What Are Live Concentrates?

Concentrates

Jun 19

Selecting the right cannabis concentrate for you can be a tricky task considering just how many options you have at your disposal and how similar they can all seem.

However, learning about cannabis concentrates and how they’re made can reveal a lot of nuance about these super-potent weed products and can help you when it comes time to purchase.

Live concentrates are among the most popular of all cannabis extracts thanks to their incredible flavor and intense potency. If you’ve never heard of them before, they’re worth learning a bit about because you’re bound to come across some on your journey through the world of concentrates.

Take a look at this live concentrates guide, and you’ll know what you’re dealing with when that time comes.

The Basics of Cannabis Concentrates

A cannabis concentrate is a product made by extracting all of the cannabinoids, terpenes, and other useful compounds from the cannabis plant. There are many concentrates available that offer, among other things, different potencies, consistencies, and flavor profiles.

What Are Live Concentrates?

Live concentrate is a term used to describe any cannabis concentrate that has been made from plant material that is frozen after harvest. This process helps preserve the maximum number of terpenes and cannabinoids possible so that the resulting product has an unmatched aroma and flavor profile and an incredibly high THC content.

Types of Live Concentrates

Two of the most popular forms of live concentrate are live resin and live badder. Both offer the enhanced flavor profile and THC content live concentrates are known for, but there are also certain distinctions between the two that are worth noting.

Live Resin

Live resin has a fairly loose consistency that’s neither liquid nor wax. The process by which it’s made creates terpene oil and cannabinoid crystals, which separate from one another and are then mixed back together. Live resin has a higher THC content than live badder, but its consistency can be trickier to work with.

Live Badder

Live badder is a thicker waxy type of live concentrate made by soaking flash-frozen cannabis in a solvent such as butane for a long period of time.

While the cannabis soaks in the solvent, the desired chemical compounds are extracted from the plant into the liquid, which is then treated to remove the solvent and whipped to produce a desirable consistency.

While live badder is not quite as potent as live resin, many people prefer to work with the batter-like consistency when taking dabs.

Cured Resin vs. Live Resin

Resin can also be created with cannabis plants that have been cured already. This product and many others created from cured plants are highly popular in their own right, which often leaves those who are new to concentrates wondering what the difference between cured resin and live resin really is.

When cannabis is not frozen right after it’s harvested, it is dried out and cured in order to make the flower more potent, flavorful, and smooth when smoking.

However, when it comes to making concentrates, this process actually reduces the number of chemical compounds that can be extracted from the plant. That’s why when the resin is made from frozen plant material, it contains more terpenes and a higher THC content.

The biggest differences between cured resin and live resin are flavor and potency. While the cured resin is still quite strong and definitely tasty, it can’t rival what live resin has to offer.

What Are Terpenes?

You’ve probably read the term “terpenes” about a dozen times in this guide already, which may be a bit confusing if you’re unaware of what these are and why they are important.

Terpenes are chemical compounds responsible for giving a vast array of plants their amazing aromas and flavors. One of those plants happens to be cannabis.

When you hear someone refer to a “terpene profile,” they are talking about the unique collection of terpenes found in a given flower strain or concentrate.

Terpenes can lend an amazing number of different aromas and flavors to the plants they appear in, including citrus, pine, earth, spice, mint, floral, fruit, and even cheese and a diesel fuel scent.

Live Concentrates Offer an Unmatched Flavor Experience

There are various super strong concentrates out there that can compare favorably to live concentrates, but there is no extraction method in the world that offers a better flavor experience than resin. If you’re a big fan of the amazing taste of cannabis, live concentrates will likely blow your mind.