Cannabis Guide - 2022 - 18

POSTHARVEST
Extraction 101
V
By Ana Olvera
ape and extract products accounted for 37% of legal
cannabis sales in the U.S. in 2020. While flower
remains king among consumers (49%), the next closest
product category was edibles at 11%*. Cannabis extraction
provides cultivators with a growing avenue to experiment with
and the opportunity to create high-quality end products with a
longer shelf life.
" The barriers to entry are a lot lower than they used to be
and there are easy, simple and inexpensive methods to basically
turn that crop into something that can be shelf stable for a much
longer time than that raw plant matter, " says JJ Chamberlain, an
extraction consultant.
Chamberlain, owner of Covalent Consulting LLC, helps
cannabis companies develop lab layout, extraction methods,
safety procedures and more. Chamberlain shared top
considerations for cultivators looking to expand into the
extraction product category.
What is the leading extraction process at the moment?
The solvent that is the most efficient and creates all the
dabbable products that people want is hydrocarbon (using
butane and propane). [Dabbable products are highly
concentrated materials, such as oils and waxes, that are
consumed by allowing the material to vaporize and inhale.]
That's No. 1 just because it's the most efficient and it's creating
the consistencies people want. It is the most dangerous one out
of CO2
, hydrocarbon and non-solvent extractions. It's the most
dangerous one but it gets the best products out there and it's not
so dangerous that it's unteachable.
How does CO2
extraction compare to hydrocarbon
extraction?
CO2
[extraction] is really good for going straight into edibles.
[It] can make those dabbable products, it's just more difficult
on the chemists in these production labs. Or there are a lot of
machines where if you can dial it in with the drying team and
the grow team, you can get the vape pen oil to come directly
out of the machine and
can almost go into the
vape pen with very little
post processing and no
additives. And people are
really looking for that out of
vape pens in this industry
to just be pure THC, or as
close as we can get it. So
CO2
systems are getting
JJ Chamberlain has worked in the
cannabis industry for a decade.
more advanced every year
and they're getting more
intuitive. The first one we
worked on had a bunch
of manual valves. You
had to time things with
18 2022 GUIDE TO CANNABIS PRODUCTION
your phone or a kitchen timer for when you were going to turn
the valve. It really wasn't very conducive to our industry at all.
Nowadays, software and a lot of the systems are a lot simpler and
more intuitive.
We just installed [a Green Mill machine] in Missouri and
they've come up with a dewaxing technique to create a more
pure product straight out of the machine that requires less
post processing. We've had dewaxing for a while but [Green
Mill's technique] just creates a higher quality product out of the
machine. Stuff like that puts [CO2
extraction] on an equal level
as the hydrocarbon.
How can labs keep their environment safe?
Proper training. Making sure everybody knows how these
chemicals act in the real world. Let's say you have a leak of
butane. Is that butane going to float all the way up to the ceiling
or sink on the ground? Know what you're working with and
what the dangers are.
You need sprinklers and fire suppression systems. A lot of
times regulators are now looking for chemical fume hoods to be
in a lot of these post-processing rooms. For example, you can
put your entire hydrocarbon extraction system in a giant [walkin]
chemical fume hood that will evacuate the butane, propane
or CO2
, whenever it reaches an unsafe level. A lot of those are
automated. They are a little expensive but they're worth it and
they literally save lives. Ventilation has to be No. 1 in any of these
safety systems.
There are safe methods to do a lot of this stuff. So if they
follow the method and follow the people that have done it
before, and even bring in other safety and chemical ideas from
other industries, it's only going to get safer and better and easier
for those with less expertise to operate equipment safely.
What does compliance look like in the extraction industry?
Seed to sale tracking is essential, and it's part of every industry
in every state. Almost every state uses software (such as METRC
or BioTrack) to help us really keep track of everything from seed
to sale. And one of the difficult things on the cannabis side - I
should say on the extraction side - is being able to keep track of
everything that's going on. There's tons of moving pieces. You're
combining batches, you're taking away from batches and putting
them into this and that. Then the other part is the set up - the
part that I do - to really give everyone all the tools they'll need
to make sure they're compliant and safe, and make sure that
these systems can do what they say they do and that they're all
rated to evacuate the amount of air in that room and be able to
keep everybody safe.
There's the whole set up about it, and all the equipment and
the processes, and kind of creating processes so that people have
no choice but to be compliant if they're following the process.
You set [your extraction process] up so that compliance is
almost built into the entire network, from start to finish. v
* " Cannabis in the U.S. 2021 Mid-Year Market Update, " New Frontier Data
Cannabis Guide - 2022

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