I have been avoiding officially disclosing my job due to its ever improving but present social stigma. Here it is world; I work in the marijuana industry and I am the Laboratory Manager for Summit Concentrates! Lets start with some pictures:

The left photo shows our Class 1 Division 1 extraction “booth” and our beloved ExtractionTek Solutions MEP extractor. This machine uses butane and propane as organic solvents to extract cannabinoids, terpenes and essential oils. Don’t worry! C1D1 environments are designed to make the buildup and ignition of explosive gas practically impossible. The “booth” is essentially a wind tunnel that keeps strong outside airflow throughout the entire room and within which all ignition sources like electronics are isolated and grounded. We utilize extremely cold temperatures (sometimes down to -80 degrees Celsius) to sequester waxes and other non-desirable organics, thus increasing potency and accuracy of flavor. This machine makes our sugar wax, shatter, live resin and crystalline products. If you look closely you can see some nice sugar wax on the table having just come out of the extractor.

The center and right photos are of our Pope Wiped Film Evaporator. This is essentially a short path distillation or “still” with mechanical components that increase the accuracy of distillation to over 6 significant figures. In other words we can separate molecules within a thousandth of a degree of boiling point (in an ideal scenario). Now that could make some good ‘shine 😉

The center photo highlights the vacuum that we work under for distillation. The distillation in the photo is taking place at 79.6 millitorr or .00009% of a normal atmosphere at standard temperature and pressure.This is an insanely strong vacuum that promotes a high level of control over boiling point (lower pressure = lower boiling point) and thus separation of molecules.

The right photo highlights the fractions we develop as we run the wiped film. The dark right flask contains molecules that were below the boiling / condensation point, think chlorophyll and waxes. The light yellow flask on the left contains molecules whose boiling / condensation point were above the temp in the still but below the temperature of the condenser. This is our THC, usually between 85% and 95% purity. The small flasks on the top left contain terpenes and other molecules whose boiling point / condensation point are above both the temperature of the still and the temperature of the condenser. Think terpenes and any residual solvents.

Looking forward we are researching degradation products of cannabinoids such as CBN to aid sleep or CBC to fight cancer and act as an analgesic. We are also looking into stereo-molecules. Very fun and exciting stuff, but unfortunately cannot say more due to our NDA.

Lastly I want to comment on the team which I have the honor and pleasure of managing. All of our lab technicians hold a form of higher education and we all work together to uphold ethical production and research of marijuana products. In a society where the news trashes the scientific method it is really, really nice to work with people that understand correlation doesn’t mean causation and support the peer review process. We are one rockstar team!

I hope this gives you all a better idea of what I do for work! It has been an exciting progression from horticulture to post-processing management and finally to lab management. This is an ever growing and changing industry, and I love the hustle and bustle that it brings! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments!

-Cheers,

Trigg Hobbs