Explaining the Lingo of solventless extraction

Hey there, welcome to Fullmeltxtractions, my name is David. Normally, when I speak on this forum, I tend to assume most of my readers have at least some kind of a baseline familiarity with my subject matter.

Today's post… is going to be a little different.

If you're already well versed on what fresh frozen whole plant full melt live bubble hash is, then there might not be anything too interesting for you in this here, certainly no information that you're not already aware of. So by all means feel free to sit this one out. For any of you that might have happened upon this website however, looked at some titles, and went live fresh frozen whole plant full melt what??

This post is made specifically for you. Or others that may have heard of bubble hash before but are not familiar with all the terminology and have never got the chance to try full melt, perhaps have never seen it, or even heard of it.

I’m going to demystify the terms, and provide a simple, easy to understand explanation of the basics of how solventless extraction works, as well as give a brief explanation of the differences between solventless and solvent-based extracts.

So what am I talking about when I refer to cannabis resin, or trichomes? You might know them as frost or sugar or crystals. If you ever have looked closely at cannabis flowers, especially with a magnifying device, you will have noticed that the flowers, and the leaves close to them are covered in these tiny structures that look like little glass mushrooms with round heads.

These are called trichomes. The heads of these structures contain the vast majority of all the active ingredients (also known as cannabinoids) and flavor producing compounds (or, terpenes) in the cannabis plant. To quote the late, great, Frenchy Cannoli: "Cannabis is the messenger, the trichomes are the message" 

When people refer to solventless extracts, they are usually referring to one of three main processes of extraction of these trichomes:

1.Dry Sift

2.Bubble Hash

3.Rosin

There are multiple aspects of all these techniques that I can, and will, do deep dives into in future videos. But right now I'm just going to give a basic breakdown of all three.

Dry sift is the simplest of these methods and has been around for the longest. It involves allowing your cannabis to get very dry, and then breaking it apart over the top of a stack of different size mesh screens, after which there are various ways you can refine and/or press the resin that you collect.

As for water extraction, or Bubble Hash, there's conflicting information on where and when it began, but regardless, this method has only been around for about 40 years. It's a similar process to dry sift, but done in an icewater bath. Water extraction works because the compounds in the trichome heads go from sticky and pliable to hard and stable in the near freezing environment of a icewater bath, and the motion of the water and ice in the vortex created by the stirring implement or washing machine knocks the heads off their stalks, and because they are denser than the water they are submerged in, they sink and are able to be sifted through a series of bags with screens, making for easy collection. 

Meanwhile, the baby sibling of these two extraction techniques, rosin, has only been around for just under 10 years. Phil "Soilgrown" Salazar is credited with having invented this technique in January 2015. It involves taking mostly dried but not cured cannabis flowers or hash and wrapping them in a bag made of nylon screen which is then folded between parchment paper and pressed between two hot metal plates at or around 200° Fahrenheit or about 90° C. The rosin then extrudes out of your bag or piece of flower onto the parchment paper, is allowed to cool, and then collected.

Hash requires a bag to press rosin, to keep what is solid and what is oily separate. With flowers you can choose to use a bag or not, as the structure of the bud holds in the vast majority of the solid component.

These are not the only solventless extraction techniques out there, but they're by far the most widely used ones. And the lions share of the content on here will be covering these three methods. With a particular focus on bubble hash, now let's get into a little more extraction terminology before we talk about solvent based extracts. 

1.Resin

2.Hash

3.Trichomes

These terms are interchangeable.

Trichomes can refer to the live heads on the plant prior to extraction or to already extracted bubble hash or dry sift, but usually only in its granular form.

Meanwhile, kief or sift, refer to dry sift alone. Hash though, can refer to any type of solventless extract except rosin, but does not refer to trichomes still on plant.

And resin is more a catch all, universal term that can refer to anything from live trichomes still on the plant, to any type of cannabis extract, even solvent based ones.

Full melt is a term that can apply to any bubble hash or dry sift that melts down to a puddle with very little solid residue.

While live, or fresh frozen whole plant extracts, also referred to as FFWP are when the plant is harvested, processed and immediately frozen in preparation for either a solventless, or solvent based extraction.

Finally, if a particular plant is said to "dump" or be "a dumper" that means it produces abnormally high yields of bubble hash

Even more commonly practiced than solventless methods however, especially on an industrial scale, are solvent-based extraction methods. These are the products you have most commonly heard referred to as dabs. Usually BHO, which stands for butane honey oil (or butane hash oil) and which coincidentally has been around for roughly the same length of time as HBO, about 50 years.

With solvent-based extraction methods, what you are essentially doing is melting down the trichomes along with some other compounds of the plant into a puddle of goop that gets mixed all together. And then, purging out your hydrocarbon or other solvent, usually with the use of a vacuum pump.

So why would someone want to choose solventless methods over the currently much more commonly practiced method of hydrocarbon and solvent extractions?

Well, for starters:

1. you're not working with volatile inflammable chemicals under pressure. This alone makes it a far better fit for the small home craft cannabis producer. But even in the case of solvent extracts such as ethanol, where there's very little danger of a fire or an explosion, as with all solvent based extractions, you

2. Are still are left with an extract that you need to purge a chemical out of before it's fit for consumption. Solvent extractions also melt down more than just the trichome head, This is why many solvent-based extractors use a dewaxing column to get rid of the extra waxes and lipids that solvent based extractions tend to pull out of the cannabis along with the active ingredients. 

Even with rosin, the one solventless method where you are melting down your compounds and reconstituting them, you're simply using heat to do this. Not a solvent that now needs to be purged out of your final product. Therefore rosin is ready to be consumed immediately after production. 

But the biggest reason for me is that unlike solvent-based processes where you chemically melt your trichomes down and reconstitute them, the solventless methods we discussed, when done properly:

3. They do the best job of isolating and preserving the profile of cannabinoids and terpenes contained in the trichomes of your cannabis plant in its original state, without significantly altering it or bringing extra unwanted compounds along for the ride.

Hopefully if you began reading this wondering what all this terminology means, I was able to clarify things for you a bit. If I missed anything or you have any questions feel free to let me know in the comments, this has been David with FullMeltxTractions, thanks for joining me today.

Happy hashing!