Cannabis plant
Hemp is a plant that begins work in the fields at a time when temperatures are above 15 ° C. In our climate zone, this starts somewhere in the beginning of May, in the Primorska region even earlier. That is when the cannabis season begins, where planting includes the first part, when we talk about cannabis growing under the sun, or with the English word "outdoor" cultivation, which is also the most widespread in the world. On the other hand, there is also "indoor" cultivation, which is widespread mainly in the world of pharmaceutical cannabis and on the black market, where in this way THC cannabis is grown mainly due to its psychoactive effects.
Growing cannabis outdoors thrives mainly in climate zones, where temperatures range from 25-30 ° C and do not exceed a temperature of 35 ° C.
Cannabis is harvested somewhere towards the end of September or in early October, the time of harvest depends on several factors (hemp variety, temperature, conditions over the year, etc.), followed by drying, granulation and packaging in packaging units, also depends on the purpose of use and market needs. Thus, processing from undried hemp is possible, and mainly due to easier storage and stability of dried flowers, processing of dry hemp biomass is mainly used in the world.
Cannabis processing involves several stages
The first step in cannabis processing is extraction of substances from cannabis biomass into the selected solvent. Recently, two extraction techniques have been popular around the world, ethanol and CO2 extraction, but there is also extraction into hydrocarbons (butane, propane, etc.), which is a practically undesirable method of extraction due to the use of harmful solvents. Due to its simplicity and versatility, ethanol extraction is prevalent in the world. Extraction from hemp biomass yields ingredients that are soluble in the selected solvent (cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, waxes, chlorophylls, etc.), followed by filtration and evaporation of the solvent to obtain the so-called full-spectrum hemp resin, which among other components contains cannabinoids mainly in acid form.
The second step is decarboxylation, where the acidic forms of cannabinoids are converted to the active form of cannabinoids. The method of execution and the parameters of the decarboxylation process (temperature, pressure, time) also determine how many other useful volatile substances that are genuine (terpenes) in cannabis will be lost by the process. Since terpenes are also very important active components of cannabis, it is very important at what temperature the decarboxylation process is carried out.
Purification and removal of undesirable components
The next step in the processing process is to clean up unwanted cannabis components such as waxes and chlorophylls. These compounds give hemp products (drops, resin, etc.) a very bitter taste and a brown color, allowing us to immediately recognize and distinguish quality hemp products from low-quality ones, even though they are both full spectrum. There are several types of purification, which can be achieved with adsorbents (activated carbon, bentonite, randalite, alkaline soils, etc.), chromatography (very expensive, but at the same time very effective method of purification), distillation at very low pressures (p <1 mbar) and others techniques used in the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industries. The selected cleaning procedures depend mainly on what kind of final product we want and especially the content or. the amount of psychoactive cannabinoid that we want or should have present in an individual product, which depends on the regulations in individual countries. Within the EU, an average content of 0.3% is allowed, in some places a higher content is allowed, in Slovenia the limit of 0.2% THC in final products is allowed.
Who are Hempethica products for?
All of our cannabinoid-containing products are prepared with the utmost care, ensuring that our products are first and foremost one of the highest quality on the market. We use a low pressure distillation process on all products to ensure that our final products do not contain residual solvents, chlorophylls and waxes, thus ensuring the most health-efficient products without side and unwanted components.
All our products are developed and made with the help of experts in various fields. We have already certified some of our products as BIO and VEGAN, and some are in the process of obtaining documentation and certificates. Because it is naturally very important to us.
Resources:
– Lazarjani, M.P., Young, O., Kebede, L. et al. Processing and extraction methods of medicinal cannabis: a narrative review. J Cannabis Res 3, 32 (2021). DOI: 10.1186/s42238-021-00087-9
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