Cannabis extracts commonly referred to as concentrates or hash are broad terms used to describe cannabis that is concentrated after the flower goes through an extraction process. In the following article, we will be discussing the many different ways these extracts are made and processed.
Cannabis extracts are as diverse as much as they are potent. From average strength dry sift hash to highly potent distillate reaching the high 90% purity rate are just a couple types of concentrates available on the market. So before we conclude that one live rosin is better than other types, let’s start at the beginning.
Cannabis concentrate has been a very popular recreational choice for many cannabis consumers worldwide for decades. Even before the turn of the century, most people in Europe were only accustomed to smoking hash rather than cannabis flower. The reason for this is it was an available product, could be made cheaply in large quantities, easy to ship and more importantly for the consumer, more potent!
Hash for example became a de facto currency in the wildly popular Trailer Park Boys series because of it’s potent effects and easily pliable form which suited it as a type of payment system.
Hashish, The Godfather of Live Rosins
Hash has been around for centuries and is commonly found in many variations throughout Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, specifically Morroco. Hash is made using traditional techniques developed over time and can be made by rubbing the flower between your hands and extracting the resin from the heat and pressure of your hands.
Another method is agitating the flowers through a screen, allowing the trichomes, known as kief, to fall off and further processed using heat and pressure to make hash blocks. Certain regions of the world are known for their specific types of hash e.g Lebanese Hash is more blonde/red due to the processing of it through screens to extract the kief. Whereas hash from Afghanistan, India and Pakistan is a dark brown, even black as it’s rolled using one’s hands, known as “charas“.
The third method of making hash, known as bubble hash, is made using ice, water and screens too. The hash is cooled using the ice and then flushed through different screens to collect the resin. This hash is one of the purest forms and ranges in color from gold to even purple colors if derived from purple cannabis plants.
Common Extractions & Concentrates
As mentioned before, there is a wide and diverse range of concentrates available on the market, and with each year a new one that is more potent is developed. Let’s discuss some of the ways they are made and a couple of the more popular types.
First, concentrated extracts can be made using either solvent or solvent-less extract methods. Meaning, some methods use solvents such as butane, propane, CO2 and ethanol to strip the trichomes from the plant.
Different types of concentrates are produced using solvents, namely: Shatter, crumble, dudder or badder, wax, live resin, co2 oil, Butane Honey Oil (BHO) and Rick Simpson Oil (RSO).
Solventless concentrates are called kief, rosin, bubble hash, distillate, isolates and crystalline.
The naming of these cannabis concentrates is usually because of their visual look and concentrate consistency e.g wax concentrates have a wax consistency to it like crumble literally crumbles in your hand.
All of these concentrates can vary in color, potency and aroma. For instance, an isolate concentrate will have no smell as the pure cannabinoids have been stripped from the plant matter and therefore contain no terpenes, the compounds responsible for the smell of cannabis.
Live Rosin: The Current King of Flavor & Effect
Live Rosin is a fairly new development in the cannabis culture and is becoming a popular product in our community. The reason for this is that it’s one of the purest forms of cannabis extracts, the most potent with the best aromas. And for these reasons, it is a very trendy concentrate that is in huge demand and fetches high prices, $20-70 dollars per gram, depending on where you are of course.
Breaking down the name, live rosin, it’s live because the plant material has been extracted before the usual drying and curing process that cannabis plant matter usually goes through. And it’s rosin, cause it is processed using low-heat aluminum plates and pressure, some rosin presses come with built-in hydraulic presses.
Experts within the cannabis community confirm rosin has a better taste and effect due to its freshness and being solvent-free, which is one of the biggest issues of solvent-based concentrates. If the processor of solvent-based hash does not know what they are doing and purge the final product correctly, a lot of the toxic solvent like butane or propane may be left over. This is not very good for one’s health or well-being.
So, to be on the safe side and enjoy better bud, look out for live rosin, it’s what the word on the street is talking about and one can see its popularity just through the demand.
