Ditto. I don’t see his response as being defensive at all. Quite the opposite. Here is the chart from that study (via the synopsis linked):
Notice that the test conditions have multiple independent variables such that they didn’t test under similar conditions for the claimed independent variable, temperature.
The low temperature trial was with a screw cap while the room temperature trials were with permeable fabric (gauze) exposing the contents to oxygen, humidity, and whatever else is going on. Doesn’t seem like equivalent test conditions at all to me. The original paper is paywalled so I can’t thoroughly evaluate their experiment. But, the provided labcompare link is also critical of the results for preciously the same reasons. This doesn’t mean the study is not without value, it does mean you’d need to carefully consider the test conditions and whether the results would be actually useful outside of their intent.
Ignoring the deficiencies in the study, we’d be looking at a reduction of around 50% over a period of 700 days for the worst case scenario evaluated. That’s a really long time. It’s true, according to this study, that the decomposition of cannabinoids slows with temperature to an 50% reduction over 1600 days. So, four an a half years.
Personally, I don’t retain product for over 12 months. Don’t have a need to. I’d be fine with a 25% reduction in a twelve month period (or maybe less if not linear). This is despite the indication that the room temperature tests appear to be exposed to oxygen and atmospheric conditions. So, perhaps the shelf-life could be even longer…
Here are some more charts from a different study, though:
In that study the difference in rate of decomposition at room vs reduced temperatures for, in this case, an extract appears minimal. I’d be more concerned with terpene evaporation.
While, this is an interesting discussion and we would love to improve how we do things, I’d suggest either opening a topic about storing product under cold conditions or going over to
and we can continue the debate on the differences, storage conditions, cost, anecdotal evidence, etc. Otherwise, this is going well off topic on the Sensorpush…
edit: have just received a laboratory analysis for a simple long term storage test that can be found over here: