to have mixed isomers! The only issue here is companies are bad at both procedure, which causes the peaks, and then also bad at marketing and consumer education, which limits their ability to sell the mystery peaks.
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Hey Photon_noir, thanks for the reply. I ran a d8 standard form Cerilliant and the retention time did not align with our mystery peak. I then submitted a sample to a few third party labs here in Nevada and they all deduced that it is definitely NOT D8, but some other isomer or synthesized molecule with a high probability of it being HHC and extremely low probability of it being D10.
In regards to the hocstroum we decided that it wasn’t worth the headache and have switched to using a filter-press. I will order those gaskets for our hochstroum’s in case we decide to go back. Thank you for all of your help.
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Yea its funny that you say that because many people have said our distillate gets them abnormally high… I have since remediated the “mystery” peak, but haven’t received feedback that suggests the high is different.
Then again there may be some type of placebo effect going on here as well.
LOL “abnormally high” must be beyond “High AF”. Maybe we need a new term for this! Glad things are working out for you though.
One question, did you happen to notice if the viscosity with these mystery peak batches was less than normal distillate? That’s what we experienced with the batches that we had like that.
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Yea the viscosity was not quite as thick as our “normal” distillate. Even when our potency was around 90% total cannabinoid.
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Ok good to know, thanks!
Viscosity is an important qualifying attribute. The other isomers and things like HHC & CBN will change the viscosity. Usually if you have any Δ10 or Δ10a, you will also have Δ8, so if you’re not seeing any of the latter, it is unlikely you have the former.
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Our low viscosity batches had some d8 along with the mystery peaks. But knowing that d8 by itself is very viscous, I suspect that at least in our anecdotal evidence that if the mystery peak is likely d10/10a then it may be not as thick as d8/9. We did not release those batches for sale so I don’t have enough consumer feedback regarding the high relative to d8/9.
I don’t think it’s just heat in and of itself but residence time in the pot flask. Using another cooking analogy, dabs would be like deep frying and slow ramp up in the pot flask would be like a crock pot. I dont think dabbing/smoking/ vaping allow for enough time for the isomerization to occur. We are also talking about a low energy isomerization with d8 and d10/10a (just a shift of the double bond) which leads me to suspect we have to operate within some rather narrow parameters to avoid it. I do agree though, just because we are encountering some interesting problems doesn’t mean we should avoid distillate. If anything, more research and study is needed. This is probably the best place to share these findings given the shackles that federal laws place on good funded research.
Agreed and well put. I realize many things are time dependent which I refer to as the “integral” when I am trying to sound technical 
. I have long held a belief that decarboxylation itself cannot fully occur during the smoking/vaping phase of ingestion owing to the same factor.
I cannot test this with gear I have and my new reality limits my useful time to do things. I often post here in a great deal of discomfort or alternatively after the potent opiate has kicked in and then come back later and face palm what I wrote lolz. The docs warned the med would make me euphoric which is medical lingo for “high” and it does.
However the conversation seems to be driven by an underlying assumption that it is the cannabinoids which are being altered and producing this data. It seems logical except for the fact it is so bloody random based on answers here. Some see the problem and correct it one way and yet some report that they saw the problem until they corrected it the other way. All observations are considered accurate by me.
So the what is common to the problem that all operations must have besides starting crude and boiling flask procedures? Simple - the boiling flask itself.
I refine on a micro scale. I get to observe things scaled down considerably but otherwise the same process in general. I know with certainty that I groan when I finally need to clean my flask. I have never seen a big operation. Let me ask; on average does the typical operation clean their boiling flask to “brand new” clean, is it just soaked a bit in solvent and dumped without scrubbing? If compared side by side to a brand new flask how easy would it be to spot the used one after cleaning from say five feet?
My suspicion is based partly on some advice I saw some time ago on the Summit site. They talked about never cleaning the short path head (older vid) and just keep running between batches to save hold up. My own experience goes from no problems at all with dirty glass to big problems with needing more temperature.
Is it possible that the gross job of cleaning a very difficult to clean part has been left out of the investigation as the common factor in this issue? Also has there ever been a correlation to the size of flask used as well?
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That’s a great question Beaker! I can tell you from visiting other labs here in CO that all are not created equal. Some are pretty nasty and are akin to a frat house on a Saturday morning. I’ve seen fast food wrappers, pizza boxes and all manner of things in labs (and grows for that matter). However, there are others like ourselves that take cleaning and cleaning glassware and rigs in particular very seriously. For a BR rig it’s pretty easy to clean using ethanol without vacuum applied to clean all the pathways in the rig. The pot flask is a bit more work but usually takes a few passes of ethanol for us to get it it completely clean. What makes the pot flask cleaning task easier is proper filtration and scrubbing prior to distillation. If you start with a bunch of undesirable compounds you can bet there will be a good number of them left after distillation.
BTW, best wishes on your battle. All things aside I think your attitude and ability to remain analytical is most admirable.
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@nomadgt , that is precisely what I forgot to say! Δ8 has the highest viscosity, Δ9 is a little thinner, but still very solid, and Δ10(a) seems to have a thick honey-like consistency, while CBD probably has the lowest viscosity of any of the more pure isomers I’ve seen.
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Yes, @Beaker , my man! Clean glass does make a difference, especially when additives are used! A catalyst is a catalyst, and will work its magic even at very low quantities. Impurities can very much affect the outcome of these distillations at such high temperatures, especially as we approach thermal decomposition/isomerization temperatures!
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Thank you for taking a moment to lift my spirits. Irregardless of the outcome the battle is already won because I have no fear in my heart over this. Every human lives to be exactly one lifetime old and I think I am gonna make it. 
Thanks again.
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Well said, Sir.
Much respect Beaker, but its not anecdotal. When you have in house analytics, and produce large amounts of crystal THCA, high quality CO2 85-88% d9, “clean” (no mystery peak distillate 82% D9, 7% D8), and “dirty” distillate (~48% D9, ~27 D8, ~estimated 12-15% 10A, 10 and another unknown peak), you really can begin to compare the effects of the isomerization to D9. For me, and many that have done the mg per mg Pepsi challenge, nothing compares to a pure THCA high. In this test all extracts have terpenes removed, so they do not interfere. An equivalent amount of extract is consumed via the same method (vaporization) on a total THC basis, not a weight of extract basis. If done blind, where the subject can not see the extract, almost everyone who takes the test can pick the dirty distillate. Pure THCA is the “unicorn horn”, or “right behind the eyes” high, and the more heat treated the extracts become (Crystal < CO2 < clean distillate < dirty distillate) the more flat, tired and paranoid the experience gets.
As to what causes the isomerization to 10, 10A and others, it is definitely time at temperature. If your oil sits at > ~175-178 for more than a couple hours, with out additives, you will start to see it. We figured it out when we tried to start do > 5kg distillation run on a crappy SPD. All the sudden it started showing up. Only real change was time the oil sat in the boiling flask. Now for D8, that also is temperature, but for sure has something to do with pH also and lewis acids. Additives in the boiling flask just act as catalysts and allow the reaction to proceed at lower temperatures and at higher speed. We have discontinued their use, and also put in controls to ensure all oil going to distillation is pH controlled and washed.
Because there is not an industry standard technique for distillation yet, and equipment and batch size vary considerable, this syndrome is very hard to nail down. Some groups have 2 or 3 batches with it, then it goes away, others have a predictable amount in every run. I do know that wiped film, due to the nature of the process, is much less likely to cause it. Also small runs on deep vacuum rigs, like your personal use plate distillation set up, are also somewhat immune.
If people like consuming the isomers, I am fine with that, but I personally can not condone selling a product that I can’t quantify, and can’t tell people what they are ingesting. I know for a fact many labs are running methods that do not separate d10’s from d9, some are still not quantifying d8, its a real problem. Once there are standards for these peaks, I will have no problem producing them and putting them on the market, until then no heat intensive process steps.
In response to what happens at the nail head, I would recommend reading this paper Medicinal Cannabis: In Vitro Validation of Vaporizers for the Smoke-Free Inhalation of Cannabis and the elegant work of Dussy et al, 2005, “Isolation of D9-THCA-A from hemp and analytical aspects concerning the determination of D9-THC in cannabis products” the short, high temp heat of the nail or vaporizer is not enough to drive the isomerization to any great extent.
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I have good reason to believe that extraneous Phosphate and Iron Oxide is present in outdoor material(CA). Perhaps there is some D10 isomerization potential related to these adulterants.
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Ok so acid isomerizes ( learned that the hard way )
But wat tech can be used to make ^8 rich destillate back to ^ 9
I mean super rich before adding acid cannabinoid content of 83%
After 8% cbn 3% thc 4 % cbd and the other peaks they don t know
They can t test for delta 8 of 10
Me hlaum isomerization tech seems like All cannabinoids get rotated to^ 9
But they don t what tech Will ?