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Making live resin is a little more complicated than growing cannabis plants. It involves starting with high-quality plants followed by an extraction process. The result, however, is worth it.
Live resin is popular for its rich profile of flavours and aromas. So, knowing how live resin is made can be a great bit of knowledge for cannabis lovers. Here’s everything you need to know about making live resin.
What is Live Resin?
Live resin is a cannabis concentrate. It’s popular among cannabis connoisseurs thanks to its delicious and aromatic flavour profiles. But what really makes live resin unique is how it’s made.
Like other cannabis concentrates, live resin is made by extracting cannabinoids from fresh cannabis plants. The non-useful plant materials are discarded, while the good stuff (ie, the trichomes with their terpenes and associated cannabinoids) remain.
Live resin is a concentrated cannabis product that gives consumers all the benefits of THC and CBD cannabis strains in a highly-concentrated format. To give you an idea, full live resin can contain around 50% cannabinoids and 20-30% terpenes.
There are a few different ways to consume or smoke live resin. The yellow, waxy-like substance can be smoked using a dab rig, vaped, or added to a joint or blunt.
Live Resin vs Live Rosin
Did you have the impression that live resin and live rosin are the same things… except for that pesky different letter? The truth is that they’re not that different, other than the method of cannabinoid extraction.
Live resin and live rosin differ based on how they are made. Live resin is made when the cannabis plant goes through an extraction method using butane or another solvent material. Live rosin, on the other hand, uses a solvent-less extraction process, instead using high heat to extract useful plant materials.
Live resin retains so much of the cannabis plant’s quality flavour and smells thanks to the process of freezing fresh plants rather than drying and curing them. The immediate freezing protects the trichomes and delicate terpenes.
Why Cannabis Lovers Love Live Resin
There are plenty of reasons cannabis consumers are flocking to live resin cannabis concentrates in their online dispensaries. Live resin offers a fully packed experience, giving you the best of the effects and benefits that its strain has to offer.
Live resin effects and benefits:
- Full flavour profile
- Rich aromas and smells
- Concentrated
- Sativa and Indica are available
Another big plus for live resin is that it can be easily added to a joint or blunt for an elevated experience. Though live resin can come at a higher price than some other cannabis products, consumers often feel that it’s well worth the cost.
Especially for more experience consumers, it’s easy to appreciate the fullness of high-terpene cannabis products such as live resin extract concentrates.
How to Make Live Resin: The Ultimate Guide
Making live resin requires a few pieces of specialized equipment, a lot of experience and knowledge, and of course, great weed. Here are the 5 steps to make live resin.
Step 1: Tools and Equipment
Making cannabis concentrates can require a lot of specialized equipment. The process is typically performed in a lab by experienced specialists.
A specialized tool, a closed-loop system for butane and propane, is used during the extraction process. Other types of equipment, including freezers, gloves, and beakers, are also needed throughout the process.
Step 2: Freezing Fresh Cannabis Plants
When you buy dried cannabis flower from the dispensary, it’s gone through an extensive process of growing, cultivating, cutting, drying, and curing.
Rather than drying and curing the plant material, live resin is made by freezing the biomass.
Plants are frozen at -10 degrees or lower, in a deep freezer, for 24 to 36 hours.
Freezing the plant helps to retain the smells and aromas that are natural to the strain. The freezing process will typically use only top-quality, whole plants, excluding the fan leaves, roots, and stems.
Step 3: Extraction Methods
Extraction should ideally be performed as soon as the plants come out of the freezer. Live resin is made using a solvent-based extraction method which involves multiple steps.
The process uses a light hydrocarbon blend of solvents, including propane and butane. The balance of propane to butane can determine how much of the terpenes you can successfully extract. For example, the higher ratio of propane to butane, the more terpenes may be pulled from the plant.
Just as the plant itself should be kept at a low temperature, the solvent should also be chilled before the extraction process. To make live resin, the solvent is chilled at a temperature of around -40 to -80 degrees celsius.
The actual extraction process uses a closed-loop hydrocarbon extractor. This distills the trichomes into a homogenous solution. Applying heat then separates the trichomes (extract) from the solvent. This is done at a relatively low heat to avoid burning the delicate terpenes.
Step 4: Post-Process Steps
Some cannabis products, such as oils, require a winterization process to remove fats and lipids. But because live resin production is done using frozen biomass (the plants), you can skip this step.
After the terpenes are extracted, the final step is to purge residual solvent from the extracted material. This is done using a vacuum oven, where the solvent is boiled away.
Step 5: Live Resin Products
What exactly is live resin, from a chemical standpoint? We’re about to set the record straight.
While you’ve probably seen “live resin” listed as a cannabis concentrate online, the term “live resin” actually refers to the extract that is collected during the extraction process detailed above. The live resin you see at the dispensary sometimes called “terp sauce,” is one of the concentrates that’s made from the live resin extract.
Live resin extract can be processed following extraction to create a variety of different cannabis concentrates. Different methods, such as whipping the extract, create different products.
Here are a few of the products that are made from live resin extract:
- Shatter – Also known as pull & snap, this concentrate is made from live resin and takes on a taffy-like appearance and attitude.
- Sauce / Terp Sauce – The most common form of live resin extract is called sauce or terp sauce and is a popular cannabis concentrate that can be found in most dispensaries.
- Waxes – Waxes are smoother forms of the live resin extract, which can vary in terms of consistency and colour.
- Sugar – Sometimes simply called “live resin” in the store, sugar is live resin that has the visual appearance of a sugary, grainy material.
- Badder – To make badder, live resin is whipped.
Many of these cannabis concentrates are sold in small glass jars. They will typically have a pulley, sticky, or waxy consistency. In order to consume these concentrates, you’ll need a dabbing tool to apply the live resin to your device or joint.
Some Live Resin Products to Try
If the process of making live resin still sounds a little out of your league, you can still experience the benefits of the concentrate.
To be fair, the whole process is best left to the professionals!
So, grab some live resin from Kootenay Botanicals online dispensary.
- LIVE RESIN (HIGH VOLTAGE) – Premium cannabis full-terpene, full-spectrum extract.
- LIVE RESIN (JUNGLE RIDGE) – Made from fresh cannabis plants that have not been dried. Available in multiple strains with a great value for the price.
- LIVE RESIN (KLEERX) – High-quality live resin made from craft cannabis products. Kleerx has the highest standards to ensure the best quality products.
- LIVE RESIN (KOOTENAY LABS) – Live resin from craft cannabis grown in British Columbia’s Slocan Valley (Kootenay Labs). Tasty live resin ideal for dabbing created through rigorous testing and research (i.e., getting high).
The Process of Making Live Resin
Making live resin might sound like a complicated process, but once you understand how the extraction of cannabis plants works, it gives you a whole new appreciation for live resin and other cannabis concentrates.
Properly made, high-quality live resin will give your cannabis experience a boost, letting you fully enjoy the flavours and aromas of your favourite strains. Enjoy!
Sources:
https://precisionextraction.com/2021/04/how-to-make-live-resin/
