Concentrates 101 – A quick breakdown for 710

Breaking Down Cannabis Concentrates

Cannabis concentrates can be confusing, even for seasoned consumers. Rosin or Live rosin? Sugar or sauce? Badder or Budder? The choices can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily, we’re here to help break it down for you. In honor of the 710 holiday aka “Oil Day” we wanted to share a quick lesson on cannabis concentrates. Don’t forget – we are offering 20% off all concentrates + vape and dab accessories at all of our locations Friday, July 10!

Below we will show you just how each concentrate is a little different from the last. Cannabis concentrates can come in many textures, shapes, colors, and consistencies. However, the differences generally stem from factors like moisture, temperature changes, and physical agitation.

Most concentrates are consumed by “dabbing” aka flash vaporizing a dollop of cannabis extract through a temperature-specific heating method like a dab rig, e-rig, or vaporizer. However, some people like to get creative and use extracts to top their joints, blunts, or bowls. Remember everyone has a different experience so what works for a friend might not work for you. Concentrates are typically more potent than flower, so if you’ve never dabbed – consume with caution.

Now let’s dive into the different consistencies:

sauce

a mixture of thca crystallites with terpene sauce. Thicker, stickier, and more viscous in texture than sugar, has more uniform & prominent crystalline structure

sugar

similar to sauce with more of a sugary, wet, consistency

rosin

solventless, shatter like concentrate made from heating and pressing dried flower, hash, or kief together

live rosin

solventless, made from pressing bubble hash that was derived from freshly frozen flower

live resin

solvent-based, usually BHO, high-quality, flavorful concentrates produced by flash-freezing the whole cannabis flowers then extracting them.

“Live” products are frozen immediately after harvest and are often preferred for their the pungent aromas of the live plant or the terpenes.

badder

badders are whipped under heat with a terpene oil layer which creates a workable cake-batter like texture

budder

budders are whipped post-purged resulting in a consistency that is easily workable. Budder is more stable than crumble but less oily than a baddercrumble

dried oil with a crumbly honeycomb consistency  

Hash

kief compressed into a block like shape

Bubble Hash

uses water, ice & mesh screens to extract trichomes into a paste-like consistency

ice wax

created by using water, ice, & mesh screens to extract trichomes into a fine, grainy, sand-like texture

dry sift

dry sift uses fine mesh screens to sift the dried flowers, separating trichome heads from the plant material, also known as kief

wax

concentrate whipped in the purging process

shatter

golden to amber colored concentrates made with a solvent producing a translucent, brittle, glass-like texture

distillate

exposes a winterized & heat decarboxylated extract to heat & vacuum, commonly used as a base for most edibles & vape cartridges

crystalline

isolated cannabinoids in their pure crystal structure

Interested in enhancing your smoking experience by testing out a new concentrate?

Check out our favorite concentrate brands and products here.

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