Live resin is one of the most fragrant, flavorful, and hard-hitting concentrates at dispensaries across the country. If you’ve never tried it for yourself, this complete rundown will tell you everything you need to know.
What is Live Resin?
Live resin is a cannabis concentrate considered to be the creme de la creme of dabs by dabbers and vapers all across the world. It’s jam-packed with the true essence of fresh bud and is considered one of the best concentrates on the market, closely rivaled by other “live” products, like live rosin.
Unlike other concentrates, live resin comes from flash-frozen plant materials collected and frozen immediately after a harvest. Since the elements quickly destroy terpenes, the freezing helps to preserve as many natural terpenes as possible. That’s why live resin offers better scents and flavors than other concentrates on the market.
How is Live Resin made?
Processing cannabis into live resin starts at harvest. Around day 60, cannabis plants are harvested. The buds and sugar leaves are added to bags and flash-frozen using dry ice or liquid nitrogen. The plant stays frozen until it’s ready to be extracted. In other concentrates, the THC is derived from the trim or small dry flowers. Live concentrates, on the other hand, are made by extracting the trichomes from the still-living frozen plants.
Live resin is extracted in a similar way to most other concentrates. If you’re techy, live resin is made using a solvent-based hydrocarbon extract that also utilizes heat and pressure to evaporate the final solvents out. It leaves behind a terpene sauce and allows a few small THCa diamonds to form. The final products can be called live resin, live crystals, live diamonds, live sugar, live batter, and more, depending on the final product’s consistency.
The frozen flowers are passed through a solvent and then vaporized out of the final product. The critical difference between a live resin extraction and others is that the extraction specialist will cool the solvent (typically butane) to -40 degrees to avoid damaging the cannabinoids and terpenes. Live products also evaporate the solvents out at a lower temperature than other concentrates.
Keep in mind that this is generally speaking. Every extraction specialist has their way of doing things, and their process may differ from the path we outlined above.
Is Live Resin a THC product?
Since live resin is pulled from still-living cannabis flowers, it’s rich in THC. Specifically, THCa. THCa is the predecessor to the kind of THC that gets you high, but it doesn’t transform and activate until it’s heated up and vaporized during the dabbing process.
However, live resin can be made using lots of materials. CBD live resin is made the same way using flash-frozen hemp flowers. Delta-8 live resin can also be made from extracting flash-frozen hemp.
What makes live resin different from other extracts?
The main difference between live resin and other extracts is the starting material it’s made from. Unlike most other concentrates made from plant material, trim, and dried buds, live resin comes from still-living plants. Resin can be made using different materials, too. However, if it isn’t made from flash-frozen materials, it isn’t considered a live product. Products made from other materials are called “cured resin” or “dead resin.” Essentially, live products are made from live plants and contain high amounts of terpenes producing a much more potent high via the entourage effect.
What does it take to be live?
For a product to be considered “live,” the cannabinoids and terpenes must be extracted from full-spectrum, flash-frozen plant materials, and flowers. This creates a product that highlights the true essence of the plant.
When a plant is harvested, it goes through many things that can alter its flavor and aroma. Physical damage damages trichomes and cannabinoids, while humidity, temperature, and light exposure damage terpenes. When plants aren’t flash-frozen, the plant’s natural flavors and aromas have already begun to dissipate by the time it’s extracted.
Take the curing process, for example. Flowers will lose as much as 60% of their natural terpenes through evaporation. Concentrates will lose theirs during extraction and storage, too. Live concentrates, on the other hand, have a higher terpene content at the beginning of extraction, leading to better scents, flavors, and effects.
Ultimately, it comes down to the terps.
Live products naturally have higher natural terpene content than other concentrates. Live resin tastes and smells just like the fresh flowers on the plant in the flowering room. However, it undergoes a rigorous extraction process that separates the plant materials from cannabinoids and terpenes.
If terpenes are extracted from still-living plant materials, they’re known as “live terpenes.” These are sometimes sold in dispensaries as “live sauce” or “marmalade” since they’re extracted with cannabinoids. Terpenes themselves aren’t considered live resin since there is no cannabinoid content.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for a cannabis concentrate that smells and tastes better than other concentrates out there, you’ll want to get your hands on some live resin or live resin vape cartridges.
