Juana-Learn More On Concentrates
Published: March 5, 2019
With all this Cannabis love, more and more terms and products are coming out of the woodworks. Weed works more like it. I love it, and I’m all for it, but what does it all mean?
In this video and blog, I want to talk about some terms that have me wondering what am I smoking next?
To start out, let’s talk about concentrates. Concentrates is the broad term of the purest essence of any matter. Like when you buy cranberry juice, and it uses the word “concentrated.” It’s the purest and most concentrated form of the berry. Same thing here with weed. Concentrate will be the most refined essence and most potent of cannabis.
Now that we know what concentrate is let’s move to the subcategories within a concentrated formula. It mainly has to do with the process of going about making a concentrate.
Processes in making a concentrate include that of being solvent-free, solvent-less or made WITH a solvent.
Now a solvent is a chemical like alcohol, butane, propane, ethanol, or CO2 that is used to extract the pure essence of a substance (cannabis).
Solvents Include :
Alcohol-
An example of a solvent concentrate would be using alcohol to make tinctures.
Where you bake (decarboxylation) and marinate the cannabis inside of high proof
alcohol like “EverClear,” and letting it sit for days even weeks. Shaking
it daily until its ready to be filtered once the end is here and you are on
your way to an effective tincture. Tinctures have no expiration date, but as
with anything the older and older it gets, the less potent it may be.
Side note – Decarboxylation, or in this case, baking your weed to about 200F for about 30-45 minutes is essential to activate the cannabis compounds that will be doing the healing. We decarboxylate our cannabis-weed every time we put flame to that bowl or joint. Decarboxylation is the heat and time that goes into activating the healing properties that we all know cannabis for. Without decarboxylation, we wouldn’t be getting the euphoric high and pain relief we all associated with marijuana.
Butane& Propane:
Another form of a solvent concentrate is using butane or propane that creates
different textures from resin. Also known for short as BHO (Butane Hash Oil) and
PHO(Propane Hash Oil). Butane is an odorless gas linked to having long term
adverse effects on the brain, heart, & lungs. Reports and case studies
posted on the National Institute of Health website has shown links to suicides
through butane abuse. Concentrate terms include budder, wax, shatter, batter,
sap, syrup, sugar, pull & snap. These different textures, colors, tastes,
and consistencies are all ways to tell you might be looking at a BHO or PHO treated
concentrate.
Now what’s more interesting is that there are differences between solvent-free and solvent-less.
A solvent-free concentrate also known as a “distillate.” The process of extracting the plant materials with a hydrocarbon (CO2) or butane. Then separating the solvent from the concentrate through heat and vaporization repeatedly until it is free from the solution.
An example of a solvent-free distillate would be that of the cartridge featured in the video. FreeTheLeaf powered by Green Roads is a quality brand and product. With its smooth hitting and pleasant taste of strawberry lemonade, this comes as an easy hit for pre and post work feels. Heck, even while amid a work day taking a couple hits from my incognito vape pen makes work go by so much smoother & sweeter.
Now a solvent-less concentrate includes the process without using any solvents. So forms of these concentrates are much simpler like kief, full melt or rosin.
Kief:
Kief is going to be that dry sifted powder you can find in your grinder. My
grinder comes with 4 chambers made from durable and robust aluminum which
outlast most zinc alloy grinders. That bottom chamber is going be where you’ll
find the love. The Kief.
Fullmelt: The process of making “fullmelt” is pretty simple; it includes freezing the plant right after harvest. Then taking the frozen plant and washing it in a specialty machine or by hand friction to extract all the trichomes from the plant. What’s left is a hash that is then freeze dried.
Rosin:To make rosin, you merely take a heated press like that of a flat hair iron, or you can take it big scale with a T-Shirt press and press your weed nugget until it oozes out sticky, amber colored goodness.
These alternatives seem to be the much more SWEEDER friendly sources of concentrate, but you can’t knock it until you try it, right? But there something deep down inside me saying to stick with the less intoxicated forms of concentrates.
What about you? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Until next time, this was your basic intro to solvents and what it has to do with concentrates in the cannabis community.
Stay Wise & Loved!
-Marissa
Resources:
https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/the-many-types-of-solventless-cannabis-extracts
https://www.alchimiaweb.com/blogen/complete-guide-solvent-cannabis-extracts/
https://www.maximumyield.com/definition/4385/solvent-free
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