Why such high terps?

Hi everyone, I just wanted to see if anybody had any insight into why my last 3 lab test came back so high in terpenes. Background info: I used a somewhere around a 50/50 b/p solvent mix and dry ice and iso slurry to cool my solvent. I used n2 assist to do a quick wash on the material which I ran through my 5lb 6" x 24" column. The material was loose and airy buds and c grade trim with some frost still on them, but wasn’t exactly top notch material, lots of potential spider mite damage on the leaves. The slabs all purged to be of a light brown crumbly consistency, one was more budder like than the others. Got them tested, and they all came back in the 60% range for THC and 14%-18% terps. They’re great dabs, but unfortunately my bosses only care about consistency, color and THC, not terps.
I have a few hypotheses about why these came out like this. This is the first time I have extracted material from this farm, so it is possible the extract represents the input material, makes sense. I was also thinking, maybe I was running the material too cold and THC crashed out, but I don’t dewax, It is just my column and the extract just falls into the collection pot. If you guys had any input that’d be greatly appreciated. Also, any input on getting higher potencies would be extremely helpful (besides getting better source material… that’d be nice). Thank you all in advance and let me know if there is any more additional info I can give that would help.

Thanks!

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60% THC is normal for BHO.

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Try explaining that to my bosses, lol!

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Redisolve in butane and Winterize then pass true crc
There us suposedly no THC
And if THCA. Crashed out iT. Would have to showed iT self as sugar diamonds
Just very terp rich biomass. That Will make a great budder or batter or sauce
That most barely get their hands on

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Sounds like you need to educate your bosses. If they want you to make good BHO dabs, you’ll want them to be high in terpenes. That’s what makes them flavorful. High THC content mean there is less room for other good things such as other cannabanoids, terpenes, and flavanoids. If I am buying a oil to dab (ie crumble, shatter), I’m looking for something high in terpenes. That tells me it was made from nice fresh material, and is going to taste good. I don’t want to dab something 80% THC that tastes like ass. If they want ultra high THC, they should have you make distillate.

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Man I could not agree with you more. I take a dab of some of this high terp stuff I make and it is a great high, with minimal anxiety and a great flavor. I also make crystally stuff with better input material sometimes and I swear to god, I hate dabbing that stuff, it makes me usually have an existential crisis, lol. The market just sucks right now, it is very superficial. Sometimes I wonder if people doctor their lab tests with high potency distillate… Nah, they’re probably getting better input material.

What market are you in?

Washington state. To add, there are all these cheap $15 dabs with great colors, consistencies and high THC flooding the market, and my overlords want to try to keep up without providing me with quality or at least consistent input material. Sorry, not trying to turn this into a bitch fest… but well, here we are. Lol!

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What company are you with? I’m also in WA.

The testing in this state is a joke. You should definitely get on board with manipulating your results, and finding the right lab. Sounds like your lab is one of the few testing properly (lower THC %). That puts you at a disadvantage :slight_smile:

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Leave him sis, he no good for you

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B-but they told me they loved me…

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As someone who runs CO2 in WA I hear you man. I had to educate my bosses for a year straight and give them lots of comparative samples to get them on board with trying to market the full spectrum cannabinoid profiles and high terpene content. That said, it’s still an uphill battle and our distillate sells better than our stuff that’s around 60% total canna and 15-20% terpenes. I personally think that’s what gives by far the best oil high, and it actually tastes like our bud…but what do I know right? All these consumers with a single $20 bill in their pocket that look at the THC number as their “how high do I get per dollar” value.

Here’s to hoping that they start cracking down on pesticide testing more, then we will see these $10-15 grams disappear off the shelf like magic. You read the OK cannabis report on those Regulator cartridges?

Also what lab do you test with? If you want a hint, go to any retail store and ask to see their highest testing oil/flower, and check what lab those brands test with. There are a couple out there that consistently give out 5-10% higher THC results on the same material.

While I cannot condone this, he’s not wrong. It’s very easy for anyone with half a brain to figure out that the big brands with consistently high numbers are fudging the tests. Look at a few Spoil’d cartridges sometime in a store. Strange how they can have 4 or 5 “different strains” that all have identical test results, down to the lab result ID#…pretty much anyone that sells flavored distillate cuts/terps it AFTER testing to maintain high numbers. I have heard of some labs that when they get a really good batch of distillate that tests super high, they will stash it away as their “tester” jar. Suddenly all of their products for the next few months test consistently crazy high…weird right?

Don’t even get me started on rocks and sauce. Fucking ridiculous. Testing lab receives 2 grams of mostly diamonds coated in a tiny layer of sauce. Consumers receive a little jar of soup with at most 3 or 4 diamonds floating in it…

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Truth. People have their “labs” in California too. I get to see independent results from a chemist who has no skin in the game come back 10-15% less.

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Thank you for the great response, it is good to know I’m not alone swimming through the sea of bullshit that is the Washington state cannabis oil market.

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Yeah all we can do is keep our chins up and keep chugging along and hope that the market eventually shifts in a positive direction.

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seems the best way to fix this issue is with consumer education, we should all be doing our parts in that regard :mage:

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I’d argue more testing but by an independent agency. Grab something off a retail shelf unannounced. Would require the FDA to climb down out of its ass with regard to cannabis though. Them testing it like a Schedule 3+ wont do any good where having a milligram extra can kill you. At the same time giving us the laxness they afford fish on heavy metals or pesticides would invite Chinese tier products into our market. Hell, we need a non-compromised agency, perhaps a new one altogether.

Blah blah blah small government, justice demands accountability.

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Have you tried crc tech yet? Might help with your potency and will look better

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Haven’t gotten to try the crc tech yet, but I’m pretty sure it would solve a lot of my problems. I think I may have pissed my bosses off when I spent some of my budget on upgrading our system with N2 assist and it didn’t immediately make their wildest dreams come true.

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Definitely need to use adsorbents to improve your test results