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Safety & Education are Crucial for Enjoying Cannabis Concentrates
Nov 08, 2021
Take Your Experiences to the Next Level On the Cannabis Side
Veteran cannabis users may be looking to branch out into new areas of the cannabis market and shake up their old routine with some weed extracts that are more potent than the cannabis flower they’re used to using.
But what’s the right choice for you? How do you use different cannabis concentrates? Which are the most potent? These are all important questions that need to be answered before you dive into trying these powerful products.
We want you to know that safety and education are paramount On the Cannabis Side, so we’ve put together some information to help you make educated purchasing decisions, if you’re interested in trying some cannabis concentrates.
Understanding the Different Types of Cannabis Concentrates
There are a number of different types of cannabis concentrates out there, but it can be extremely confusing knowing where to start, or how to best utilize different forms of weed extracts.
This page will help you learn some basics about the most common forms of cannabis concentrates, their strengths, and some information about how they’re consumed.
Kief
‘Kief’ is the popular name for accumulated clusters of resin glands (trichomes) that are separated from ground cannabis plant matter, using either a sieve or a mesh screen. Many weed grinders now use a removable third layer beneath the collection chamber of the grinder, which allows you to collect your own ‘sift’.
These collected trichomes can be used in many different ways, though often cannabis users will add a pinch to the top of a bowl or bong. This is called ‘crowning’ a bowl.
Kief is often rolled into joints to improve their potency, or the joints are smeared with cannabis oils and then rolled in kief, also called a ‘tarantula leg’.
Hash
When kief is collected, compressed, and heated it activates some of the chemical components in cannabis, creating a new extract called hash. Typically, it’s potency is roughly the same as the kief that’s used to make it, but it can be absorbed differently due to the additional activated ingredients brought out during its manufacturing.
Hash has been around since ancient times, and it’s easily the oldest, most recognizable weed extract. The colour of hash tends to be much darker than kief, sometimes appearing so dark it looks black.
Although it’s hard at first, hash is malleable once warmed up a little, almost like putty. Often, small pieces are added to the top of bowls or bongs. Or, hash can be rolled into thin lines and placed down the center of a joint as it’s being rolled.
Hash tends to burn more slowly than cannabis, so when added to a joint, it has the tendency to extend the time it takes to smoke. This is a wonderful way to slow down the burn of a joint, when you’re sharing with someone else.
Shatter
In many ways, shatter is similar to live resin; especially in the fact that you should never try to make these extracts at home. Their extraction processes can be very dangerous if you don’t have the proper equipment and experience.
Cannabis buds that are used to make shatter are dried and cured first, so shatter products don’t have quite as vivid a scent as their live resin counterparts. The final product has a golden/amber glass-like appearance.
Shatter also isn’t quite as high as live resins’ insanely high THC levels. However, they can get as high as 80%, which is still much, much higher than most other forms of cannabis products.
Dab rigs are required in order to consume shatter, just like live resin.
Cannabis Oils
Unlike all the smokable weed extracts, cannabis oils are available in both smokable forms and ingestible forms.
Smokable oils, also called cannabis crude oil, is usually extracted using solvents and a process called decarboxylation.
On the other hand, ingestible cannabis oils are extracted using supercritical carbon dioxide, which pulls the cannabinoids from dried cannabis flower.
Whether smoked or ingested, cannabis oils are much more potent than smoking even the strongest dried cannabis buds, so be cautious about how much you’re using in each sitting.
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