Decoding The Holy Grail: Terpene & Cannabinoid Retention: Decarb to Extraction

[Pahval]

Hello there dear people... Nice job on doing your research! You are relentless! Thats a proper way to study your medicine... I am also in a search for best med production, not for me but for others, after my dear friend passed away from breast cancer that metastased, i just couldnt stop to think about it, and in last year or so i started developing automated system for perpetual grow, best diy extraction methods, i want to collect all data, make and test product and share it with people... Currently im in phase of reading research papers, example of my study you can see here, on a post about decarboxylation:

Cannabis Decarboxylation

Decarboxylation times and temp info.

www.420magazine.com

unfortunately, i wasnt allowed to share my google drive disk with all the papers i red on that post, but i can help you find these, and download any research paper you want... i will definitely compare your results from here to the studies i wrote about to see if and how much they correlate... I have something to say about chlorophyll (chl), from what i understand, winterization and removal of it comes from need to have clean smoke, because chl is harsh when inhaled, but when ingested its just another vegetable, plus as i am hollistic i believe your med oil for ingestion should have all the other material like waxes and chl included (i dont know how it would behave in *rectal suppository, so maybe there could be some benefit of stripping all other material, as i dont know how they would behave undigested in our tract, but i will definetly research that also, if there is a paper on inserting chl *rectally XD, if not i will probably try it on myself, as i cannot recommend something that may harm in any way)...
*edit: i have found that there is ayurvedic method of enema with chlorophyll, for which people say, when done properly (i wont go into procedure), showed no health risks, but since it prescribed only once per month, i dont know how that is comparable to daily rectal intake, but luckily, when we cook green herb, chl gets transformed into pheophytins which are easier to absorb in our tract, and from there can get into our body, instead of being something our tract cannot dissolve/intake

Study i just stumbled upon:

Digestion, absorption, and cancer preventative activity of dietary chlorophyll derivatives

(you can copy any non-free research paper's DOI link and paste it in free online service called Sci Hub to downlad it)

tough i have not red it, i will, as *chl benefits as supplement is on my project to do list, but im currently researching other things, specifically process of harvested material... I have concluded that it would be best to extract terpenes from fresh material, from the study:

The Volatile Oil Composition of Fresh and Air-Dried Buds of Cannabis sativa

there is a table allready posted here, showing:

They saw loss of 31% of volatile oils after 1 week of drying, 44.8% after 1 week of drying and 1 month of storage, and 55.2% loss after 1 week of drying and 3 months of storage, with significant change of monoterpenes to sesquiterpenes. What was actual ammount of each terpene can be seen on table below:

since both of monoterpenes and sequeterpenes are valuable, i would go for a route of extracting fresh material then adding sequeterpenes that werent transformed from monoterpenes from essential oils... But i have some questions, that i hope you might answer me, or point me to right direction:

1. Is there any increase of THCa in process of drying/curing? does anyone have any test results of fresh material vs cured one?

2. If you extract terpenes, and there is a benefit of curing, there is further development of cannabinoids in herb material, would that process still happen after terpene extraction, when done with no extreme heat (there is a good ghetto style design on another forum of nitrogen helped vacuum oven low temp terpene extraction with cold traps submerged in dry ice that may be gentle enought not to disturb herb, only scoop what is evaporated into oxygen free environment)? is that process depending on terpenes in herb material, or only whats left of nutrients?

peace...

 

[InTheShed]

I don't know much about terpene-specific extraction, but I do know that there is no reason to cure flowers being used for extracts. Curing is beneficial to decrease the harshness of smoked weed but does not increase the terpene profile. Nor can I imagine any way that THCa production can increase in a dead plant.

The longer the plant is exposed to air, the lower the terpene content (many of them being highly volatile), which is why Sue recommended fresh harvest oil to preserve the terpenes. Most of the folks using rosin press only wait for the RH to drop into range rather than curing the flowers, for the same reason. Other extraction methods would follow the same timetable.

Also, @KingstonRabbi was a big proponent of suppositories. Here is his thread on it if you're interested.

 

[Pahval]

I don't know much about terpene-specific extraction, but I do know that there is no reason to cure flowers being used for extracts. Curing is beneficial to decrease the harshness of smoked weed but does not increase the terpene profile. Nor can I imagine any way that THCa production can increase in a dead plant.

The longer the plant is exposed to air, the lower the terpene content (many of them being highly volatile), which is why Sue recommended fresh harvest oil to preserve the terpenes. Most of the folks using rosin press only wait for the RH to drop into range rather than curing the flowers, for the same reason. Other extraction methods would follow the same timetable.

Also, @KingstonRabbi was a big proponent of suppositories. Here is his thread on it if you're interested.

Hmm, i assumed there are some biological processes still going on while curing, not only decay of chlorophyll... I saw producers stating that with fresh extracting you preserve flavour but have a loss of yield... Yes i saw her thread, but i prefer ethanol extraction since its better solvent, and there is no benefit of any extraction method that requires decarb for preserving terpenes since they degrade at low temp and cannot be recollected (once they degrade thats it) from what i understand... Tnx for the suppository info! I just learned couple of days before about that method, amazing work... Tnx! Peace...

 

[OldMedUser]

I don't know much about terpene-specific extraction, but I do know that there is no reason to cure flowers being used for extracts. Curing is beneficial to decrease the harshness of smoked weed but does not increase the terpene profile. Nor can I imagine any way that THCa production can increase in a dead plant.

The longer the plant is exposed to air, the lower the terpene content (many of them being highly volatile), which is why Sue recommended fresh harvest oil to preserve the terpenes. Most of the folks using rosin press only wait for the RH to drop into range rather than curing the flowers, for the same reason. Other extraction methods would follow the same timetable.

Also, @KingstonRabbi was a big proponent of suppositories. Here is his thread on it if you're interested.

I'm doing the fresh harvest stuff from Sue's link you put up. I decarb right in the oil so all the volatiles stay in the oil.

Fresh off the plant with a super quick trim to take off anything without visible sugar then into the oil or freezer it goes. I just air dry and sift the trim before tossing. When doing buds for drying and curing there's a lot more good sugar and popcorn for making BHO etc.

 

[InTheShed]

Hmm, i assumed there are some biological processes still going on while curing, not only decay of chlorophyll.

There are biological processes going on during curing, but those are being done by microbes on the plant digesting sugars rather than the plant doing anything itself.

ethanol extraction since its better solvent

No question that ethanol will strip the trichomes from the plant better than infusions.

no benefit of any extraction method that requires decarb for preserving terpenes since they degrade at low temp and cannot be recollected

If THC is the goal, then decarb will have to occur at some point, and that heating will still cause volatilization of the terpenes, even if completed in oil. If you can smell cannabis, there go your terpenes!

 

[OldMedUser]

There are biological processes going on during curing, but those are being done by microbes on the plant digesting sugars rather than the plant doing anything itself.

No question that ethanol will strip the trichomes from the plant better than infusions.

If THC is the goal, then decarb will have to occur at some point, and that heating will still cause volatilization of the terpenes, even if completed in oil. If you can smell cannabis, there go your terpenes!

So what about these airtight SS cans you can buy to decarb with? From lab results I read a while back the terpenes etc can't escape so if you leave the thing in the oven to cool really slow they absorb back into the bud. They had results for open decarb like a cookie sheet, well sealed tin foil and their units and of course their unit got the better retention values.

Better than stinking one's house out with all the escaping medicine coming from the oven. Tho it is a nice stink!

 

[Pahval]

So what about these airtight SS cans you can buy to decarb with? From lab results I read a while back the terpenes etc can't escape so if you leave the thing in the oven to cool really slow they absorb back into the bud. They had results for open decarb like a cookie sheet, well sealed tin foil and their units and of course their unit got the better retention values.

Better than stinking one's house out with all the escaping medicine coming from the oven. Tho it is a nice stink!

hmm, good point there! i was too quick to make a statement like that (i was awake for 3 days, usually it wouldnt slip my tongue)... i made an assumption by my poor understanding of volatiles... it means they evaporate easily, not degrade... you pointed out i have weak understanding of terpene molecules, i will research it more definetly... so far, i understood they degrade easily, cannot be recaptured once they make contact with air... you mean airtight stainless steel cans? im not from america, im still learning about your equipment... can you share those results with me? im very interested in them... or at least point me in right direction?

thank you very much for this, you showed me i have a lack of understanding of this critical compound... and thank you for your time to reply...

peace, and merry christmas! <3

 

[Bucudinkydow]

So what about these airtight SS cans you can buy to decarb with? From lab results I read a while back the terpenes etc can't escape so if you leave the thing in the oven to cool really slow they absorb back into the bud. They had results for open decarb like a cookie sheet, well sealed tin foil and their units and of course their unit got the better retention values.

Better than stinking one's house out with all the escaping medicine coming from the oven. Tho it is a nice stink!

Very interesting. Prior to my ardent, I used to decarb in a sealed mason jar and and shoved it into the freezer prior to opening the jar. My thinking was if the Terpenes couldn’t escape during decarb, surely they had to condense in the presence of freezing temps. I definitely noticed a difference when using this method but could never verify my thesis with lab results. Thanx for the post.

 

[InTheShed]

So what about these airtight SS cans you can buy to decarb with? From lab results I read a while back the terpenes etc can't escape so if you leave the thing in the oven to cool really slow they absorb back into the bud. They had results for open decarb like a cookie sheet, well sealed tin foil and their units and of course their unit got the better retention values.

Airtight doesn't mean vacuum, so what they are saying is that the terpenes that volatilize during decarb in the sealed cans actually find their way back into the plant material rather than just waiting in the air to escape upon opening? Why would they do that from a physical standpoint?

Does the same thing work with decarbing extracts or only buds?

 

[OldMedUser]

hmm, good point there! i was too quick to make a statement like that (i was awake for 3 days, usually it wouldnt slip my tongue)... i made an assumption by my poor understanding of volatiles... it means they evaporate easily, not degrade... you pointed out i have weak understanding of terpene molecules, i will research it more definetly... so far, i understood they degrade easily, cannot be recaptured once they make contact with air... you mean airtight stainless steel cans? im not from america, im still learning about your equipment... can you share those results with me? im very interested in them... or at least point me in right direction?

thank you very much for this, you showed me i have a lack of understanding of this critical compound... and thank you for your time to reply...

peace, and merry christmas! <3

I don't have one myself but here's a link to Wacky Willy's decarb containers.

Even just air drying loses a lot of the low boiling pint terpenes, esters and the like but I come from an era where the only pot we got was Mexican brick weed that was chopped down and left in the fields to dry in the hot sun. Then branches were stripped off and tossed into boxes to be pressed into a 1 kilo brick, wrapped in brown butcher paper and wrapped in plastic. When you broke those apart there were lots of seeds and stems and other things like once we found a desiccated rat in the middle. This was the late 60s - 70s.

Quality control is much better now.

Merry Xmas!

 

[InTheShed]

In mid-70s NY we just got a small bag of expensive stems and seed with some leaves throw in. And we loved it!

Merry Christmas.

 

[OldMedUser]

Airtight doesn't mean vacuum, so what they are saying is that the terpenes that volatilize during decarb in the sealed cans actually find their way back into the plant material rather than just waiting in the air to escape upon opening? Why would they do that from a physical standpoint?

Does the same thing work with decarbing extracts or only buds?

That's basically what's happening. The heat is going to volatilize various components and if they are contained they will be drawn back into the bud as everything cools.

Think of it like you have a jar of overly dry bud so you put something damp in there and seal it up. The moister thing, piece of paper towel, apple slice etc, will give up it's moisture to the dryer bud until they are all at the same level of moisture. It's the same process.

It should work the same with extracts. When I make RSO I do all my extracting then evap off the solvent in a hot water bath until reduced down to nothing but oil. I'll put that into my smallest beaker that will hold it. Say 20ml of oil in a 50ml beaker. Last Xmas I bought the wife a nice little Oster oven with glass doors. I put the beaker on a pan with a temp probe right beside it and heat it up to 250F. I can see the surface of the oil and the tiny little bubbles on the surface as the decarb begins. Takes about 15 - 20 min for the bubbles to slow to almost none then I turn off the oven and leave it in there until it's cool enough to handle.

Now this is not sealed but the oil itself does not boil and there is very little surface area for the terps etc to evaporate from relative to the surface area exposed in the oz of bud I used to make the oil so losses are very minimal in comparison. The bubbles are the CO2 molecules that are released during the decarb and have no medicinal value.

Thought I had a pic of that beaker in the oven but I guess not. This is an oz of bud double wrapped and sealed with the temp probe pushed into the middle to start the 30 min time once the centre hits 250F. Poor man's decarb container.

A lot of this stuff I learned when I went back to school in my 30s to get a diploma in chemistry. That was 30 years ago so I've long forgotten a lot of the real sciency stuff but basic principles like distillations etc are handy to know and easier to remember.

Hope that helps. Merry Xmas!

 

[PaleSun]

@InTheShed Correct. There is no increased level of THC in a dead plant. Relative levels may increase only marginally as water content decreases during decarboxylation. Stored flower material still has moisture content. This will be significantly if not completely reduced during decarboxylation. So in that process there may be a 'relative' increase by weight, but no more produced.

 

[Pahval]

I don't have one myself but here's a link to Wacky Willy's decarb containers.

Even just air drying loses a lot of the low boiling pint terpenes, esters and the like but I come from an era where the only pot we got was Mexican brick weed that was chopped down and left in the fields to dry in the hot sun. Then branches were stripped off and tossed into boxes to be pressed into a 1 kilo brick, wrapped in brown butcher paper and wrapped in plastic. When you broke those apart there were lots of seeds and stems and other things like once we found a desiccated rat in the middle. This was the late 60s - 70s.

Quality control is much better now.

Merry Xmas!

those are nice containers... same principle as nova ardent has... yea, it seems terpenes are recaptured back, there is some degradation due to oxydation, but thats actually good, as some terpenoids and sesquiterpenes that get converted from monoterpenes are actually benefitial and desirable also... i wonder if it is suitable for decarb of fresh flowers... if they could hold the pressure of all the water in fresh buds becoming steam, they could be just what im looking for... but somehow i think it would explode if filled too much... or maybe a pressure cooker filled with flower only... what do you think? is it even possible to use pressure cooker without water? how would you measure temperature inside? *edit: lol yea people are doing that allready XD but people seem to put dry weed inside mason jar inside cooker with water... hmmm...

 

[OldMedUser]

those are nice containers... same principle as nova ardent has... yea, it seems terpenes are recaptured back, there is some degradation due to oxydation, but thats actually good, as some terpenoids and sesquiterpenes that get converted from monoterpenes are actually benefitial and desirable also... i wonder if it is suitable for decarb of fresh flowers... if they could hold the pressure of all the water in fresh buds becoming steam, they could be just what im looking for... but somehow i think it would explode if filled too much... or maybe a pressure cooker filled with flower only... what do you think? is it even possible to use pressure cooker without water? how would you measure temperature inside? *edit: lol yea people are doing that allready XD but people seem to put dry weed inside mason jar inside cooker with water... hmmm...

They're not pressure vessels so the pot should be bone dry. It would at least rupture if not go boom with wet flower inside. If you were releasing steam you'd be releasing what you're trying to preserve too so kinda defeats the purpose.

Mason jars can take the heat but they would burst under steam pressure too. When you can food the ring is just lightly snubbed down to hold the lid in place but allow pressure to get out then when they cool the vacuum created sucks the lid down tight. When you pull them out you give the ring a twist to snug it down good.

 

[Pahval]

I see... Thank you for that info... Im not used to using neither mason jars nor these ss (btw in europe ss means something else XD) decarb pots... Ill see what else is there...

 

[Bucudinkydow]

I’ve decarbed flower in a mason jar as quickly as 3 days after harvest with no KABOOM. The only difference I noticed with fresh vs dried bud was an unpleasant smell. Decarbing green weed in my ardent, however, left me with a soggy mess unless I opened it immediately after the cycle, which I suspect isn’t good for terpene retention.

Loved following this thread when it was current. Enthused that there’s still interest after all these months!

 

[Pahval]

I’ve decarbed flower in a mason jar as quickly as 3 days after harvest with no KABOOM. The only difference I noticed with fresh vs dried bud was an unpleasant smell. Decarbing green weed in my ardent, however, left me with a soggy mess unless I opened it immediately after the cycle, which I suspect isn’t good for terpene retention.

Loved following this thread when it was current. Enthused that there’s still interest after all these months!

Interesting... Yea, ive heard that some people experienced unpleasant smell when they extracted terpenes from fresh flower, but it went away after being in fridge for a day (go figure)... What did you do with the herb then? Did you extract it? How did it went/look?

 

[Bucudinkydow]

I did a cold ethanol extraction. There was so much water content that I had to do a complete evaporation and then add back required ethanol for desired strength. I dare say the long evaporation period most likely lost many of the Terpenes that I had strived to preserve during the decarb process.

I havent done tinctures in quiet awhile now. I simply do a good decarb, grind it to a fine powder and have a pinch with my morning coffee. Far more effective this way. I’m a firm believer that the more we manipulate this sweet plant the more of its goodness we lose!!

 

[Pahval]

I did a cold ethanol extraction. There was so much water content that I had to do a complete evaporation and then add back required ethanol for desired strength. I dare say the long evaporation period most likely lost many of the Terpenes that I had strived to preserve during the decarb process.

I havent done tinctures in quiet awhile now. I simply do a good decarb, grind it to a fine powder and have a pinch with my morning coffee. Far more effective this way. I’m a firm believer that the more we manipulate this sweet plant the more of its goodness we lose!!

Wow, i actually never tought about it in that way... Afaik, i dont have any reason to do eth extraction... Med administration can be in herbal form too... Decarb, fine grind, pack in pill, eat with oil... Geez, i feel dumb now...