Ask the Experts: Extraction, Part IV: What Is the Most Important Thing that Newcomers to the Field Would Need to Learn?
John A. MacKay, Synergistic Technologies Associates and Brian C. Smith, Big Sur Scientific offer advice on the most important thing newcomers to cannabis extraction need to learn.
Leading extraction scientists and researchers from the cannabis industry-John A. MacKay, Synergistic Technologies Associates and Brian C. Smith, Big Sur Scientific-participate in this round-table discussion series on extraction. This month they offer advice on the most important thing newcomers to cannabis extraction need to learn.
If you were teaching a class on cannabis extraction, what is the most important thing that newcomers to the field would need to learn?
John A. MacKay: I teach people how to make a Vermont breakfast from the ingredients found on the farm or purchased at the store. Coffee, tea, juices, eggs, bacon, sausage, quick versus steel oatmeal, different types of pancakes and varieties of apples. Knowing how maple syrup and corn syrup differ is important. The differences between whole reduced fat and skim milk production. IF you can grasp the basics of the source of the natural ingredients, the tools needed to cook the breakfast, the size of the tools, and the processes of heating and cooling, and the solvents needed you will be further than 71.0% of those in the cannabis field today. Spoiler alert: That number is part pun and part cow pie, with a generous sprinkling of truthful sarcasm.
Brian Smith: Since large multinational corporations are now investing millions of dollars in the cannabis space, the day of large, fully automated cannabis extraction facilities will soon be upon us. These companies will be able to make product for a fraction of the cost that small operators do now and put them out of business. Anyone new to the business either needs to find a niche market to serve, grow big to compete with the multinationals, or go home.
Click here to read part I, part II, or part III of the "Ask the Experts: Extraction" series. Part IV of the "Ask the Experts: Cultivation" series will appear in our January 2020 newsletter.
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