Purging wax that you buy

[BleedingEyes]

ok so I bought some wax and I'm afraid it might not be purged enough, what can I do to purge it do I put in the oven, or do I put in a low temp double boil set up?.

 

[seaofgreens]

What reasons are you afraid it isn't purged?

You will probably lose the least amount of terps with the double boiler, below boiling, remember that. Just keep it low and warm. If your concern is getting it to medical grade, you won't without a vacuum.

One thing you might want to consider, if it is just not quite shattery enough, is that if you are just trying to increase consistency, and the product is already properly purged, you will just be boiling off terpenes to gain that consistency. Terpenes also spark, which can be mistaken for left over butane.

What company did your extraction?

 

[BleedingEyes]

.

 

[BleedingEyes]

What reasons are you afraid it isn't purged?

You will probably lose the least amount of terps with the double boiler, below boiling, remember that. Just keep it low and warm. If your concern is getting it to medical grade, you won't without a vacuum.

One thing you might want to consider, if it is just not quite shattery enough, is that if you are just trying to increase consistency, and the product is already properly purged, you will just be boiling off terpenes to gain that consistency. Terpenes also spark, which can be mistaken for left over butane.

What company did your extraction?

I did not get it from a company I got it from a friend, and it has a weird taste, he is also not the sharpest tool in the shed if you know what I'm saying and I'm afraid he might not be properly purging.

 

[seaofgreens]

Yeah, double boiler or one of those electric skillets that can stay hovering around 110 F. Put it on some parchment on the heat, and let it go for a while. Then, put a second parchment on top, and grab something you can flatten the patty with between the two parchments. Flatten it out as much as you can, then flip it, remove top layer of parchment (put it in freezer for a sec if it is sticking.) let it go for a while, and repeat a couple more times until satisfied.

 

[AvatarOfGreen]

Just FYI, in Colorado, Medical product is untested for potency or comtaminants while recreational product undergoes stringent potency and microbial and pesticide testing for every batch.

So "medical grade" is actually almost always worse than recreational, at least here.

On rec concentrates must have a PPM below 700, while on medical there is no threshhold.

Anyways, I have rarely purged stuff from the store. They almost always purge it better than you could hope to pull off. Most have closed loop industrial extractors with dewaxing columns and industrial vacuum ovens with 100% accurate temps and vac pressure readings.

I would wonder why you think it isn't purged?

Worst I have seen is plant matter in CO2 wax that wasn't winterized, but you would need to winterize and purge it rather than simply purging.

Edit: Just read that you got from a friend. If ot sparkles or sizzles on your nail, leaves a ton of black residue like those snake fireworks, or does something else weird, definitely purge it, or consider winterization.

You can heat on parchment, guy above has a good idea. Do you have a vac? Probably not. If not, just always look for rainbow film on the bubbles, that's butane. If you see small, cloudy brown or yellow bubbles, all uniformly sized, with no rainbow coloration, you should be good to go, you will definitely not get sparking.

You could try winterizing which guarantees the butane is purged and any waxes will be removed.

 

[AVENTUS]

Just FYI, in Colorado, Medical product is untested for potency or comtaminants while recreational product undergoes stringent potency and microbial and pesticide testing for every batch.

So "medical grade" is actually almost always worse than recreational, at least here.

On rec concentrates must have a PPM below 700, while on medical there is no threshhold.



You could try winterizing which guarantees the butane is purged and any waxes will be removed.

That is super backwards, and someone who is involved on a policy level in CO should introduce legislation to bring existing rec standards to the medical side, possibly even exceeding them.

But maybe the reason it's like that, is because they want to keep the cost down, and bureaucracy out, on the medical side of things ? IDK.

 

[seaofgreens]

Don't know exactly what goods category cannabis would fall under. Perhaps agricultural? In any case, this would be because there are already established state/federal standards the commercial side of cannabis would have to conform with, same as any other product. There is likely even third-party auditing services ready to stamp their GMP/HAACP certification on whatever needs looking at, to increase sell-ability. And that shit isn't a joke.

Medically grown marijuana is probably just some cobbled together rules the state selectively enforces whenever they need a cash-grab.

 

[AvatarOfGreen]

That is super backwards, and someone who is involved on a policy level in CO should introduce legislation to bring existing rec standards to the medical side, possibly even exceeding them.

But maybe the reason it's like that, is because they want to keep the cost down, and bureaucracy out, on the medical side of things ? IDK.

Well the tax rate on medical product is regular sales tax, about 8%, while the rec product is taxed at ~22%. There's your answer IMO. The state has existing standards for agricultural products that don't go for pharmaceuticals and they have little incentive or revenue on the medical side to use to enforce these policies. The same agency oversees both though.

 

[AvatarOfGreen]

Don't know exactly what goods category cannabis would fall under. Perhaps agricultural? In any case, this would be because there are already established state/federal standards the commercial side of cannabis would have to conform with, same as any other product. There is likely even third-party auditing services ready to stamp their GMP/HAACP certification on whatever needs looking at, to increase sell-ability. And that shit isn't a joke.

Medically grown marijuana is probably just some cobbled together rules the state selectively enforces whenever they need a cash-grab.

Well actually, there are separate licenses for medical and rec for both the grow side and the storefront side. On medical, these licenses are tied together. On rec, they are not, allowing for recreational wholesale-only growers. For every license, an inventory tracking system called METRC is used to track the product. We establish strains for every clone or seed, give a specific 16-20 digit RFID number to every plant, and assign strains and facility locations to every plant. Each strain usually yields within a certain range and potency. The yield for the harvest is reported into METRC and tracked by the state. After drying you waste out however much wet weight there was vs. final dry weight. This dry weight is then transferred in 450 gram increments, each with their own RFID tag and number, and they go from the grow license to a store license. Here is where the differences come in:

1) That transfer, on recreational, determines how much actual weight the facility pay taxes in excise taxes. In Colorado, the excise tax rate on rec flower, per lb, was around $290 last year. On trim it was about $80. This is established based upon a percentage of the average price of a wholesale pound in the state. On medical there is no excise tax.

2) Medical product is limited by how many patients your storefront license has. The licenses are tied together. Each patient is allowed a certain number of plants, corresponding to how many ounces they can buy at any given time, and how much product you may have on hand. A typical dispensary may have a limit of anywhere from 20-50 lbs in METRC on their storefront side. This includes flower, trim, concentrates, edibles, etc. Medical patients can buy 2 ounces a day at your facility, while rec people can buy 1 oz per transaction. This affects how much medical product the storefront can have on-hand in their license at any given time. They may wholesale product in or out but 70% of what they sell over the year must come from their grow. Also 70% of their on-hand inventory must be grown in-house. On rec you can have as much as you want and wholesale as much as you want.

3) Recreational product undergoes stringent potency and microbial testing. Yes, this is expensive. Once a strain establishes averages it gets tested 1 time every 6 months. Rec product must be labeled with results. None of that is true for medical product. All product needs ingredients and license info.

4) At the POS medical product is taxed at 8% and there are even people who have tax exemptions. On rec it is like 22%.

Once the product is accepted it is either a) pre-packaged into specific weights or b) kept in bulk and weighed out in front of the customer. Busier shops tend to pre-weigh. Anyways, the price is set by the shop. Once it is sold, the POS system sales have to be imported at the end of every day. The POS tracks each flower product by grams. Say you sold 100 eighths. Well it would go into METRC at the end of the day and pull 350 grams from the RFID that was sold (assuming the shop tags it correctly). This will deplete each 450 gram tag to 0 over time. If there are large discrepancies the state investigates.

So both med and rec are tracked very stringently. Med just makes the state and stores less money and is harder to manage.

Edit: it should be noted METRC was designed by Franwell. They designed the software to track agricultural harvests for tax purposes and for subsidies from the government to agricultural businesses.

 

[seaofgreens]

This is good information... Does not really address why recreational marijuana would be required to have more stringent testing than medical though. The existence of an excise tax for recreational = more testing is required? Doesn't quite compute.

Are there any FDA guidelines you find the state is wanting to enforce when you transition into commercial rule-sets?