19/03/2022
Extraction 2/5: Cannabis Extraction Types
There are many roads leading to Rome when it comes to extracting the cannabis resin. The oldest and most traditional method is certainly the production of hashish. The concentrate, also often abbreviated as hash, is a brown sticky mixture of very many resin crystals, which contain the active ingredients, and usually some microscopic plant parts without active ingredients. Hash contains active ingredient concentrations of 20-90% depending on the quality - thus the individual hashish or pollinate products vary greatly and can be distinguished in turn. Hashish is produced either by rubbing the cannabis flowers (charras, see Nepal and Morocco) or by sieving the resin crystals from the flowers.
At about the turn of the millennium, the second major extraction method then became established, solvent-based extraction of the resin of the cannabis plant. By means of a metal or glass cylinder and a solvent such as butane gas or dexso, the active ingredients of the cannabis plant are extracted. At the bottom of such a cylinder for the extraction is a sieve, whereby the extract together with the solvent still contained flows directly into a collection container, which is ideally lined with a non-stick film. BHO is either produced by skilled personnel in a clean room or absolutely outdoors. More on this later.
Rosin completes the infernal extraction trio. Since extraction with the help of a solvent such as butane has an increased potential for danger due to its easy flammability, and in the past explosions have also repeatedly been the result of careless extraction processes, a serious competitor method developed not even five years ago: Rosin technology. Instead of relying on solvents, rosin is produced using three components: pressure, temperature and time. While initial experiments were carried out with a straightening iron, available from us for 25 CHF, the "solventless" scene, after a very short time, has already been equipped with appropriately specialized heat presses. Companies like Rosin Tech have developed presses for pressing, for turning or for pumping, which we also carry in our store.
In this five-part guide to extraction, we want to give you comprehensive information about plant extraction. We introduce the different types of extraction and point out risks, advantages and disadvantages.