  Detailed balance is often invoked in discussions of nuclear weak transitions
in astrophysical environments. Satisfaction of detailed balance is rightly
touted as a virtue of some methods of computing nuclear transition strengths,
but we argue that it need not necessarily be strictly obeyed, especially when
the system is far from weak equilibrium. We present the results of shell model
calculations of nuclear weak strengths in both charged current and neutral
current channels at astrophysical temperatures. Using these strengths to
compute some reaction rates, we find that, despite some violation of detailed
balance, our method is robust up to high temperature, and we comment on the
relationship between detailed balance and weak equilibrium in astrophysical
conditions.
