In the cannabis industry, fads often come and go. But every so often, a novel way of getting high truly sticks — which is precisely the case with live resin.
Live resin is a supremely tasty, potent, and pure cannabis concentrate that’s become the favorite choice of picky stoners. However, telling live resin apart from other cannabis concentrates like distillate, isolates, shatter, crumble, and wax can be difficult.
This guide to live resin will tell you everything you need to know about this unique type of cannabis concentrate, including the best ways to smoke live resin and where to find live resin products near you.
So, what is live resin?
To understand live resin, you should first understand what live resin aims to capture. Suppose you were to wait while a cannabis plant grows to full maturity. In that case, you’d notice that at its peak, it produces flowers (also known as buds) so flavorful and aromatic that you’ll wish there was a way to bottle their essence.
At their peak freshness, cannabis flowers contain loads of terpenes — the chemical compounds responsible for a plant’s flavors, aromas, and effects. Most methods for smoking cannabis, including simply grinding flower and packing a bowl, are too crude to capture terpenes and make them available to the smoker.
Cannabis plants possess several types of terpenes that, when combined, create the unique set of traits that make each cannabis strain special. This fantastic set of attributes is referred to as the cannabis strain’s terpene profile. So, as you might have imagined by now, if you aren’t getting much of the flower’s terpene profile in your cannabis concentrate products, you’re missing most of what the strain has to offer.
That’s where live resin comes in. Live resin is a concentrated form of the cannabis plant’s peak essence that focuses on capturing the entire terpene profile. Because of how successfully live resin can capture a strain’s terpene profile, many people who try it feel like they’re experiencing cannabis for the first time all over again.
The first time you smoke or vape a live resin cart, you immediately notice a new universe of taste and smell welcomed by your senses. Live resin’s extremely high terpene concentration means you’re finally enjoying a particular cannabis strain exactly as nature meant it — without compromises.
How is live resin produced?
Live resin is all about capturing the essence of cannabis — but how? Despite all the talk about cannabis essence, the way live resin is made is simple, and it starts with fresh flowers.
Each cannabis plant contains hundreds of terpenes. Some terpenes are present in larger quantities than others, explaining why one strain might taste like lemons while another might have a faint cherry flavor.
Live resin production begins by taking flowers at their peak freshness and then flash-freezing them immediately after harvest to preserve their high terpene content. That’s because after being harvested, cannabis trichomes (the crystals on flowers that store terpene content) begin to degrade rapidly unless cold temperatures slow the process.
Finally, a pure extract is made from fresh-frozen flowers to retain their full terpene content. The result is a gooey live resin extract that looks like honey and is called the soul of cannabis flowers by connoisseurs.
Differences Between Live Resin vs. Distillate
At first sight, live resin and distillate are two types of cannabis extracts that seem hard to differentiate. However, there is a significant divide between them — let’s dive in.
The single most prominent difference between live resin and distillate is that live resin focuses on extracting terpenes, while distillate focuses on extracting THC. Remember, terpenes are organic compounds responsible for flavor, aroma, and effects (to a lesser extent). On the other hand, THC is the psychoactive cannabinoid that makes you feel high.
Now that you know the major difference between live resin and distillate, you can find evidence of it everywhere, such as in vape carts made from distillate. The odds are that terpenes are listed in the distillate cart ingredients. Why? Because distillate vape carts add terpenes back to give them flavor and aroma.
You might also notice that the distillate is primarily clear and doesn’t smell like anything. In contrast, live resin is often a deep amber color, is very thick and sticky to the touch, and is easy to smell from a mile away.
When choosing between live resin and distillate, go for the live resin to experience the plant’s true aroma, flavor, and effects. But, if you’re after pure THC potency, then distillate will be more to your liking.
How to Smoke Live Resin
Live resin extract is a thick and sticky extract that’s best consumed by either dabbing it in a dab rig or vaping it from a live resin cartridge.
If you choose to dab live resin, you’ll need a dab tool with a tip shaped like a spoon, a dab rig, and a butane torch. Then, after applying a dab of live resin to your rig’s nail, heat the resin to between 300 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
For some, dabbing is too involved and requires an excessive amount of costly equipment and knowledge. That’s why vaping live resin cartridges, especially the ever-popular CBD live resin strains, has taken the cannabis industry by storm.
Live resin cartridges come preloaded with up to 1mL of select strains, such as Raw Garden live resin. Vaping live resin is easy and requires nothing more than drawing a big hit from your vape before emitting milky-white clouds of terpene-filled goodness. Vaporizers maintain a very consistent temperature, making them the perfect way to smoke live resin.
Where to find live resin products near me?
The best live resin products are just a click away from being delivered to your front door. Grassp Health is a direct-to-consumer cannabis delivery service with a wide selection of top-shelf live resin products.
To order live resin from the convenience of your home, create a Grassp Health account, then head straight to the online shop filled with medical-grade goodies of all kinds.