Everything You Need to Know Before Buying Cannabis Concentrates

If you don’t live in a traditional growing region, access to fresh weed flowers is yet another modern luxury. Like any other agricultural output, cannabis flower has a shelf life, which explains why, throughout its long, long history, the drug has often been often consumed in its super potent (and super shelf stable) form—hash.

Today, hash falls into the category of concentrates, in which the psychoactive and aromatic ingredients of the cannabis plant are harvested and transformed into a potent, condensed form. While hash is literally ancient, current tech has innovated specialized techniques that have completely changed how we consume concentrates, and even created new types of cannabis extracts like waxes, butters, and isolates.

These are all unique expressions of the plant that you can consume via vaping or combustion, bake into treats, and more. Depending on the method by which they are created, they can retain the full flavor of the mother plant material, or taste like vaguely of “plant.” Figuring out how to navigate the world of concentrates as a beginning consumer can be confusing, which is why it is helpful to have a grasp of the vocabulary involved.

Because we don’t know it all, we asked four experts to explain some of the basics of concentrates, which some consider the future of the plant.

• Butane Hash Oil (BHO): A cannabis extract made by using butane as the primary solvent. BHO products can end up in one of many different final forms, including budder [creamy in consistency], crumble [which is can be added to joints or sprinkled over flower in a bowl], shatter [which is solid and translucent], live resin [extracted from plants flash-frozen at harvest to preserve the natural terpenes], diamonds, and sauce [which is like live resin, but made from the dried plant]. —Nate Ferguson, co-founder and chief of production at Jetty Extracts
• Bowl top: To add a cannabis concentrate like hash to the top of a bong or pipe bowl packed with cannabis flowers. —Khalid Al Naser, head of product at Raw Garden
• Cure: A process of aging cannabis flowers or concentrates to prepare for storage and consumption.
• Dab: Describes a method of inhaling concentrates that have been exposed to very high heat (400-600 degrees F).
• Dab Rig: A bong designed specifically for concentrates. They can be fitted with a nail/E-Nail [see below] as well as different percolators. —Aaron Tran, founder of Oakland Extracts
• Dablicator: An oil dispensing device. You can meter your dose of extract and directly dab it, put it on a flower, a joint, or in food or a drink. —Nate Ferguson
• Dry Sift: A method of making hash that uses screens or agitation to collect cannabis trichomes.
• E-nail: An electrical heating element for a banger or nail connected to a temperature control device that allows for consistent, precise temperature dabs without the need for a torch. —Aaron Tran
• Fresh press: Method of concentrate collection using pressure and sometimes heat to extract trichomes.
• Gram: The unit of measurement that cannabis and concentrates are generally sold in.
• Hand Rubbed/Finger Hash: A method of hash making that uses friction of the palms to catch the sticky trichomes from live cannabis plants or dried flower.
• Hash: A cannabis extract made from the separated trichome heads of cannabis flowers. —Vat Tann, director of marketing at Raw Garden
• Hash Oil: A potent form of cannabis made by extracting trichomes (the resinous glands) from the plant matter. - Khalid Al Naser
• Kief: A mix of trichomes and other plant debris that gets separated from the main flower and usually accumulates at the bottom of whatever vessel the cannabis flowers are being stored in, or is sifted from cannabis flower through a mesh screen. —Vat Tann
• Ice water hash, (aka bubble hash): A form of hash making using screens, ice, and agitation to collect trichomes and separate them from cannabis flower.
• Isolate: A general term for single cannabinoid extracts, such as THC and CBD.
• Infused Prerolls: Ground flower material that is mixed with cannabis concentrate, resulting in a more potent pre-roll joint with a heightened flavor profile. —Khalid Al Naser
• Live Resin: A cannabis extract made by using fresh, frozen cannabis instead of dried cured cannabis. The term “Live Resin” comes from using plant material that is fresh enough that it retains many living plant compounds. A wider array of terpenes are available when using fresh frozen cannabis. Live Resin concentrates are made using chilled solvents like BHO to keep the plant material frozen during the extraction process. “Live Rosin” is made with fresh frozen cannabis, but without using solvents. The term “Live” denotes the extract was made from fresh or fresh frozen cannabis material. —Nate Ferguson
• Moon rocks: A cannabis product in which flower buds are dipped in concentrates and then rolled in kief; has a reputation for extreme potency.
• Oil: A general term for semisolid cannabis extracts like wax, shatter, budder, BHO, and other forms of concentrates.
• “Rick Simpson oil” or FECO full extract cannabis oil: A ready-to-consume edible cannabis concentrate that extracts all of the characteristics of the source plant, rather than just isolated cannabinoids and terpenes.
• Rosin: Rosin is a type of solventless extract. It’s made by pressing two heated plates together and squeezing out the resin. Rosin can be made from flower, dry-sift, kief, and ice water extract. —Nate Ferguson
• Shatter: A translucent and brittle type of Butane hash oil (BHO). The consistency goes from being hard and easily broken at room temperature, to a tree sap-like snap and pull consistency. —Aaron Tran
• Solventless Hash Oil (SHO): Solventless hash oil refers to cannabis extracts or mechanical extraction methods that use no solvents in the process. Solventless extraction methods have been around for thousands of years, originating in Arabic cultures, and have evolved to stay relevant in today’s cannabis market. Some solventless extract consistencies include kief, ice water xxtract, dry sift, and rosin. —Nate Ferguson
• Terpene: The volatile organic chemicals that give cannabis its smell and taste.
• Trichome: 1.) The sticky substance on your cannabis flowers, sometimes referred to as “sugar” or “crystals”. 2.) A hair-like outgrowth with a glandular, bulbous head full of aroma compounds, oils, and psychoactive chemicals. —Khalid Al Naser
• THCa Diamonds: THC-A Diamonds are an extract that is 99%-100% THC-A with little to no terpenes, which makes it [an] extremely pure form. THC-A converts to THC when heated. —Aaron Tran
• Total active cannabinoids: The lab results that denote what percentage of the product’s total weight is made up of cannabinoids like THC, THC-A, CBD, and others.
• Vape: Short for vaporizer or as a verb, vaporize; the benefit of vaporizers is that because the concentrate is heated below the combustion point, the inherent cannabis flavors can be more prominent than when burning [flower]. —Vat Tann
• Wax/Budder: If shatter/oil is left in a vacuum oven at 110°F–120°F for an extended time, a cake batter-like or honeycomb wafer will form. The shatter/oil will go from clear to opaque and start to thicken or harden. This is called nucleation or buddering. —Aaron Tran

If this rush of information has you eager to try concentrates, it’s important to remember to stick to lab-tested, sanctioned products. Adulteration of concentrates drove the vape crisis of 2019, and if the people making them aren’t experienced technicians, they might inadvertently create products still riddled with the solvents used to extract the cannabinoids. Knowing what you are buying and trusting who you are buying it from will prevent you from having a bad time during dab time.

  

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